Obviously, one family’s table can scarcely be thought to represent the way every family eats, but the essay does really underscore (for me) the dark side of “progress” and technology. I bet the refugee family is the most likely to reuse their burlap packaging for next week’s meals.

Time essay: What the World Eats

For my part, I did pretty much make it through the week. I didn’t go over budget, but that was in large part due to two factors: free food and long work hours.

I started the week with free food last Sunday. I ended the week with free food Friday night and all day Saturday; I attended Renn Fayre at Reed College on Friday night, and Saturday I drove home to Roseburg to visit my family–in the process spending $40 on gasoline to get to my food for the day. Lunch on Wednesday was compliments of my boyfriend.

The other factor that helped me stay within my budget was the fact that I worked around 70 hours last week. (This also kept me from writing regularly about the food stamp challenge.) A lot of meals simply didn’t happen because I didn’t have time to eat, and when I did, it was with an awareness of the functional role of food in getting things done. Another bowl of black beans or yogurt was simply a step in being able to get my grant work plans done. If I’d had more free time, I could have had more variety in my diet–and maybe used more of the fresh foods I had on hand. The tomatoes, potatoes, onion, and chilis are all left, and most of the cheese is as well. I ate oatmeal, yogurt, apples, and black beans for most of my meals last week, although generally not all at once.

I think that the coincidence of working so much during the food stamp challenge may actually have been helpful. It was as if I was working a couple jobs, which is where a lot of low-income people are at. Last fall, at a Portland City Club debate between Kulongoski and Republican candidate Ron Saxton, Gov. Kulongoski misspoke when listing his accomplishments as governor and wound up saying “more people have more jobs.” It was kind of funny at the time, but it’s true in Oregon and elsewhere. More people do have more jobs, and that impacts their lives on a basic level while still failing to move them out of poverty.

Chris did well; in fact, he had enough money left that he bought donuts for the office on Friday. More free food for me.

Last night, after a mere 10-hour day at work, I was home early enough to make a pot of black beans. I also used a couple of the tortillas and a handful of cheese to make quesadillas, which is somehow exciting after having a LOT of oatmeal these past few days. The cost of my lunch today, a bowl of black bean soup, must be around 20 cents, if that. The problem is that it took me four days to find time to cook the dry beans.

Anyway, back to eating my bean soup.

Last time I talked about the food I had on hand, I had $8.26 remaining. I have since decided to charge myself $1.26 for a pound or so of bulk oatmeal I had on hand; I’ve been eating that and yogurt at work, although I did remember to bring apples when left from home this morning.

Then, yesterday, which was a really long day, saw me hit the food budget again for $2–I got some fast food. It turns out that Chris also broke down in the mall food court yesterday.

At this point I’m down to $6. Having limited foods that take time to prepare is really hard when you work long hours.

My lunch today? Provided by my boyfriend, who kindly came and took me to eat. It takes a village, I guess.

Although it’s a statement that might potentially raise the hackles of any number of people who believe that poor people should be grateful for whatever handouts they get, I knew what she meant; I despise beets in general and canned beets in particular, and canned goods have not played a large part in my experience of food. I met her at a farm worker meeting we were running. We had asked for participants to talk about their experiences accessing a variety of key resources in their communities, and it came to light that everyone present had been to the food banks. When their compañera mentioned canned food, they all nodded their heads and started telling their stories. I eventually heard similar concerns all around the state: why all the canned food? Can’t we have beans and rice? How do we prepare this food?

A lot of farm workers I talked with were not aware that much of the food they access in food banks is donated, although I am not sure that knowing that made their lives any easier. Food banks in some agricultural areas are able to provide culturally-appropriate foods to Latino clients at certain peak times of the year, but those foods are not always available–foods like dry beans, rice, masa harina, fresh vegetables, and tortillas. Selection depends to a large extent on the donations that are coming in. This is one of the reasons that I believe it’s critical to keep full funding for food stamp programs and also increase financial support of food banks; emergency food is supplemental and limited, and depends to a great extent on the largesse of donors who may or may not know what kind of food is going to be most helpful, and adequate access to food stamps can help keep people out of hunger and needing to access emergency food in the first place.

