The problem in Paltrow failed in the wrong direction. She can’t live on her $29 weekly budget because she wasted her money on things like avocados and limes. The message people are going to take away from this is that the reason people can’t make it on food stamps is because they’re buying unnecessary luxuries.
To serve the cause, somebody like Paltrow should have tried to buy a real week’s worth of basic food and failed at that. That would show that food stamps are inadequate.
I can’t view that at work.
I think it’s better and less harmful (and maybe even marginally more useful) than attempting to live forever by having expensive elective surgery to remove every body part that might fail someday.
I see:
A dozen eggs.
One yam/sweet potato.
One jalapeno.
One avocado.
One yellow onion.
One bunch of chives.
One ear of corn.
One tomato.
One bunch of kale.
One stalk of romaine lettuce.
One small bag of peas.
One small bag of black beans.
One small bag of brown rice.
One package of small tortillas.
One clove of garlic.
One bunch of cilantro.
Seven limes.
eta: ohhhh the ninjaing. 
Quicksilver missed the peas. I win the thread!
Can anyone do the calorie math to see if she actually bought enough calories (maybe 2000 per day or so) for a week? It doesn’t look like nearly enough – the only calorie dense foods she has, from what I can tell, are rice, beans, eggs, the tortillas, and the avocado.
OK, what would a proper failure look like? If she hadn’t bought stupid shit like avocados and limes, she might have accidentally succeeded in living on $29 a week, which many people over the last 3 days have shown is entirely possible.
People have, the number I saw bandied about was 1000 calories a day. Technically sufficient to keep a human alive as long as they lay perfectly still.
Someone on the internet (I did a quick Google) calculated that that averages out to less than 1000 calories/day. This is inadequate for anyone, but even more so if said poor person happens to be engaged in work that requires some form of physical exertion.
As an example, I currently make a living as a stock person for a big box store. That means in a typical 8 hour shift I am repeatedly lifting merchandise, frequently lifting/moving boxes between 5 and 40 pounds, and spend most of those 8 hours either do that or walking around the store moving stuff/helping customers.
I’m eating about 2500-3000 calories per day.*
I’ve lost 20 pounds in the past year.
There’s no way in hell I could survive on so little food.
If her skinny vegan ass eats 2000 calories a day I will eat my damn hat.
Regardless, her choices seem - peculiar. I wonder if she had her chef pick them out, or if she did it herself? The eggs will go a long way, as will the beans, but a lot of that table is representing flavor (the onions, herbs, limes) instead of substance.
Started a spin-off thread to see if we could fashion a healthy, complete, and nutritious diet on $29 per week.
I am actually pretty ok paying a few cents more in taxes if it means people working for 20K a year can get limes and avocados once in a while.
Better use is to get a coconut to put the limes in.
That’s a pretty shitty list of things not to buy with $29.
In California, where I believe she lives, the list she posted is incredibly cheap because what she bought was fresh and local in Southern California. Avocados can be as cheap as 4 for $1, limes can be 5 for $1, and yes they’re probably organic. Green onions and cilantro are practically free. If you try to buy those out of season in Minnesota each organic lime might be $2 and an avocado as high as $3.
What’s more, an avocado is very nutrient and calorie dense, high in good fats, meaning that for the price it supplies a lot energy. Adding a small amount of green onion, cilantro, and lime gives you guacamole which add a lot of flavour to an otherwise bland meal of rice and beans. I’m going to guess the rice and beans were cooked with the onion and tomato then served with the tortillas to make a very complete meal that is very high in fiber.
A single avocado can have upwards of 320 slow burning calories which is ideal for someone working manual labour, perhaps a roofer, which makes it a significantly better choice that shitty Mr Noodle knock offs.
The problems I see with her list is that romaine is relatively expensive and less useful than other leafy greens like spinach. Kale also tends to be higher in cost that comparable greens like mustard or collard. She bought brown rice which costs a lot more than plain white, although higher in nutritional value.
If you’re going to hate on Gwyneth Paltrow at least get your facts straight.
No,this is a pretty shitty list of things not to buy with $29 a week. But it appears that you can get enough calories to subside on if you choose to spend $4.14/day there.
7 limes and a bottle of Tequila.
Are those greens (the kale, lettuce, etc) going to last a week?
Depends on where and when you buy them. Limes vary from about 5/$1.00 to 20/$1.00 if you get them at the hispanic groceries, so she bought somewhere around $1.40 worth to 35 cents worth. I got 10 limes / $1 this past weekend as a matter of fact.
Granted, she could have got 4 limes and spent the extra 60 cents on another bag of beans, or a bunch of some kind of herbs, but it’s not like she spent 15% of her budget on limes. As a matter of fact, at worst, it would be about 5%, and at best it would be about 1%.
Here’s the calorie detail (more or less):
936 cal = A dozen eggs. (78 cal each)
115 cal = One yam/sweet potato.
4 cal = One jalapeno.(med)
289 cal = One avocado.(med)
45 cal = One yellow onion.(med)
16 cal = One bunch of chives. (1 cup chopped)
72 cal = One ear of corn. (med)
32 cal = One tomato (large)
132 cal = One bunch of kale (4 cups chopped)
112 cal = One stalk of romaine lettuce. (1 head)
264 cal = One small bag of peas. (12 oz)
1296 cal = One small bag of black beans. (1 lb)
504 cal = small bag of brown rice. (1 lb)
900 cal = One package of small tortillas. (18 Guerrero brand corn tortillas)
60 cal = One clove of garlic. (that’s a bulb; 15 cloves)
10 cal = One bunch of cilantro. (guesstimate; 1/4 cup is 1 cal)
140 cal = Seven limes.
Total: 4,927 calories, or 936 per day.
I’m more curious where the money went exactly; by my eyeballing it, if I was to buy that, again at the hispanic grocery, that’s probably more around the 15-20 dollar amount, with the peas and the eggs being by far the most expensive things on the list. Every one of those produce items, save the limes, lettuce and possibly the chives should be around $1 at most, with things like cilantro and jalapeno being a nickel or a dime, or less.