Lightweight Eats

Many of the families whose accounts I read chose to simply purchase less food to meet the budget requirements of the challenge. This was in no way realistic, either for my current needs or for the needs of those who actually live in poverty. Consistently falling below your caloric intake is not a sustainable practice, and for me currently would severely impact my training.

Instead, we opted to focus on calories per dollar, and were dismayed at how much that narrowed our selection. My caloric needs, at 3500 calories per day, definitely made the challenge quite challenging, putting even the cheapest peanut butter out of our grasp. In fact, the only items that really made the list were rice, oats, oil and pasta. Even dried beans were too expensive on their own: we could only afford them by buying things that were below budget and using the extra money for beans.

Fortunately, by mixing beans and grains, and supplementing our calories with free and foraged foods, we were able to pull together a pretty decent week of food.

The hardest parts:
No snacks! Our budget didn't allow for much variety or any pre-prepared foods. Snacks were the uneaten portions of meals. I eat pretty constantly during the day, so it was tough to limit my intake to three types of food.

Bland food. We got better over the course of the week, but I wouldn't wish plain oatmeal on anybody.

No fruit. Fruit was definitely not a part of our budget. We harvested loquats from a few local trees, which are a phenomenal fruit, but by the end of the week I was hankering a banana, some plums, a nectarine, anything more satisfying than the tiniest of tiny loquats.

Shopping with a strict budget. Although I'm usually fairly conscious of prices when grocery shopping, it was a lot more work to figure out the cost per calorie of everything that went into the cart. Having a third person really expanded our options, but the first few days were still pretty dicey. Uncertainty about the ability to feed yourself is really uncomfortable.


The best parts:
Some awesome new, cheap recipes. Many of the dishes we made this week, we would happily make again—and they are really, really inexpensive meals. Our cabbage-bean-fried/herbed rice wraps were a definite hit, and our homemade rice milk is going to become a regular addition to our fridge.

Price comparisons. I don't expect to eat for $1.50 a day for the rest of my life, but if we can bulk out our calories with foods we ate this week, we'll have more money to spend on other things. And now, we know where to get the cheapest oats, rice, beans and more!

Empathy. There are a lot of people who don't know where their next meal is coming from, who don't have a garden to feed them, and who can't afford to eat well. Somebody took me out for coffee (without knowing about the challenge) and it was an incredible treat—that kind of generosity is something I'd like to extend to others, regardless of what I know about their financial situation.

A different approach to eating. For me, eating is a huge source of pleasure. This week, it was more a source of sustenance. Usually, I have to restrict second helpings at dinner. This week, I had to force myself to eat seconds, just to get enough calories. It helped me reevaluate the reasons I eat—and oftentimes, sleeping, stretching or drinking a glass of water provided enough pleasure to deter the need to eat.


It's tempting to say that we "won" at the challenge, but it was only five days. I can hardly imagine the stress that kind of restriction would cause over the course of months and years. And not that we threw away a lot of food before, but it pains me that much more to throw it away now—money going down the drain.

This week, we undertook the Live Below the Line challenge. Our final day is tomorrow and we're still going strong. To get an idea of how we strategized, take a look at a recap of our first shopping trip, below.

For my first round of shopping for the Live Below the Line challenge, I visited our local Walmart to stock up on some staples like rice and beans. The whole experience was very different from my normal food shopping experience.

This time, instead of considering organic normal rice versus fancy conventional rice, I was trying to decide between a small bag of white rice, a small bag of brown rice and a large bag of white rice. They are listed in decreasing cost per pound, and it ultimately came down to whether I could afford the whole large bag for just five days.

I ended up doing some quick math on the back of my shopping list, figuring that I had to come up with 27500 calories for the week, and the big bag was 8000 calories. At $2.98, into the cart it went.



I looked at Walmart's bean offerings, but couldn't decide if they were cheap enough in the time I had available. They also didn't have any dried chickpeas—a more versatile bean option than black or pinto. Overall, this trip yielded 18090 calories for $8.14, or around 110 calories for every 5 cents.

This left me with $6.86 to come up with around 9500 cal, which brought my target to 70 calories per 5 cents—a big improvement.

After looking at the macronutrient distribution from this trip, I purchased 66% carbohydrate, 26% fat and 8% protein. I usually aim for closer to 55-60% carbohydrate, 25-30% fat and 15% protein. My focus for round 2 of shopping would be purchasing protein and vegetables.

I'm not even sure you can call this a sandwich it's so simple.

Start with herbs, whatever you have on hand. I used basil and marjoram. Thyme is another favorite. Parsley and rosemary would also be good.

Chop them finely.

Next, choose your bread. If you've got light, fresh herbs like parsley or lemon thyme, use a rich, dark deep bread. If you've got super powerful herbs like rosemary, pick a lighter bread. Toast it.

Slather your toast with tahini and sprinkle with chopped herbs.


Perfection.