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July 17 Oregon Center for Public Policy Food Stamps Update

Christine — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 19:36:01 +0000

I just received an email update from OCPP regarding the Farm Bill and food stamps and post it below in its entirety; please visit their website links below for more information.

Punishing Food Stamp Success: The Bush Administration’s Farm Bill would reverse Oregon’s progress against hunger

The Agriculture Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote by Friday on the 2007 Farm Bill.

The Bush Administration has proposed eliminating $543 million in food stamp benefits for about 329,000 low-income Americans over the next five years.

Oregonians would suffer a larger share of the reductions than most states.

Expanded use of food stamp benefits has proved key to reducing hunger in Oregon.

OCPP’s latest issue brief, Punishing Success: The Bush Administration Cuts Would Reverse Oregon’s Progress Against Hunger, will expand on these facts and answer questions such as:

Who is hurt by the proposed cuts?

Which congressional districts are hit the hardest?

How many children would be affected?

How are other anti-poverty and hunger programs affected?

Read the issue brief, in an HTML version (no charts), or a PDF version (with charts).

The food I’m starting out with

Christine — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 01:39:00 +0000

I gathered my receipts from my most recent trip to the grocery store and made a chart of the food purchased on those trips that I plan to consume this week. Their costs are subtracted from the $20 remaining in my budget, after I took $1 off the top for random condiments like salt, pepper, garlic, and the other necessities of life. Here’s what I wind up with–my baseline foods, and a balance of $8.26 for the other items I need.

Food description	Qty	Price	Remaining balance
Dry black beans	1.62 lbs	$ 1.09	$ 18.91
Flour tortillas	12	$ 0.98	$ 17.93
6-cheese blend	8 oz	$ 1.68	$ 16.25
Yukon Gold Potatoes	1.1 lbs	$ 0.98	$ 15.27
Serrano pepper	2	$ 0.11	$ 15.16
Yellow pepper	1	$ 0.12	$ 15.04
Braeburn Apples	1.11 lbs	$ 1.10	$ 13.94
Yellow onion	.75 lbs	$ 0.74	$ 13.20
Tomatoes	.75 lbs	$ 0.97	$ 12.23
Romaine lettuce	I bag	$ 1.78	$ 10.45
Nancy’s plain yogurt	1 quart	$ 2.19	$ 8.26

It’s fairly obvious to me that there’s not going to be a lot of variety, but I really wanted to have some fresh foods and some active bacteria in the mix. Three things I still want to buy include brown rice, oatmeal, and a few eggs. The rice and oatmeal will be from the bulk foods section, of course, and unless I can buy 6 eggs for about .89, I’ll skip them. Some bread would also be nice, and I’ll have to see if I can afford to “buy” the bread I purchased last week for consumption during the food stamp challenge.

The other thing? Coffee! There’s no wiggle room for my Stumptown whole beans that I take to work for use in my French press.

Menu planning on $21 a week

Christine — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 19:49:00 +0000

This shouldn’t be too hard for me; for one, I have a pretty good grasp on nutrition, know how to cook from raw ingredients very well, and have actually lived on less than this amount a week for food for extended periods of time. I remember a lot of weeks of eating only rice when I first went to college, and making vegan pancakes for my boyfriend, who is allergic to eggs and dairy, is no challenge because I know from experience that you can easily make pancakes without all the “expensive” ingredients like eggs and milk. I’ve lived on food stamps before, and it was, frankly, completely fun after not having any money for food at times.

It’s actually tempting to give myself a further handicap because of that experience, but I’m going to refrain. Instead, I’m going to do some extra work and see how healthful and appealing of a diet I can create for myself on that amount of money. I can do this in part because I have had the benefit of a $120,000 college education, and also because I am fortunate enough to have internet access, a couple of computers, Excel skills, and a bit of free time this weekend. I don’t have to look for childcare, stop by a payday loan store, or look for a third job–or even a second job.

To start out with, I’ve assembled the receipts for groceries I’ve bought these past couple of days and will want to use rather than letting them spoil. It doesn’t seem reasonable to throw them away, especially in this context. Once I deduct the cost of those foods I choose to eat this week from my $20 that remain, I’ll know how much I have left to work with. Time to plan.