Hunger Challenge – Final Thoughts

We successfully completed the hunger challenge. We were never hungry as we predicted, but we did not expect the monotony we experienced with what we did have to eat, admittedly a small price to pay if you have few food dollars.

We mostly heard astonishment from people when we shared we were doing the challenge. “You can’t eat for $4 a day,” and not surprising it was new news that $29 is all that is allotted per person weekly for food while on SNAP (food stamps). Someone suggested eating from the McDonald’s dollar menu, which is not possible since SNAP cannot be used for prepared foods. People asked if we were eating a lot of pasta and rice, which may be a fill-up-you-belly option, but one that lacks vegetables, is higher calorie, and is hard if you are living with a disease like diabetes, prevalent with many Food Outreach clients.

The most arrogant, rude, and ignorant comment we heard was from someone who said that if people would just get a job they wouldn’t need food stamps. WRONG. An August 2011 USDA report stated 60% of those who receive SNAP DO have income, granted they have to earn below 130% of the Federal poverty line. For a family of four that’s a monthly gross income of $2,748. Trying to actually LIVE on that would make the hunger challenge child's play.

We’ve posted some lessons learned in prior posts, but to recap:

• You shop somewhere inexpensive, close to your home, and infrequently. Most SNAP recipients shop monthly and then run the risk of not having enough food at month’s end. Hopefully they have access to other resources such as Food Outreach or a pantry that gets food from Operation Food Search.

• Coupons are helpful in keeping food costs down, but a SNAP recipient may not have access to newspapers or the Internet/printer.

• You eat inexpensive foods and have VERY limited choices. Fresh fruits and vegetables are infrequent. Ditto for low fat meats and fish (other than canned, fish is not likely in your food budget at all). And forget about a pantry of spices, which is an easy way to jazz up bland foods without a lot of added sodium (key for someone with hypertension, another secondary condition of some diseases such as HIV/AIDS).

• Healthy eating is very doable, but it requires a lot of planning, time (e.g., dried beans are much cheaper than canned, lower sodium too, but must be soaked and take a while to cook), and discipline (you make your meal plan for the week and you stick to it).

• Your social life does not revolve around food like ours does. Likely you eat to survive. Period. But it’s not joyful or celebratory. Certainly no nice dinners out – because you don’t feel like cooking (you don’t eat then!) – or even to celebrate a birthday, anniversary, or graduation.

• The simplest things, like a pot of freshly brewed coffee (or a second pot if you want more) or a mid-afternoon snack like an apple to combat a bit of hunger fatigue, ARE luxuries.

These few days have been a miniscule view of what it’s like to eat the way those reliant on SNAP do. An eye-opening experience for sure. We’re blessed that we have the choice to go back to our normal routine. The night after we ended our challenge, we had grilled grass-fed tenderloin filets, and organic red potatoes and corn on the cob (from our CSA box) with basil butter. Did we think twice about how lavish our meal was? YES. I really struggled in writing this post. We are so fortunate, and it was hard for me to really capture how this experience has impacted us. We already know we are doing the challenge for a full week next September.

We did end up finding a new black bean chili we really enjoyed and will add it our ever-expanding chili recipe collection.

Hunger Chili Challenge Recipe

Adapted from the San Francisco Food Bank Hunger Challenge Blog

Serves 12

1 pound of dried black beans, soaked overnight, water drained and then cooked with fresh water (or approximately six cups of cooked beans)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 pounds ground beef, leanest your budget will allow
1 1/2 cup chopped onions
4 garlic cloves, minced
2-4 jalapenos, seeded for milder kick if desired, and minced
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 can (28-32 ounces) of diced, peeled tomatoes with juices
2 plus cups of water
Salt and pepper to taste

Prepare the black beans. Set aside.

In a large pot, add the oil and heat over medium high heat. Sauté the beef, using a spoon or spatula to break up any clumps. Cook until browned but not cooked through. Work in batches if all the meat doesn't fit or if it doesn't seem to be browning. If the pan is too crowded the meat will steam rather than brown.

Remove to a plate or bowl and set aside. Pour all but 2 tablespoons of drippings out of pan.

