Thursday, September 30, 2010

Daily Plate: Food Stamp Project

By Jess Cording

For one of my classes, we did a project and paper where we followed a “food stamp diet” for a week, with a budget of $46.50, the maximum amount allotted to a single person with no “countable” income living alone. We were required to keep a food journal and track costs.

I had a few options for choosing how to approach this study, but I ended up setting myself a daily budget. While some people may have purchased $46.50 worth of food and just used that, I happen to have a pretty well stocked pantry and opted to calculate cost per portion for each meal.

It’s amazing what you can come up with for under $7.00 a day! I will say, though, that this project really made me appreciate the value of time. Not everyone has an hour to make seitan from scratch and to braise kale. I will say, though, I did eat a lot of soup, sandwiches, and stir-fried veggies.

Here are a few favorite meals. 





3 comments:

  1. Would you please post the recipe from the first dish, looks like a dessert. delish!

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  2. I am agreeing with Monica on that one

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  3. That first dish is, in fact, dessert! It's just a peach sliced in half and grilled (on the ol' Goerge Foreman).

    After grilling the peaches about 5-7 minutes, I added a couple tablespoons of yogurt, threw some ground flax on top, and added a tablespoon of almond butter.

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