Posted on 01/18/2014 11:57:04 AM PST by nickcarraway
On a tight food budget? Here are seven inexpensive and nutritious items you should consider adding to your grocery list.
Trying to live on a food budget of about $4 per day can be quite a challenge. People quickly discover this when they take the Food Stamp Challenge and try to learn what it's like to be poor for a week.
The challenge mirrors what someone can get through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the federal program that helps low-income people buy groceries. One in seven Americans receive the benefits, which were significantly reduced by Congress in November.
To qualify, a family of four can have an annual net income of up to $23,556, which puts them at the federal poverty level. They would then receive up to $632 a month in SNAP benefits, which equates to about $5.25 a day per person for food. The average SNAP recipient receives $4 per day, according to the Food Research and Action Center.
While getting this extra money can mean the difference between eating and going hungry, the limited funds can make it difficult to choose which food to buy. Getting the most nutrition for your money can be hard when you don't have a lot of money for groceries, but it's not impossible.
According to dieticians and nutritionists, some foods are better than others when you're trying to stretch a dollar. Here are seven that you should consider when funds are tight:
Brown rice. The vitamins, minerals and antioxidants are some of the benefits, but one of the biggest pluses may be that the high amount of fiber in brown rice helps slow digestion and fill you up for a long time.
"Fiber is one of the best [nutritional components] that helps with satiety, or the feeling of fullness," says Rachel Begun, a food and nutrition consultant in Boulder, Colo."They also help to spread the food dollar because they're a component of meals that can help you make a fulfilling dish."
Beans. Like many items at the grocery store, buying in bulk can save a lot of money. Dry beans can cost about $1 per pound and expand to three times their volume when cooked, turning three to four cups of dry beans into nine cups when cooked, says Carol Wasserman, a certified holistic health practitioner in Manhattan.
And beans, like rice, can be flavored with spices and herbs to make the main portion of a meal.
"We have to kind of shift our thinking from having the meat be the center of the plate," and be more creative with other dishes, such as rice and beans, says Julieanna Hever, a plant-based dietician in Los Angeles and host of a healthy living talk show on Veria Living.
Beans are also a very healthy choice. They are high in fiber and protein, low in fat and sodium and have minerals such as iron, potassium, magnesium, copper and zinc, along with vitamins such as folic acid, thiamin, niacin and B6.
Potatoes. These versatile vegetables can be added to casseroles and used in a variety of ways, and they're every bit as nutritious as colored vegetables, Begun says. They contain 45 percent of the recommended daily nutritional intake of vitamin C, 18 percent of fiber and 18 percent of potassium, a mineral that regulates blood pressure, she says. They've been found to have the lowest cost source of dietary potassium.
The average potato is virtually fat free, with a high water and fiber content to make it ideal for weight-loss at 200 calories for an average baked potato, according to information from GoIreland.com. Be careful how you cook them. Frying a potato raises fat content from 0 to 8 grams.
Green vegetables. Any leafy greens, such as broccoli, spinach and kale, have lots of nutrients per calorie and help protect against inflammation and disease, Hever says. Some lettuces can be bitter, she says, but can be offset in a salad with carrots, beets and other sweet vegetables.
"People aren't really used to it," she says of bitter greens such as kale. "It's kind of a taste bud transition that some people have to get used to."
Instead of buying an expensive dressing for any of these foods, Wasserman suggests mixing a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil with juice from half of a lemon or lime.
Frozen vegetables. Buying fresh vegetables in season is an inexpensive way to get them, but frozen vegetables are a good option too, Begun says. They're picked at the peak of their flavor and aren't nutritionally inferior to fresh ones. The downside of fresh vegetables is they might be picked before their height of ripeness and often travel many miles to a grocery store, she says. Peanut butter. This is another economic source of protein, rich in healthy fats, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Peanuts contain resveratrol, an antioxidant found in red wine, says Sharon Palmer, a Duarte, Calif.-based food and nutrition writer who covers plant-powered diets.
Protein bars. You may not want to make them the only part of your diet, but they obviously have protein in them and cost about $2 each. Andrew Ross and his wife, who live in Baltimore, eat a Quest protein bar from GNC every three hours from when the time they wake up until when they go to bed. They started this habit in April and he's lost 78 pounds so far. They also eat Power Pak pudding once a day, which contains 30 grams of protein per can and less than 200 calories. The protein bars have 20 grams of protein and less than 200 calories. Ross estimates that they spend less than $400 per month on food and drinks, saving money by buying in bulk during sales.
The best answer to getting the most nutritional foods for your buck may be to simply buy fresh food that's in season and not to fall for the theory that fast food is cheaper than what you can purchase at the grocery store. "People don't think out of the box," Wasserman says. Fast food may be quicker than preparing a meal at home, but it won't beat buying fresh fruit and vegetables in taste or cost, she says.
No food is poisonous if eaten within moderation. Don’t sound like some dopey lib! Rice, legumes and potatoes have sustained whole populations for centuries after centuries.
Poultry and meat are excellent as well. Let’s embrace the entire bounty that God has given us. In moderation, of course.
This from a person who regularly overindulges is God’s greatest gifts.
You are correct, PLady2. For most people, this diet is very bad.
It’s dopey libs who think carbs are GOOD! Sorry, MM.