Increase heat to medium high, and when a bit of the onion sizzles immediately on contact with the oil, add the chopped onions and cook, stirring frequently, until the onion are beginning to turn golden brown. Add the garlic and the jalapenos, cook, stirring often, until the garlic is beginning to turn golden. Add the carrots, celery, and green peppers and cook for a minute or two, stirring often. Add the chili powder and cook, stirring constantly, for a minute. Add the diced tomatoes with juices and 2 cups of water. Mix well. Cover and let come to simmer (not quite boiling). Add the cooked meat with any liquids it may have collected and stir well. Cover and return to simmer.

Let simmer for 20-30 minutes until meat is cooked through and flavors well combined. Taste and add salt and pepper to taste and additional chili powder if desired. Add additional water if needed. With cover off, return to simmer and let cook a few more minutes.

Serve with grated cheddar cheese.

Hunger Challenge Day Three – “Food Outreach clients aren’t hassled about nutrition daily like I am” -- Craig

That about says it all. We got into a lively conversation about filling your belly cheaply versus nutrition. Lots of talking tonight, unlike Monday’s dinner when we had the veg rice casserole. It helped because we liked the pizza we made. I never concede in a discussion, but Craig had more compelling points than I countered:  cheap food does taste good (loaded with fat and sugar – Denise’s comment). Packaged/prepared foods are easy. It takes time and resources to cook from scratch (it took an hour to make/rise the pizza dough and how much did the pizza peel and stone cost, which make homemade pizza easier to prepare/taste better). We always eat grass-fed ground beef that is so lean that you need to ADD a bit of oil to cook it. We always eat vegetables and fruits on the USDA’s list of must-eat organic. We only eat fish off the Monterey Bay’s list of sustainable. You’re dreaming if you think this purchasing power is possibly on SNAP. Me: you CAN eat healthy and filling on the cheap – beans, lentils, carrots (albeit maybe not as tasty as a piece of grilled salmon from Whole Foods). And so goes my nutrition preaching. He contends you can’t eat healthy, have it taste good – over the long term – on the cheap.

Nutritionally, the disparity between haves and have-nots in our nation is CRAZY. A few folks we know are doing the challenge all organic. We stretched our food dollars A LOT more with conventionally grown. If this IS your only option economically, you are forced to eat celery and apples (among other things) that are grown with pesticides and loaded with toxins (reference the USDA)? On SNAP, you are forced to eat higher fat meats; little or no fish; bread, rice, pasta with little fiber; peanut butter with added sugar and trans fats; and cook blandly because you can afford no seasonings. WHYWHYWHY? Shouldn’t access to enough nutritious food be the RIGHT of every American, like education and healthcare?

Enough on my soapbox. Our makeshift pizza tonight was really good, pizza dough (which is the easiest and cheapest thing to make – about 60 cents) and ground beef, chili powder, garlic, onions, diced bell peppers, and cheddar cheese all planned leftover ingredients from yesterday’s lunch of chili. I added some (leftover) spinach to my portion for added flavor and fiber. Not the interesting, California Pizza Kitchen style pizza we typically make, but REALLY tasty. We decided it’s been our best meal during the whole challenge. Basically, sauté onions and garlic. Cover homemade pizza dough with tomato sauce mixed with chili powder, cooked ground beef, onion/garlic mixture, diced bell peppers, spinach, and cheddar cheese. Bake at 500 for about 10 minutes. Let sit long enough to photograph. Slice and enjoy.

Hunger Challenge Day Two – A Less than Exciting Dinner on Monday

Last evening’s dinner was vegetable rice casserole, based on a recipe from the Moosewood Cookbook. It was healthy, inexpensive, filling, kind of dry, very bland, and really boring. I will likely make it again and use the white wine and the amounts of cheeses and sour cream the recipe specifies, which my budget did not allow this time. For instance, I used no cheddar. And with spices other than just salt and pepper, perhaps nutmeg and a little cayenne. Any way, we know we must eat it for lunch one of the next few days. Craig debated having it for lunch today so it’s gone, but the aroma of the spicy chili I made early this morning lingered in the kitchen and won him over hands down. At least we now have a few choices.

I made an observation while we were eating last evening: we were politely quiet. Actually, I don’t think we said a word. We just ate to be done so we could clean up and get on with the rest of our evening. Eating is – and should be – profoundly social. Meals are where people gather and food is shared. Delicious foods add joy to life and bring great pleasure – the tastes, aromas, texture, and appearance for food all enhance the experience of eating.

