Day 2: My appetite is not satisfied…

Today was a little more difficult than yesterday to adhere to the $7/day challenge because I felt like I was constantly hungry. Maybe it was because I had a little jog this morning, but 30 minutes after breakfast, I was already thinking about lunch. After lunch, I was looking for snacks… I’m beginning to realize how much unnecessary food I eat during the day while I’m at work. Candy, chocolate, anything… and now that I’m refraining from snacking, I’m really noticing it.

Luckily, for dinner I still had the leftovers of the hearty soup Lav made for me yesterday. We added some pasta shells today to add a bit more substance… even tastier than yesterday. Soup is a fantastic option for a cost effective, nutritious meal.  But I have to admit:  as I type this, I’m already hungry again! Maybe I’ll down a tall glass of water…

Breakfast
Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds – $0.50
Milk – $0.50

Lunch
Grilled Cajun Chicken Sandwich – $3.40

Dinner
Yesterday’s swiss chard and zucchini soup with beans and pasta shells – $1.90
Marzipan snack treat – $0.50

eating healthy for less than $7, Day 1

Eating for less than $7 a day is a challenge for sure.  Most of the time, we have the luxury of buying our groceries from our favorite stores or farmers markets without a serious concern about cost, strolling through the rows of bountiful west coast products and picking out the most appealing items… appealing in terms of both health and a flavor. We pay that extra bit for the “organic,” the “free range,” and the “local.” But how often do we really stop to think about the privilege of even having those kinds of choices to make?

When trying to live on a limited budget, the first thing to go out the window is choice. For some, instead of choosing between Safeway and the Ballard Farmers’ Market, its a much tougher choice of spending one’s limited resources on either meals or medicine, bread or baby formula, nourishing food or rent.

Today’s meals had to be extremely simple, since we just got back into town and haven’t had a chance to plan any of this out. My main hope is to try and meet the $7/day challenge with food choices that are both economical and healthy… but I’ll admit that today was a bit of a cop out, since I ended up having cereal for two meals. Chalk it up to jet lag and not being able to wake up early enough to pack myself a lunch.

Breakfast
Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds – $0.50
Milk – $0.50

Lunch
Chex – $0.50
Milk – $0.50

Dinner
Swiss chard and zucchini soup, with corn, onions, and just a bit of italian sausage – $1.60 (kindly prepared by my wife while I was on my way home from work… I’m calculating it cost $4.00 for the ingredients, and I ate about 40% of the pot).

All in all, not too bad for the first day–coming in at $3.60. Most of that, however, comes from the fact that I ate cereal for lunch. And I was grateful for every single bite, because my stomach was growling all day long. But it’s good to be reminded of hunger, and to realize how much more I usually eat than I actually need.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings… hopefully a picture or two! In the meantime, check out what others have been doing for this challenge on the United Way’s Hunger Challenge Blog.

United Way’s Hunger Action Week: April 20-24

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email invitation from the United Way of King County, inviting me to participate in their Hunger Action Week, which starts today and runs through Friday, April 24th.

The idea behind the action week is to raise awareness for hunger issues in our local community, and the challenge is to see if you can feed yourself for only $7 a day, the maximum food stamp benefit for an individual in Washington.

I really like how they explain it on their website:

“This challenge is really an exercise of empathy—to live in someone else’s shoes for one week and learn how you can help fight hunger in our community.”

Here are the rules for the Hunger Challenge:

• Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner spending only $7 per day.
• Salt and pepper don’t count but all other seasonings, cooking oils, condiments, snacks, drinks, and everything else do.
• Don’t use food you already own.
• Don’t accept food from family, friends, coworkers and others. Not even the free samples from Costco!
• Try to include fresh produce and healthy protein each day.
• Keep track of expenses, food choices, etc. and share your experiences (which you can do on United Way of King County’s blog).

So please join up yourself, if you can, and consider the following:

• Can you feed yourself for only $7 a day?
• If you had to make a choice between buying groceries and paying your rent, how would you choose?
• What compromises will you need to make?
• Will you be able to provide much variety or will you need to eat the same thing all week?
• If you don’t know how to cook, does this make the challenge more difficult?

I’ll be blogging about our meals at the end of each day this week.  For more information on the Hunger Action Week itself, check out their blog.

another dinner, this time by joe+dave

A few weeks ago, I received an email from my friend Joe, who attended the second fishes+loaves dinner back in November. He told me something I’d been hoping to hear… that he had shared the blog with his friend Dave, and they both wanted to throw their own version of a fishes+loaves meal.

Part of the original idea for this blog was the hope that the information we provide about our meals would help spur others to try hosting their own meals for charity. So I was absolutely psyched that we’d be able to take part in the first off-shoot of a fishes+loaves meal, this time as a diner!

On the evening of January 28th, Joe played the role of host and sous-chef while Dave (a law student by day, cooking enthusiast in his free time) took care of most of the cooking duties. Here was their terrific four-course menu and some pictures of the food that evening:

beef tartare crostini
organic basil, heirloom tomato, garlic, parma prosciutto, asiago, parmesan reggiano and pecorino cheese

arugula and blanched endive salad with white wine vinaigrette
arugula, endive, walnuts, pear, miyatake mushrooms, white wine vinaigrette

seared salmon and scallop roulade with roasted garlic mash
wild alaskan sockeye, fresh sea scallops, garlic, potatoes

pomegranate cranberry granita
cranberry, grey goose vodka, mint

white citrus sangria
blood orange, pomegranate, lemon zest

Dave’s family used to own a restaurant, so he’s no stranger to cooking and food preparation. The food was delicious, accompanied by terrific company and conversation of the other diners, many of whom were meeting for the first time. Most importantly, the dinner generated a collective contribution of $330 for Northwest Harvest.

Cheers to a wonderful dinner for an important cause! I hope to have an opportunity to follow up with these guys and get some of their thoughts about creating the meal.

Our next fishes+loaves meal will be this Saturday… Valentine’s Day. There won’t be any heart-themed dishes, but we do have a full group for the meal, the proceeds of which will go to benefit the Central Asia Institute, a nonprofit organization providing community-based education and literacy programs. Check back for the full write up!