Yes, Women, Infants and Children, but poor single fathers qualify too. It’s about feeding children in crisis situations (one lady I saw using it had just been deserted by her husband. She begged me for forgiveness, right there in the store! Mrs. Liberty gave her a hug). I’ve never been on it, so I can’t get into the details about the program, but the recipient is sharply limited on what can be purchased.
I’ve noticed special labels on the food shelves at the grocery store, and it’s all less-expensive but wholesome items, store brands in many cases. The shopper gets a catalog of items in advance, so they can plan their grocery trip. It’s well thought-out, and following the guidelines a recipient will fill a cart with the kind of stuff we non-recipients don’t mind seeing them buy.
No expensive cuts of meat we can’t buy for ourselves, for example.
Thanks. Now I’m hungry, and the spaghetti sauce won’t be done for another eight hours.
I’ve eaten a good bit of “Shake-n-bake” squirrel in the past. Pretty darn good.
“Pretty soon we’ll be like north Korea and the TV and radio will run with PSAs on how to prepare grass and tree bark soup.”
no kidding Joe. Amazing how far things are falling.
I saw some crap “Stew Meat” at our Walmart for $12.00. It was a small amount and it was garbage. I wonder how bad meat prices are going to get. Might have to hit a deer or two with my truck soon.
Calvin, I live in rural MO. Went out today squirrel hunting - saw nothing. Been the norm lately.
I go to mother-in law’s house in Cook County IL, squirrels everywhere.
Obviously no hunting and predators there but I wonder if predators here in our area have been taking care of the squirrel population.
I will say this though. If moles were tasty and edible, I’d have food for years. Damn things are breeding like rats here.
Chicken and eggs are a lot less than 2.oo a pound. Protein bars, my eye!
From what I see...libs aren’t to big on carbs.
Truthfully, not all people are diabetic or pre-diabetic.
If a person is, of course carbs are not good. If eaten in the correct portions, most people don’t have huge problems with beans and potatoes. Especially if they exercise.
Beef and chicken boulion cubes are about $4 for a bottle of what, maybe 30 cubes?! That’s 30 meals.
Chicken quarters (meat!) are less than half a Dollar per pound.
Flour bags are cheap. Yeast packets are cheap. Bake your bread. Roll your own tortillas (and chips!).
Corn, potatoes, and green peppers are cheap.
Strawberries grow in your window planters, city folks. So do delicious Israel melons.
Rice and beans are cheap, but peanut butter can be inexpensive, too.
Grow a little. Shop a little. Make a little. You can make a budget stretch a long way.
Hot dogs. Beanie-weenies. Sister Shubert rolls.
Tea brewed from bags, or made from scratch from dandelions.
Syrup tapped straight from maple and hickory trees. Pine cone nuts from every pine cone.
Heck, people can buy a milk cow for less money than they pay for store-bought milk each year.
Fish that are line caught from the nearby stream, lake, or coastline.
I’d suggest honey, but raising your own honeybees is illegal in NYC! Laws have consequences.
Which is to say, money *isn’t* the problem...
Years ago I made a very good demonstration that the way to live well on food stamps requires you to *not* think day to day, or week to week. You have to plan months ahead. But if you do, you start slow, but end up with a considerable surplus, with left over for luxuries, and importantly, you stay at that level.
This even takes into account starting from scratch from day 1, with no food in your pantry at all.
You start by overbuying staples in bulk. Rice, beans, flour, lard, and if there are any ridiculously good sales (like this past year there were times where you could buy 10 pounds of potatoes for a dollar). It should be enough to stretch out three months worth.
This means in the second month you can ignore these, and buy seasonal produce, if it is of the kind you can freeze, pickle or can. This means getting things like vinegar and discount spices.
By the third month you can consider your first luxury, of cheap ground beef. It is not for eating by itself, but for adding to other dishes to make them better.
The first decline happens about the fourth month, when you need to start replacing staples you have used up. But you can still keep improving your situation, varying the food you eat and having a more balanced, tastier diet.
“I’ve eaten a good bit of “Shake-n-bake” squirrel in the past. Pretty darn good.”
I egg/flour/spice and brown squirrel for about 15 minutes in a cast iron pan.
Then I put down an aluminum foil ring on the bottom of a dutch oven, put a little water and broth on the bottom, and stack the browned squirrels, cover and place the pot in the oven set low for a few hours.
My food snob Mom even loved them. It helped that she made a great gravy from the drippings.
Coyote and fox decimate our squirrel population sometimes.
Southhack, there is an Eastern principle called ‘prana’ where you eat the life force of say, a carrot or potato, freshly dug.
It’s the distance where a plant or animal was gathered, so you get it early in the street markets.
Root and some lettuce-types maintain their ‘prana’, or life-force all throughout their shipping and handling, and are the best for energy consumption.
I agree. Cooking (home ec in general) should be mandatory in schools as it once was. Along with other life skills like balancing a check book. Or basic mechanics like being able to check oil, transmission fluid, etc.
I am considered to be a good cook and my dearly departed had many dishes that were his specialties. For the life of me, I have never been able to replicate his spaghetti sauce.lol
We seldom ate out. We had a huge garden and bought meat in bulk so it was cheaper and far better meals to eat at home!
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