Can you eat healthy on $4 a day?

fortune ^ | APRIL 10, 2015, | Mitch Rothschild

[DUMBGRUNT]

One CEO tests how healthy low-income families can eat under the U.S. governments’ food assistance program.

[Bob434]

[[a Big Box of Powered Milk.]]

Are you sadistic or something? We had to drink that crap when we were young- and I still have nightmares about it 50 years later

[Bob434]

[[You will not be eating steak.]]

Sure you will, I know plenty of restaurant dumpsters where you can hang out and wait for a 1/2 eaten steak to get thrown out- complete with spices- just cut away the parts that look like they have been gnawed on

[heartwood]

You can feed a family of 5 on 31 bucks a week...

On what? Road kill? Rice and dried beans?

I worked out a food budget of $3/day per person, allowing for some eggs, meat, fruit, vegetables, as well as rice and beans and oatmeal.

I really don't see how you'd do it for less than $1/day per person, especially if you're feeding a teenaged boy or laboring man.

[Bob434]

[[You can feed a family of 5 on 31 bucks a week...]]

It’s pretty friggin tough to do- but the sad thing is that we’re getting to a point i n this country where this is becoming a reality situation for many while our government creeps keep giving themselves big fat ‘cost of living increases/bonuses’ that are 10’s of 1000’s of dollars a year MORE than many people get all year- and our government has the nerve to turn around and inform us, who struggle to get by on as little as %600 a month on many cases (bare minimum for SS and disability if you were unfortunate enough not to have had good paying jobs before you became disabled or retired) that there ‘has been no cost of living increase’ DESPITE food and oil prices going through the roof since this _resident took office 6 years ago!

[riri]

People are just poor planners and spoiled stupid.

You forgot lazy too.

Also may people feel entitled to live like Mini Kardashians. i.e. take selfies and post them to their social media accounts and drink branded coffee drinks all day.

[Bob434]

thiose were the days- sure it was tough, but we were close as families, everyone working together just to make it- I was at the tail end of the extreme poverty era- before moving all the way up into higher end poverty- but we got by, and we had lots of fun doing so and were really quite fit and lean, thanks to the hard work needed to keep ourselves alive (the chords of wood we cut split, stacked, and fed the winter furnace with were simply countless by now- mountains of wood-literally- lol we’d play ‘king of the hill’ by claiming top of the wood pile)

Anyways- today we all just sit around glued to TV, Cell phone, Nintendo, Xbox, etc- and hardly anyone talks to each other except during commercials or while waiting for their cell phone battery to recharge

[razorback-bert]

Whip in the butter, you get with the peanut butter and it is great. I worked in a YWCA girls summer camp and we got all the USDA food, the cheese was excellent.

[Noumenon]

Olivia: What are we going to live on this coming week?

John: Love, Woman.

[goodwithagun]

I drive by several HUDs on my way to work. The difference between their residences and mine (other than the fact that I pay for mine and they don’t): My yard has a garden, their plots of free food via elbow grease is mysteriously missing. Perhaps it’s too difficult to work around all the DirecTV and Dish dishes?

[fatnotlazy]

Thank you. My parents grew up during the Depression and they really knew how to make a decent meal with no money. In those days meat was rationed, so they made a lot of meatless meals. Dad's family was from Austria, so they would make Krautnudel — cabbage and noodles. My mother was Italian, so they would make pasta e fagioli — pasta with beans. When I was growing up long after the Depression, we still had one or the other on Friday (we were Catholics and eating meat on Friday was forbidden). Even now I still make these and other comfort foods from my childhood. Not fancy, but still good and relatively inexpensive.

[NorthstarMom]

$4 per day for each person in my family would be an increase in our food budget!

It seems that my biggest job is feeding my hungry kids (including 2 teen boys and another with an egg allergy, no cheap protein for him!)

Sometimes the base of our meal is broth made from just bones and the veggies scraps I’ve saved. Soup made from garbage ;). But it is so healthy very inexpensive. I bought several packages of frozen marrow bones the last time I was at the grocery store. I was pretty happy because I had never seen them there before. After I got home and got broth cooking with them, I looked at the receipt...4 packages of dog bones. Oh well, they were still beef marrow bones, essential part of a good broth! And less than $2/lb.

I work hard to care for my children and my husband works more than one job to provide the funds. I am sick of the attempts to manipulate me into feeling sorry for people who do nothing for their food money.

[goodwithagun]

Homemade stock and broth is our staple. It’s easy to make and can in bulk, and since it’s from scraps it’s free. I throw veggie scraps in a bag in the freezer, and meat bones in another. When I need more room in the freezer it’s time to make stock. The homemade is so gelatinous and delicious.

[NorthstarMom]

I have a friend for whom food shelves are a way of life regardless of their financial state. It would never cross her mind to not go and get free food. She and her husband both work and have only 2 kids. They do eat better and more food than my family with six kids, but we pay for or grow our food.

I went to the food shelf during an extremely difficult time...we will eat grass before going begging for food again.

[Georgia Girl 2]

I think that part of the problem is that you and I actually buy fresh veggies and other food and cook our meals from scratch. The average low income poverty level people don’t. They buy the pre-cooked frozen stuff. Even a lot of middle class working people don’t cook much anymore. The pre-cooked stuff is more expensive and not as healthy.

[NorthstarMom]

I love good bone broth. My last splurge was to buy Nourishing Broths by Sally Fallon. Probably not the wisest purchase, but the info is good to have on hand and some of the recipes are new and not in Nourishing Traditions.

[dfwgator]

Sure you can, it’s called “Shoplifting.”

[NELSON111]

>>>Can you eat healthy on $4 a day?

Yes. $4/day x 30 = $120/Month per person.

We have 5 in our family (including two teen boys). Our grocery bill is $500/month and we eat healthy and with lots a variety for $3.33/day/person

There are people on snap that eat better than us. They buy their steak with the Lonestar card and their beer and cigs with cash.

[AFreeBird]

Two buck Chuck.

[Mjaye]

It is amazing how good, plain old rice is when you are very hungry.<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Yes, when I moved out on my own after getting my first “real” job, with entry level paltry pay, I was very happy to have a nice, safe-area apartment for $90/mo, and ate lots of rice, applesauce, corn, maybe cottage cheese, and a few other staples like PBJ. Popcorn was a treat. I survived on my phone company wages until I moved out to get married. Life was simple, I had enough to buy small gifts at Christmas, etc., and my furniture was sparse and hand-me downs. I was grateful beyond belief for all of it.

Later, during my LE career years, I walked into many a chronic welfare apartment with all the latest electronics the late 80’s and 90’s had to offer, bigger TV’s than we had, for sure. And when all the AFDC, food stamps and housing benefits were added up, many knew that going to work would be a step down economically.

[GeronL]

right, I watch a lot of Korean programs lately and I have noticed how the main food at just about every meal is rice. The name of cooked rice also means food.