Lawmakers Find $21 a Week Doesn't Buy a Lot of Groceries

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Kevin

Healthy foods cost more.

Why is that?

I don't even want to get into the grocery store/fresh produce issue in the Hill District here, except to say it's a freaking disgrace and "the grocery store was looted in the MLK riots" is not a valid excuse.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Why is that?

It costs more to bring to the market because quite a bit of it goes bad on the shelves as opposed to packaged and preserved foods which once placed on the shelves will generally sell (eventually).

[33girl]

Healthy food does not necessarily equal fresh vegetables and fruit. Just because something has a preservative or two in it does not make it unhealthy.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Healthy food does not necessarily equal fresh vegetables and fruit. Just because something has a preservative or two in it does not make it unhealthy.

I actually did a little looking around. Apparently, there are programs out there which can help people make good decisions while remaining faithful to their budgets.

Like all other such programs though, they must be taken advantage of in order to do any good for people. The government cannot force people to eat healthy food or to feed it to their kids. As long as the kids aren't showing any outward signs of being malnourished, it's tough for the government to know when to intervene.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Why is that?

Most likely, it's because the things that make food 'unhealthy' also allow it to be mass-produced easily and efficiently. It's easy to find a vat of man-made fat, or factory-farm out a ton of crappy foods - and more cost-effective.

Everyone wants free-range chicken until they realize it costs 300% more to produce.

[OneTimeSBX]

lets be honest here...there are three levels of food.

your really bad for you crap.
the ok stuff that most of us buy.
the really ritzy stuff.

most of us can only afford the ok stuff. the most "luxurious" item ive ever bought was chocolate soy milk, and dont get it twisted, it was on sale! if i even had the $ to buy free range chicken and radiated organic pears, i would still get the regular ones. im sorry, who here, on a regular income, can afford the super healthy stuff?

[AKA_Monet]

Kevin, sweetheart...

I am not understanding your point. Generally, to bring most foods to market to fit the public health standards, there is some treatment. Moreover, we are at least 2-3 generations away from cultivars and a former agrarian society. Most of fresh produced that is not grown on the west coast of the US is grown in Central and South America. Some is shipped from Asia and the Pacific Rim.

So this makes the healthy food issue one of a business decision... Most ghettos do not have safe grocers and at best, when the public health officials get there, the mom and pop food stores need to be cited and shutdown. The other issue is most poor people are ignorant. They do not read food labels in any language. So, comfort foods will more abundantly purchased versus healthy food anytime.

The other issue is most poor people like quick and easy microwavable foods. Foods made from scratch... Friends of mine want to take some kind of cooking class. While some find that fun and interesting, I know how to cook, from de-feathering or de-scaling to full course meal. That is because my mother and grandmother taught me. But, most people do not cook, barely boil water. So, the choice of going to the grocery store with a list to purchase necessary items is a foreign concept to many. Then, the get the ready made meals anyway, which Safeway, Kroger and Whole Foods have marketed to... C'mon, you bake pizzas? While tasty, is that healthy everyday? And McDonald's are now in some larger grocery chains--like SuperTargets and Walmarts...

Also, they have these fast food joints that are the worst kind of food consumption for everyone. But people like them. So how are we going to legislate better healthy eating habits when people want to be supersized?

And the schools have found a way to capitalize on that market...

Did you have to take Hygiene or Consumer Ed in public school?

They canceled those classes when I got to high school. So we are talking about over 20 years of kids not having these kinds of classes.

[Kevin]

Monet, we more-less agree.

I think you hit at the fact that these things cost more is a business decision.

I think you're also correct that even if these things were more available, most folks would still opt for the crap food.

I think we're more-less agreeing that there is a problem that poor/uneducated lazy people won't cook for themselves, won't eat right, etc. Neither of us is really claiming that there's a solution.

I think where we differ is that I think this is not a problem -- that it's in society's interest for these folks to lead short lives.

[Tom Earp]

!

go to a grocery and try to buy food for one person for $21.00! Oh, a week!

Milk, 3.49 1/2 gal., if you can find it for that price. Eggs, $1.29 or 1.49, instant potatoes for 3.29, hot dogs for 1.39, bread, 1.89, butter .99, pizza for 1.59, insant gravey for .49 a packet, oh, how about meat, ground beef for 2.49 a lb.

Have we reached $21.oo yet?

Forget about anything else that might be a treat, Chow Mein, Boiled Shrimp, Chicken now at at 1.49 lb. Even Leg quarters that would go for .29 - .39 lb now .79 lb.

S**T people are amzaing on what they can do!

[AGDee]

I dunno where you're buying milk, but you're getting royally ripped off if you're paying $3.49 for a half gallon. I never pay more than $1 for a half gallon of milk because Kroger has it on sale every other week with their 10/$10 sales. I buy a couple chocolate and a couple skim and freeze one of each so I have some for the week it's not on sale.

I disagree that healthy food is more expensive than unhealthy food. Frozen pizzas are $4 a piece (unhealthy) but you can get 4 packages of frozen veggies for that when they're on sale. If you watch for the sales, you can get ground turkey for the same price as ground beef. Lite/Wheat bread costs the same thing as White bread. Not counting "staples" like sugar, flour, spices, etc, I think I could easily eat for $21 a week when I really think about it. Bananas are really cheap. A bag of oranges are $2.99. It wouldn't be super fun but it's doable. Concentrate lemonade and orange juice of the store brand also go on sale at 10/$10. I have to say, I love Kroger for their sales. Also, they don't require you to buy 10 to get the savings. So, 10/$10 also means 1/$1. Not all stores do that.

