Cost of Eating: The Food Stamp Challenge

I came across an interesting challenge last week, while flipping through a newspaper. A county food pantry was trying to raise awareness of hunger by challenging people to eat on a food stamp budget, $25 per person per week. I thought, "Wow, that's not so different from what I spend a week on food, give or take."

Unfortunately, Rosh Hashanah got in the way, and we had a week long foodfest, all the treats from the old country, until finally, on Sunday, after rolling out from my parents' house in NY to return to MD, Danny and I stopped at good old M&M Farms. We got plums, pears, 2 beautiful perfect pie pumpkins, potatoes, onions, garlic, cabbage, a bunch of fresh parsley, 2 boxes of mushrooms, bell peppers, 2 lbs of carrots, 5 limes, some lettuce, and beets, ready to resume a normal diet. All that amazing produce cost $30. Then we stopped at Rockland Bakery, got bread for probably about ~3 weeks to freeze for later, and that cost $13. And I thought, hmm. Maybe now would be a good time to try that Food Stamp Budget Thing.

I immediately failed, making tuna sandwiches out of pantry tuna for lunch. I don't know if pantry tuna counts, seeing as I didn't buy it with my $50. And if I divide the bread expenditure by 2, assuming our stash is depleted in 2 weeks (which it won't be, but whatever), Danny and I have spent only $37 on food for the week. And if I factor in a can of tomatoes and stew beef (because a batch of borscht is certainly in order), a can of Israeli pickles (for beet salad), then I'll be at around $45, with enough money for a 1/2 gallon of milk (~$3) to add to the weekly groceries. I'm also at liberty to add a bag of lentils for weekly protein, which clocks in under $1. We have eggs left over from last week.

I have a vision of borscht, warm lentil salad, sweet and sour cabbage, gingery pumpkin soup, pumpkin breakfast muffins (a pumpkin-y riff on the super-healthy bran, nut, and raisin filled version my grandma's been eating for 79 years... and hey, 79 years of bran muffin eating can't be wrong) accompanied by autumn fruits, baked potatoes, and sauteed mushrooms and onions to round out whatever needs rounding out. I forgot how much a box of kasha (buckwheat groats) costs, but I should check that because kasha is delicious, especially when it's loaded with mushrooms and onions.

I have to say, $25 per week per person isn't miserable. But then, if I shopped for food in Maryland, it might be. Fruit is quite expensive here. Apples can't possibly be more in season, and yet they cost $1.50 per pound. They're $0.99 per pound in M&M, and they have a very nice assortment of varieties; macoun, macintosh, and cortland. Bosc pears and plums - Italian prune varieties, large dark purple ones with green flesh, and the light pinky-purple ones with orange flesh also clock in at $0.99. Plums and pears aren't listed in the weekly flyer here in MD, so who knows what they cost. Bell peppers in MD are 4 for $5. Even if they are 1 lb each, that's more than $1 per pound, and they were $0.79 per pound at M&M. Granted, M&M and the local cheap supermarket here are equal for items like onions and in-season squash (even though I love pumpkin, I can't eat butternut or acorn because of a weird intolerance for assorted squashes and sweet potatoes). But I'd still take M&M because their onions aren't prebagged, and their food in general tends to last longer before turning to mush.

It's very curious. Peaches trucked from farms 45 minutes out are just barely underselling the supermarket ones. It's a pretty messed up system we have here in MD. But I will persevere with this foodstamp thing. It's not that far off from how Danny and I normally eat. If anyone else reads this blasted thing, are you up for the challenge? If so, please specify rough geographical location, because I want to know where people charge what for food.