…but try to find a nursery that will take SNAP. I’ve seen seeds at Whole Foods, but if you’re like me you might plant seeds and four weeks later nothing has germinated, so you either give up or buy seedlings instead. My nearest / biggest garden center doesn’t take SNAP, though they have tons of food plants for sale.
I’ve seen potted herbs available at some grocery stores – though pretty limited in variety and only available for a very short period of time – but I don’t think I’ve ever seen seedlings for tomatoes or bell peppers, say. (In Chicago, anyway. Rural areas might get the grocery stores that set up temporary nurseries in their parking lots in the spring.)
Luckily seeds are pretty cheap, and I can usually get my plants to re-seed themselves, so I don’t often need to buy seedlings, which around here are about $4-5 each. It would probably be quite a bit more expensive if I still had room for tomato plants.
Meijer’s takes SNAP and it has a “garden center”, I don’t know for sure but it’s entirely possible one could use SNAP there for purchasing food plants. That’s basically where you would have to go, a big box store that sells both groceries (and thus is set up for SNAP) and plants.
Not quite, though maybe this applies only in WI. You cannot buy hot food. Yes it’s weird but here’s an example. If you go into a grocery story with a deli that has stuff like baked chicken breasts or pizza slices, you can’t use the card to buy them. However, if they go unsold that day and overnight they’re refrigerated and wrapped up for sale as cold food the next day, you can buy them.
You also can’t use the card to buy any kind of meal in a restaurant.
And I’m pretty sure you can’t use it for alcohol, though I never tried.
I am confused by this remark. I have never been taught that if I were trying to get 3000 calories a day, I should avoid fat. The opposite–I’ve been taught that fat is a sure-fire way to get lots of dense calories.
If I’m trying to limit calories, on the other hand, that’s a different thing. But since you’re talking about a whopping 3000 calories you don’t seem to be talking about calorie limits per se.
1. SNAP benefits are based on a nutritious, low-cost food plan developed by the USDA to be (almost) nutritionally complete. It’s called the Thrifty Food Plan. The actual foods in the food plan were most recently updated in 2006. The costs of those foods are adjusted monthly so that the USDA can keep track of food costs. SNAP benefits are adjusted annually based on those costs. So, to answer the OP, yes, it is possible. It does require a lot of cooking from scratch.
2. Time limits on SNAP participation don’t affect all that many people. Able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDS) are subject to a maximum of 3 months of SNAP benefits in any 36 month period. ABAWDs are only between the ages of 18 and 49. So, all households with children or people with a disability are exempt from time limits, as are all people age 50 and older. Additionally, areas with crappy economies can apply for a waiver of this time limit. In connection with the great recession, most states applied for waivers to cover all or part of their states. Now that the economy is improving, the waivers aren’t being renewed, but for a long while, very few people were actually subject to SNAP time limits.
3. About 20% of SNAP participants at any given have no cash income. Why? Well, a lot of aid programs do have time limits, so people have timed out of TANF and similar state-level programs. A lot of these folks have health problems that are sufficient to present challenges to steady employment, but not sufficient to receive disability benefits. And some people are couch surfing and doing the occasional odd job.
I can easily feed myself 3 healthy meals plus snacks per day on $29 worth of food. Here is what I would buy:
I canister of oatmeal -$3
1 quart 2% milk -$2
I bag dried split peas -.85
1 bag dried lentils -.85
1 large onion - $.50
Some green veggies like broccoli, zucchini, spinach, etc (whatever’s on sale) - $2
1 whole frozen chicken - $6
1 3-lb bag frozen tilapia filets -$6
1 bag brown rice - $1.5
First, I’d roast the chicken, giving me enough chicken meat for three lunches or suppers along with brown rice and steamed green veggies.
Next I’d boil the chicken carcass and sautéed onion down into a rich stock and make a large batch each of hearty lentil and split pea soup, enough for 12 servings of healthy, filling soup.
Breakfast is oatmeal with milk, both filling and healthy.
The tortillas and beans will make over a dozen black bean tacos.
Tilapia is broiled and served with brown rice, 6 meals easy right there.
Eggs are hardboiled and used as healthy snacks.
Cottage cheese is another filling healthy snack.
This is MORE than enough healthy, filling nutritious food for one person for a week.
I live on a (presumably) mediocre (both economically and nutritionally) single-person bachelor diet, which runs in the neighborhood of $120 a month. So it’s in the $29/week ballpark.
Does doing it in real life for a family count? Or do you have to break everything down into shopping and preparing 1 serving? How realistic is that, anyway? Don’t most people on SNAP have families? Or are there a lot of singles on it?
In my state you have to do a “work program” even if you work/go to school and it doesn’t add up to full-time or they determine your work should only take part-time hours.
There are other items, depending on where you live, that are practically free, if not really free, depending on where you live, but are luxuries elsewhere.