Food banks and other community partners work hard to help people use the food that is available, often providing recipes, cooking classes, and other creative services aimed at improving nutrition among low-income people, and some communities also do a lot of valuable work educating donors about what kind of foods are needed most. But when it comes down to it, poverty still takes away a lot of choices. Relying on donated food is hard. It’s hard to realize you can’t take care of yourself or your children, it’s hard to need to ask for free food, and it’s hard to see all of your freedom as a human being reduced to choosing between canned beets and canned peas.

That lack of real choice, not just in food but also in housing, health care, and other basic needs, was an underlying concern of the Latino farm workers I talked to all over the state. It wasn’t that they thought canned food is beneath them; not at all. Rather, it was that their only option, if they wanted to feed their families, was to try to cook with strange foods that they were not accustomed to cooking with and did not find palatable. Try adding to that the irony of the most important people in our food industry not being able to feed themselves.

I was thinking about this today while I was hungry. I’m used to having a lot of choices when it comes to food, and trying to operate within a pretty constrained budget for even a short time is stressful on a basic human level. Unlike a lot of vulnerable people in our state, I don’t need to worry about being judged for not liking canned vegetables. For some reason, my relative privilege lets me get away with having preferences about what I eat in a way that is not allowed to lower-income people. Something is missing…justice, I think.

*A great pun on lata, Spanish for “can”; lata is used colloquially to describe undesirable circumstances

I feel oddly mercenary.

The downside to the free food on Sunday is that, since I was not home, I did not have a chance to cook a pot of black beans. That was my plan to get me through the beginning of the week. Now it’s Monday, and all I have that’s ready to eat for lunch is yogurt. Making a small food budget work assumes time available to go to the grocery store and prepare food, if there’s any hope of nutritional value. I didn’t have that time, and as a result, I am really hungry–and really tempted to take the remaining $8 dollars or so and buy something that’s already prepared, but will take a big chunk out of my budget that remains.

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.

I received food stamps while I was in college; since I received federal Work-Study funding, I was eligible for $145 a month in food stamps. Not all Oregonians receive the full allotment, which is now around $150/month, since household income levels are used to calculate the subsidy amount. Receiving even $604 a month in Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, which is barely enough to cover housing costs, let alone transportation to medical appointments, results in a disproportionate decrease in food stamp benefits–to the extent that some of the formerly homeless people we serve actually regret receiving SSDI, as they can no longer afford food once they have SSDI income used to calculate their portion of their housing expenses and counted against their food stamp benefits.

After reading the announcement, I picked up my phone and called Jeff Kleene at the OFB. I wanted to know how they had arrived at $21 as the entire food budget, when at that rate of subsidy, I know that the household contribution is expected to be about $10/week for food. Jeff told me that they had considered how expensive it is to be poor, and that the costs that participants would incur in pursuit of cheaper food would generally balance out the difference. Many poor people are forced to buy their groceries at the local corner store, which research has shown to be up to 50% more expensive than grocery store prices, or must travel greater distances to find reasonably priced, high-quality food. Participants also will not be worrying about being able to pay utilities, rent, health care, and other basic needs that low-income people are often not able to meet themselves and which daily threaten their ability to obtain food.

After satisfying myself that OFB’s food stamp challenge is based on reasonable assumptions about how low-income households use their money, I told Jeff that I’d do it.

Starting Sunday, I’m going to try to live for a week on a $21 food budget. No cupboard or freezer raids are allowed; what I eat during the week needs to be purchased out of that $21 budget or gotten for free. The one problem I anticipate is that my birthday is on the 30th, and some sort of celebration involving food is likely to happen next weekend. Regardless, I intend to do my best and report in daily.

Care to join? If so, email OFB to let them know, do a blog entry about the challenge to spread the word, and keep us posted on your progress. Any questions can be asked in the comments, and I’ll try to help. Good luck!

Oregon Food Bank Press Release
“Take the food stamp challenge” advocacy alert
Email OFB to let them know you’re participating: Contact