PONDER:  are those living on food stamps forced to give up this pleasure? Do they feel an isolation associated with eating, like dinner felt last evening? If you are a Food Outreach client, do you get the same pleasure from eating as most of us – or – do you view eating as a chore to get enough food to simply fill your belly and fuel your body for a day?

PONDER:  Do folks on SNAP recipients ever have an opportunity to snack? I did an early evening work out and came home “ravished” (not really, but I sure would have appreciated a bit of protein). Unfortunately, we had nothing in our budget to allow for noshing.

Broccoli Mushroom Noodle (or Rice) Casserole

The recipe below is a combination of the original recipe and the changes I’d make if I had full resources to make it yummy. I’d cut it half for the two of use and we’d still have leftovers (the original yields six servings). This would also make a lovely side dish as well as a meatless entrée.

12 ounce wide egg noodles, cooked or equivalent cooked rice

2 T butter

2 C minced onions

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 fresh bunch broccoli, minced or two large packages, frozen broccoli

11/2 pound mushrooms, sliced

3-4 large carrots, sliced

3-4 large celery stalks, sliced

1/2 tsp salt

 Freshly ground black pepper

3 C low fat cottage cheese

1 C low fat sour cream

1/4 C dry white wine

3 large eggs, beaten

1 C fine bread crumbs, preferably homemade

1 C grated sharp cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350F.

Butter a 9 x 13-inch baking pan.

Melt the butter and add onions and garlic. Sauté for about 5 minutes over medium heat, then add broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, celery, salt, and pepper. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the broccoli is bright green and the vegetables are just tender. Remove from heat and add the white wine.

In a large bowl, beat together eggs with cottage cheese, sour cream, and cheddar cheese. Add rice (or noodles) and sautéed vegetables. Mix well. Spread into the prepared pan, and top with bread crumbs. Bake covered for 30 minutes and uncovered for 15 minutes more.

Hunger Challenge Day One – and Craig’s first ever solely meatless day

Day one and all is well. Our bellies are full, and we’ve eaten healthy today. It’s probably the first day in Craig’s entire life that he has gone 100% without meat, and he survived. Perhaps Meatless Mondays may become an occasional reality as a result of our experiment.

Breakfast was similar to what Craig eats every day, but with one big exception. While grocery shopping, we cut English muffins from our list. One package of six muffins costs twice what a loaf of 100% whole wheat bread (16 slices of bread, enough for eight servings of toast) costs. Spread two tablespoons of peanut butter on the toast, a serving size that is actually quite generous, a banana, and coffee, and you’re off to a great start to the day. I can live without wine, but I couldn’t work with a caffeine headache, so we agreed we HAD to budget coffee into our total. We didn’t finish the pot, and it seemed like SUCH a treat – and pick me up – iced this afternoon.

LESSON:  if you prefer one food over another, too bad. You eat what’s cheapest.

LESSON: “Real” plates, glassware, and flatware make food taste better as I experienced drinking my iced coffee in a glass (versus the old, plastic Kreiger cup I had been drinking water from up until then today). This is one of the reasons Food Outreach’s Monday hot lunch program is so vital. It allows clients to experience a three-course, restaurant-style meal. The kind of thing most of us take for granted, but not folks living on SNAP.

Lunch was really tasty and very filling, but frankly repetitious, due to a few errors on my part. Because I forgot to soak and cook the dried black beans, I couldn’t make chili yesterday, and I ended up making lentil-sweet potato soup for Monday’s lunch. The problem is I made this last week, and we finished the leftovers for Saturday lunch. This means we’ll have eaten the same thing four out of the last five days if I don’t make chili tonight for lunch tomorrow, in addition to what we’re having for dinner (vegetarian broccoli and rice casserole). And there was another problem. I forgot to cook rice that we were going to eat with the soup, and we ended up eating plain soup. While it was reheating, Craig mused that most days he snacks while we’re getting lunch ready, and we almost always have cheese and crackers with a glass of wine while we make dinner. Not today because we have nothing easy to snack on (we did get real popcorn but that takes too much time to pop for quick snacking). I missed my after lunch, fun size Peppermint Patty, something I consider a not-too-bad-indulgence – dark chocolate and low fat/calories, right?