I live in Florida. I can think of two neighbors right off the top of my head who have citrus trees in their yards. One has grapefruit and another has an orange. I’m sure I’ve seen a Meyer lemon tree around as well. There’s also pecan trees everywhere. I actually had one taken out of my yard (it was too close to the house and more likely to kill me than feed me). I have seen homeless folks gathering up pecans in parks and/or in people’s yards (presumably with permission, but idk). Just in my neighborhood, you can get a little bit of protein for a few weeks in the fall and prevent scurvy for a few weeks in the winter, for free. But go to the store three blocks away and buy a pound of shelled pecans? $8. Right? So out of season, you’re SOL.
You can also get good deals on fresh veggies from shopping farmer’s markets but: farmer’s markets do not take EBT, you’re limited to only what’s in season, you may require a car and gas money to get to the farmer’s market, and cold, hard cash in hand. And you have to have just one job – if you work evenings or Saturdays, you’ll never make it to the farmer’s market.
I think that may be the issue that bugs me the most – people of privilege not quite understanding how much of your time is taken up just by working to barely scrape by. I know people who have two jobs and work 60-70+ hours a week. When are they going to have time to track down free oranges and pecans? Same thing with “well, you can grow your own food!” Yes, IF you have room, IF there’s a balcony in your apartment that faces the sun, IF you have a sunny window/room at your place, IF you’re around once a day to water, IF IF IF. Farming/gardening has always been a time-consuming and somewhat risky proposition. Just ask the Depression era Okies.
For what it’s worth, farmer’s markets around here are NOT cheaper than shopping at the grocery store.
Is the produce better? Certainly. Is it good to support small businesses / independent growers? absolutely. And to be fair, I’m in a relatively affluent part of the country (DC suburbs) so I’m sure there’s a small “because they can afford it” markup going on. Still, for inexpensive veggies, I’m better off going to the other end of the parking lot and getting my produce at the Giant.
Back when I used to work in shoe and leather repair and did a bunch of work for local hunters I used to sometimes get “tips” in the form of game meat, which is usually considered and expensive luxury.
Actually, some do - but it is rare. Detroit’s Eastern Market pioneered a system for farmer’s markets to utilize EBT but you’re only likely to see it in large, urban areas with an established and regular market.
Interesting - says I should eat around 2600/day to maintain my weight, which is about what I’m eating now and things have plateaued.
A six foot man my age and activity level would need nearly 4,000 calories per day to maintain his weight.
Starving artist reporting in. We have no food stamps in my country, but I live on a 80 euro per month budget for food. I have been doing so for about 12 years now. People are bullshitting themselves and each other over imagined dangers of malnutrition. Eating is the second easiest thing in the world, if you’re lucky enough to live in the Western world.
I’m 1.78cm tall, 40 years old, male, with no disabilities or chronic diseases. I have maintained a weight of 64 to 66 kilos throughout the past 20 years. During that time, I had one instance of tonsillitis, one broken toe from a hostile encounter with a glass table, three extracted wisdom teeth, and between 0 and 2 colds per year, lasting for about a week every time.
This is what I have found out 20 years ago, when I entered the happy world of poverty:
Fresh fruit are overrated. In fact, they’re entirely unnecessary. I eat maybe 1-2 bananas per month, and that’s it. Apart from being more expensive than canned fruit, they offer no advantages whatsoever. Fresh fruit produce lots of waste. 1/3 of the weight you pay for consists of inedible peels, stems, and rotten, moldy or unripe fruits hidden on the bottom. Canned fruit contain the same amount of fibres and nutriens as the fresh variety, and they’re cheaper, last longer, taste better, and the waste is easier to manage.
All the above also goes for vegetables, except that the price difference between fresh and canned is even greater.
Booze and coffee are not a necessary part of any diet; healthy or otherwise. Eliminate them, and you save yourself a great deal of money. Same goes for cigarettes.
By eliminating coffee, you can also do away with milk. Milk does nothing that cheese doesn’t do better and cheaper.
Milk is essentially flavoured, overpriced water… or watered-down, overpriced cheese, depending on how you want to look at it. I really don’t understand why Americans seem to be so obsessed with milk, as if it were something that’s good for your body.
Breakfast cereal is a scam. Period. Eat it, if you can afford it, and if you like its taste. But if you eat it because you think that it’s good for you, you need to see a psychiatrist.
Bread and pasta have kept hundreds of generations of humans alive for centuries. Honour them by eating them every day. The cheapest of them offer exactly the same nutrition as the most expensive of them.
You love meat, like I do? Eat chicken. Measured by weight, chicken is 5 to 10 times cheaper than beef, and 2 to 5 times cheaper than pork. Of course, you also need red meat from time to time, because chicken lacks some nutrients that we typically get from meat. You can get pork for 5 euros per kilo, if you look out for special offers at the supermarket. The most important thing is that you not be impulsive. Don’t buy stuff when you WANT to eat them, but when they’re on offer.
Always keep in mind that people don’t get obese because of what they eat, but because of how much they eat. If you’re fat, don’t blame sugars; blame your lack of discipline.
