Over the weekend

PICTURES ARE WORTH A THOUSAND MEALS!!!

Throughout the weekend I found myself craving things that I never thought I would crave: fresh lettuce, tomatoes, apples ... any fruit or vegetable that I could think of sounded delicious! Not having the extra in my $21 budget to buy anything fresh, outside of a bunch of bananas, which are almost to the point of being unedible because of their state of ripeness, I am longing for items not out of a box and not out of a jar.

When talking to my wife's family about this challenge, it was amazing to see the instant connection that they made between too little money to spend on food and poor health. Is this common knowledge to all? Does everyone realize that because of lack of funds, individuals are pushed to buy processed, unhealthy food?

If this is "common knowledge" why aren't measures being taken to stop this? Why aren't the prices of healthier, fresh food products falling?

Those are my thoughts from over the weekend, now here are thoughts from another participant, Jessica Renwick, the Administrative Assistant to our Executive Director:

Saturday, August 14th.

This morning I’ve had half of a peanut butter & raisin sandwich, a banana, a little cola and coffee with milk. I was able to score 3.5 lbs of ripe bananas for .99 at Giant Eagle, and got 1.5 lbs. of carrots for .89. I weighed the bag of bananas and three bags of carrots to get the heaviest. ½ lb of carrots makes a difference this week. I also made the guy in the floral department go in the back to find someone in produce who could tell me how much the day old bananas were. It was a little embarrassing but I only had a few dollars left to spend.

I just finished making soup from leftover black beans, ½ cup milk, 1 carrot, about 1 cup leftover rice, and about ¾ cup of the fresh corn that I cut off the cob and froze. I initially cooked the beans in the crock pot with a pinch of garlic powder and onion powder & about 1T or less of olive oil. I left them in the broth which has a really good taste & protein from the beans. I pureed the beans with the milk, diced the carrots and simmered everything. Also, I was happy that I could be creative with the limited ingredients, and I like to cook.

I forgot to refrigerate the beans on Friday when I took a serving out in the morning for my lunch and they stayed out on the counter until about 8:00 in the evening when I got home. I was worried that I left them out but more worried I would not have enough to eat, so I ate a serving and stuck the rest in the fridge.

I am spending a lot of time cooking, prepping food and washing dishes. I am used to this because of dietary restrictions that I have, but normally I can buy prepared foods that I can eat. They are all too expensive this week.

Lunch was bean soup and dinner was rice mixed with an egg & a little corn & soy sauce.

Today I also made some breakfast bars out of bananas, shredded wheat, milk, raisins & an egg and froze some of them. Also cut & froze some of the bananas so they don’t go bad before I can eat them.

I’m really tired!