Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Canned food from Target


Thanks to all of you who have responded to the post about Lenten plans. Several have sent recipes for cheap, tasty, nutritious food, and with your permission I'll post some of these.

Now that I'm thinking about the Lenten Poverty Experiment, grocery shopping is turning into a challenging brain exercise. Monday, while at Target, I decided to pick up some canned goods to take to the People's Resource Center. I spent $19.21--about 25% of the weekly food allotment for two (I had no idea how expensive fruit is!)--and here's what I bought:
  • Progresso chicken gumbo soup (on sale), 2 cans, 8 servings, 28 grams of protein
  • Diced tomatoes, 2 cans, 7 servings, 7 grams of protein
  • Corn, 2 cans, 7 servings, 14 grams of protein
  • Green beans, 2 cans, 7 servings
  • Chili beans, 2 cans, 7 servings, 56 grams of protein
  • Applesauce, 12 lunch-sized portions
  • Sliced peaches, 2 cans, 7 servings
  • Pear halves, 2 cans, 6 servings
  • Pineapple, 2 cans, 9 servings
If I were buying this for myself and my husband, I'd have just bought
  • about a day's worth of protein
  • about a day's worth of grains (corn)
  • enough fruits and veggies for four or five days (but nothing fresh!)
Still to buy for the week, and $57.79 to buy it with:
  • milk, yogurt, cheese
  • breakfast foods, bread
  • meat, beans, eggs
  • more vegetables
Looks like a week like this could be balanced, but not very tasty. Fortunately I'm still in the planning stages. My bag full of canned goods goes to the food pantry this afternoon, and I hope it will supplement someone's food stamps so they can buy fresh vegetables and fruits, meat, and good brown bread. Nobody should have to live on canned vegetables.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Forget the canned stuff. Just buy in season (unless you're a food pantry, of course).

Check out my last grocery purchase for produce:

5 small pears - $1.25
large bunch of celery - 1.39
approx 8 bananas - 1.11
1 lb fresh green beans - 1.06
sm bunch green onions - .69

Total FRESH produce - $5.50 for about 20 servings. (or 1 day's worth for our family of 6:))

LaVonne Neff said...

According to the same government that sets the food stamp allowances (though no doubt a different department), the veggies you bought aren't nearly enough for one day for your family. Go to http://www.fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov/ and check out the recommended allowances. For you guys, that comes to 10 cups of fruit and 18 cups of vegetables each day (that's assuming four of you are rather sedentary and two of you--you know which two--are moderately active).

Or you could just go by the usual recommendation of at least 5 servings a day--in which case you're still 10 servings behind. Makes you wonder how the government thinks poor families can be healthy.

Now, go out and buy more veggies!