On Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:23:46 -0600, Christine Dabney
> wrote:

>Heya folks,
>
>I just found out, via various food blogs, that last week was Hunger
>Challenge week. Whereby folks would live on a food stamp budget, of
>$4/day. Which equals out to $28/week.
>
>Now, I read several food blogs in this arena....on this very
>challenge. It really astounded me..to say the least. Most had a
>difficult time with the challenge..and some had an extremely difficult
>time.
>
>I have to say that some qualified that they had never had to deal with
>anything like this in real life....
>
>One thing I found extraordinary, was that some shopped at Whole Foods
>for their food..and that was their main grocery store. I don't know
>exactly why, other than maybe they wanted to stay as organic as
>possible in their food supply.
>
>But it truly strikes me as being very unrealistic, in trying to
>stretch their food dollars as far as possible. Maybe they don;t know
>any better..maybe they just want to stay as close to organic as
>possible.
>
>For me..I would want to get as much value as I can for my dollar. That
>would mean shopping the sales at the stores, shopping at ethnic
>markets..and generally avoiding the high end markets..whatever they
>might be. I probably would avoid Whole Foods or similar stores...for
>the time being... even if I really wanted to be organic. That could
>go by the wayside for the time being, if my tummy was growling.
>
>And I would shop for the month..not the day.
>
>Am I totally off on this? What would you all do? If you wanted to
>stay organic, would you still shop at places like Whole Foods? Or
>would you compromise to save money? Would you compromise, to feed
>yourself and your family..or would you short them and yourself, cause
>you felt you needed to stay organic and pay top dollar?
>
>Just curious
>
>Mind you..this would be if you only had a set amount coming if for the
>whole month. What would you do???
>
>Christine, who is venting on this in a blog post.

I don't think most of the responses have been about organic. For most
of the people who are thrown into that situation what they need most
is education. They need to be taught basic nutrition, how to shop and
what to buy to get the most food value for their money. They need to
know how to prepare and store what they buy.

I can remember a friend whose husband gave her the grocery money each
week. It seemed that she could never stock up on sale items. If I
were on that kind of leash I would try to show Scrooge how much better
I could do If I had at least one month's money at a time. So you
spend more this week but then you don't have to buy laundry detergent
every time you go.
--
Susan N.

"Moral indignation is in most cases two percent moral,
48 percent indignation, and 50 percent envy."
Vittorio De Sica, Italian movie director (1901-1974)