LESSONS:  eating cheap requires planning and time, things someone battling HIV/AIDS or cancer has in short supply. And snacking and simple indulgences are never considerations. Typically I would never think of spices (such as a good curry powder that is excellent in this super simple soup) a luxury, but they are on a budget.

Lentil- Sweet Potato Soup

4 generous servings

1 1/3 C lentils (I used red because that’s what I had)
1 pound sweet potatoes, scrubbed and diced (I left the skins on because they came in last week’s CSA box, and being freshly harvested they have a very thin skin)
1/2 C diced onion
2 cloves garlic, finely minced

2 stalks celery, sliced
2 large carrots, sliced
4 C chicken broth
2 C water
1 T olive oil*
1 t salt*
2 t freshly ground black pepper*

2 – 3 large handfuls of spinach

Sauté onions and garlic in oil until soft. Add all other ingredients except for the spinach. Bring to a boil and simmer for 45 minutes or until vegetables are soft. (This can be made ahead, refrigerated, and reheated at this pont.) Add the spinach, and cook until it wilts. Serve piping hot.

If you using red lentils, they will disintegrate with this long cooking time and lend a very creamy texture to the soup. Spices such as curry powder, thyme, or basil add wonderful flavor to the soup.

* We are counting salt, pepper, and olive oil as “free” on our challenge. To make up for the absence of any other spices in this soup, I used a LOT of black pepper.

Eating for $4 a day - really?? HUNGER ACTION MONTH

As we were enjoying amazing sushi, cocktails, and wine last evening with friends, the tone of the conversation turned serious as we talked about Food Outreach’s Hunger Action Month. Craig and I (and one of our dining companions) are taking the hunger challenge where we eat on $29 for a week, the USDA/SNAP food stamp allotment in Missouri. Why are we doing this? To understand what it’s like to walk in the shoes of the hungry and to raise awareness how widespread food insecurity is in our own community.

I am confident we’ll have enough to eat and our meals will be healthy. But we’re fortunate because I know how to cook. I am well-versed in meal planning and cooking nutritiously and inexpensively – rice, beans, lentils – with planned leftovers for lunches. We also have access to many resources that most Food Outreach clients – and the 16% of Missouri residents the USDA estimates are food insecure – do not have in order to fill their bellies with tasty, wholesome food. We will drive to a farmers’ market to get seasonal (and cheaper) produce. I have hundreds of cookbooks and can easily go online and retrieve millions of recipes. Our kitchen (in our nice home in a safe neighborhood) is well-stocked with appliances and enough pots, pans, baking dishes, bowls, blah, blah, blah to easily prepare dinner for 25. And we’re really, really healthy! We’re not taking chemo or antiretroviral drugs that leave us too exhausted or nauseated to cook, and we’re not battling hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol. Hunger is only one of the many hardships experienced by those living with a terminal illness – and – living in poverty.

It took us an hour and a half to plan our meals for the four days we are doing the challenge. It never takes me that long to plan meals for an entire week. I usually ask Craig what he’s hungry for. Not this week. Even buying frozen, (cheaper) tilapia from Whole Foods, the only place we buy fish, is not feasible this week ($2.99 for six ounces). Typically if we have lentil, sweet potato, and spinach soup, I’d pick up a whole-grain baguette from Trader Joe’s. Not this week. Since I’m making brown rice for a vegetarian broccoli casserole, we’ll have the soup over rice. And we usually have at least three or four things for dinner (salad/soup, protein, starch, vegetable). Nope. A small, simple salad – OR – homemade applesauce will be the only other thing we can afford with our soup, chili, pizza, or casserole. Choices on a food budget are extremely limited. And if I didn’t cook, our eating would be likely be peanut butter sandwiches, cereal, and canned and boxed foods (soup, stew, chili, tuna helper), all of which are so much more expensive and nutritionally inferior to home-cooking. And how do you fill half your plate with fruits and veggies as the USDA recommends?

After we shop, what we purchase is what we’ll be forced to eat. We will have no flexibility to change our minds if we’re in the mood for something else. Since we’re planning on eating dinner leftovers for lunches, I will make the soup and chili before we start the challenge so we have lunch for day one, and we don’t need to eat the same thing for dinner and then lunch the next day. Again, it hits you how little variety you have eating on $4 per day.

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