Wednesday, May 2, 2007

today's food and thoughts

Today I ate:
6 oz juice
cereal and soy milk
bean/corn salad with salsa, lettuce, and bell peppers
sandwich with cheese, lettuce, meat-like product, and mayo
butternut squash soup
chips with sour cream and salsa
some chocolate UFOS
estimated cost: 5.25 (daily allotment is about 5.35, yay 10 cents under)
[realized I forgot to include the chips and peppers in my "in stock" list but they are together worth less than a dollar at yesterday's levels(hardly any chips, 1/2 bag of peppers)]

the bean/corn salad is the best thing ever - I got it from a blog I read, the woman designed it for her Weight Watchers diet but I think it is nutritionally excellent for non-dieters too (and it has an amusing name): http://www.sundrybuzz.com/2007/03/20/spicy-shrink-yer-butt-salad-recipe/
I've also been perusing some websites for cheap recipes. this is the best one I've found so far. I love bean salads (esp. when they do not include green beans).

I wonder how food stamps are used by the average person. what do they buy? how much do they spend on different food groups? are our choices different from the average? why might that be? how are our choices affected by our pre-experiment class position, social life, or past experiences? I have noticed so far that meat/fish/poultry, if it appears at all on our shopping lists, is a very small part of what we have bought, but the thrifty food plan sample menus feature meat/fish/poultry at every dinner and many lunches. how does this affect what we can buy, our nutrition levels, our satisfaction with our meals?

I know that I could get a lot of this food cheaper if I could buy it in bulk with others. is there a better way to provide food to people other than food stamps? the good thing about food stamps is that people can buy whatever kinds of food they want - the government isn't telling you what to eat beyond the no prepared foods-type restrictions - but I kinda want to take advantage of economies of scale, beyond government commodities like cheese and canned vegetables.

1 comment:

ellen said...

one cool thing i read about that is happening in nyc is that stampers can use special checks at farmer's markets. buying with other people definitely makes living more affordable/less wasteful. i miss billmonk.