Never mind vitamins. Vitamins are everywhere, and in perfectly sufficient quantity. You couldn’t get scurvy today, even if you tried.
You like coke? No problem. It doesn’t have to be Coca Cola, though. There are brands that cost 1/10th of the price. Don’t pretend you’re able to tell the difference. You’re just deceiving yourself. Also, do get the sugar-free variety. I admit that sugar tastes better than sweeteners, but you forget all about it after a week. After that, you’ll be just as content as with the real thing.
Sweeteners are not bad for you. If you believe that, you may just as well believe in homeopathy, astrology, chemtrails and evil radiation that comes out of your microwave and your cell phone.
Surprisingly, that’s largely true, though not all fruit does well in the canning process, and there’s a great deal of satisfaction in eating fresh fruit. Canning destroys vitamin C, and many canned fruits are peeled which reduces their fiber content. Ditto vegetables: many vegetables, when canned, turn into vile mush. I haven’t done price comparisons between canned and frozen vegetables. Also, many fruits / vegetables simply are not available in canned or frozen varieties (I’ve never seen canned frozen celery for example).
I won’t argue with you there - but people who consume enough booze / cigarettes to make a dent in their budget will prioritize those in their budget. Coffee is cheap enough if you don’t insist on hand-picked gourmet stuff. Store brand stuff here is up to 30 cents an ounce - not sure how many cups of coffee that makes - 2 or 3? - so it’s not going to break the budget.
Arguably, adults do not “need” milk - most milk sold in the US comes from cows, we’re not baby cows. That said, milk does have a fair bit of nutrition. 8 ounces (about 1/4 liter) of nonfat milk contains 9 grams of protein and a significant amount of calcium. A gallon of milk (16 servings) lists at 3.49 at Peapod.com (local online shopping service). That’s just over 20 cents a serving. Interestingly, dried milk does not seem to be cheaper - a package that would make 2 gallons is 7.49, slightly more than 2 gallons of real milk at 3.49 each. Might still be a better deal if you use only small quantities (e.g. in coffee!), whereas fresh milk would spoil before it could be used up.
Cheese tends to be high fat. The cheapest cheese I could find at Peapod was 4.98 a pound. 2.49 for an 8 ounce package, which serves 8, so just over 30 cents a serving. It includes 6 grams of fat and 7 grams of protein, for a reduced fat version.
Neither is horrendously expensive, but these figures suggest that in the US, at least, you’ll get more nutritional bang for your buck using milk versus cheese.
Scam?? Not at all. Is it an ideal way of delivering nutrients? Certainly made-from-scratch oatmeal and the like will be cheaper, and quite a bit healthier than the sugary kiddy cereals that dominate the market - but if you go for less-sugary options, cereal is a reasonably priced and very convenient breakfast option, that often provides a good dose of fiber. Many / most US cereals are also fortified with vitamins and iron. Go for the store brand wherever possible (this is one where the store brand is NOT as good as the brand name for some varieties).
Yeah, you could! Admittedly, the circumstances were a bit unusual - almost any fresh or frozen produce would have solved that problem. That said, while a multivitamin is unnecessary for most people, they don’t do any harm.
You seem to misunderstand the purpose of “Food Stamps”. The program is called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The $29 or so a family gets weekly is meant to supplement what they would otherwise have to spend on food without assistance. A family must still work and contribute to feeding the their family; SNAP is meant to provide short term relief, and help a family through a difficult period. It not meant to entirely replace a family’s food budget, and foster dependance on public assistance.
With this in mind, consider how much all the fresh vegetables Ms. Paltrow bought would improve a diet of pasta, beans, and processed foods that the family might otherwise only eat!
The extra bit of money that SNAP provides is meant to turn a $29 unhealthy diet into a $58 healthy diet. A family is still expected to pay at least as much for food as it had before turning to SNAP.
The government simply cannot cover every possible scenario with a single program; some lower income families may end up with dramatically more than they need, at the expense of other families at a slightly higher bracket who might get nothing. SNAP is meant to supplement, not to provide entirely; a family must find other alternatives if SNAP is not enough.
The point is that there are some people eating on a very limited food budget. The point is to get people to really think about this and learn to empathize a bit with the less fortunate.
Incorrect.
They don’t look at what you were actually spending before you fell on hard times, because maybe you were spending $200/week per person or something. Nope, the bureaucracy has determined what a reason amount to spend on food a week is, assuming you’re buying frugally. I’m pretty sure that’s less than what most people above working poor spend on their weekly food budget. Your income at the time of evaluation is supplemented to reach that “frugal figure” more or less.
When I initially applied for food stamps at that time we had NO income. We were granted the maximum benefit and yes, that WAS the entirety of our food budget - and it was more than $29/week. Some months later we were re-evaluated and because I had acquired employment by then our benefit was reduced. As it should be.
But there ARE people subsisting entirely on food stamp money. Not the majority, but they do exist.