Family packs of pork chops, chicken and ground beef generally go on sale on opposite weeks from eachother. I buy one family pack of meat each pay period. One pay, I get pork chops, the next I get chicken, the next I get beef. I freeze a lot of stuff. In fact, my biggest cost saving feature is a large freezer in the basement.

I buy turkey lunch meat and freeze it in individual servings as soon as I get home. If I put it on a kids sandwich frozen, it thaws by the time they eat lunch. I can also grab a slice and toss it in with an egg for scrambled eggs and ham (add green food coloring to make it fun for the kids.. green eggs and ham). Before I started doing that, the lunch meat would go bad before we ate it all and I was throwing a lot of food away. Now I use every slice. It's little things that take a little effort but save you a ton of money.

Anyway, those are some of my grocery savings tips. I use them along with my time saving tips. For example, when I get that large package of ground beef or turkey, I immediately make a couple dinners worth of meatballs, a meatloaf, some hamburgers and then brown a bunch and make taco meat or sloppy joes. They all get frozen so when we have to eat fast because the kids have activities to get to, it's just a matter of warming things up. Super easy to make some nachos if you've pre-grated the cheese, chopped the tomatoes and just have to nuke the meat. Make it from turkey meat and you have a pretty cheap and easy meal. I spend about 2 hours every Sunday doing "pre-cooking" like this. I also wash/cut up all the fruit and put it in baggies for individual serving sizes. I used to end up throwing fruit out too, but when it's ready to eat, it gets eaten first.

[AKA_Monet]

Originally Posted by AGDee

I dunno where you're buying milk, but you're getting royally ripped off if you're paying $3.49 for a half gallon. I never pay more than $1 for a half gallon of milk because Kroger has it on sale every other week with their 10/$10 sales. I buy a couple chocolate and a couple skim and freeze one of each so I have some for the week it's not on sale.

I disagree that healthy food is more expensive than unhealthy food. Frozen pizzas are $4 a piece (unhealthy) but you can get 4 packages of frozen veggies for that when they're on sale. If you watch for the sales, you can get ground turkey for the same price as ground beef. Lite/Wheat bread costs the same thing as White bread. Not counting "staples" like sugar, flour, spices, etc, I think I could easily eat for $21 a week when I really think about it. Bananas are really cheap. A bag of oranges are $2.99. It wouldn't be super fun but it's doable. Concentrate lemonade and orange juice of the store brand also go on sale at 10/$10. I have to say, I love Kroger for their sales. Also, they don't require you to buy 10 to get the savings. So, 10/$10 also means 1/$1. Not all stores do that.

Family packs of pork chops, chicken and ground beef generally go on sale on opposite weeks from eachother. I buy one family pack of meat each pay period. One pay, I get pork chops, the next I get chicken, the next I get beef. I freeze a lot of stuff. In fact, my biggest cost saving feature is a large freezer in the basement.

I buy turkey lunch meat and freeze it in individual servings as soon as I get home. If I put it on a kids sandwich frozen, it thaws by the time they eat lunch. I can also grab a slice and toss it in with an egg for scrambled eggs and ham (add green food coloring to make it fun for the kids.. green eggs and ham). Before I started doing that, the lunch meat would go bad before we ate it all and I was throwing a lot of food away. Now I use every slice. It's little things that take a little effort but save you a ton of money.

Anyway, those are some of my grocery savings tips. I use them along with my time saving tips. For example, when I get that large package of ground beef or turkey, I immediately make a couple dinners worth of meatballs, a meatloaf, some hamburgers and then brown a bunch and make taco meat or sloppy joes. They all get frozen so when we have to eat fast because the kids have activities to get to, it's just a matter of warming things up. Super easy to make some nachos if you've pre-grated the cheese, chopped the tomatoes and just have to nuke the meat. Make it from turkey meat and you have a pretty cheap and easy meal. I spend about 2 hours every Sunday doing "pre-cooking" like this. I also wash/cut up all the fruit and put it in baggies for individual serving sizes. I used to end up throwing fruit out too, but when it's ready to eat, it gets eaten first.

In some respects you are right. In others, if poor folks NEVER read any newspapers or if homeless do not have a mail stop location, then how will they ever see these sales?

And if one's told they are lactose intolerant, then yes, they are not drinking milk in any size. And still, where does one plan to put this perishable item when they don't have a refrigerator? So that means they are drinking the powdered crap. While hella healthy for you in the milk department, it tastes like chit. But some folks can acquire a taste for crap.

And like I said, most poor people do not know how to put food together from "old mother hubbard's cupboard". Like my mother can take a meatball and generate a 5 course meal. I am not as good as her in doing that. And my grandmother, she can make ox tails on a broken stove eye that only has 2settings: off and on high. And when I did eat meat, it was some of the best ox tails I ever ate in my life.

So, maybe a few of us could do $21.00 per week. But folks are not as inventive as they use to be. Should that be an excuse? No. But that is what is going on.

ETA: For everyone: So most of my food as a vegetarian remains frozen for my lifestyle. It is not hard to put things in the oven/microwave when I want to eat it. I season with things like "Italian Salad Dressing" because you have the right amount of salt without over doing it. Then, my husband and I use canned veggies and some kind of non-perishable starch. I have also found a wok can be your best friend to take frozen mixed veggies with some type of faux meat or real prepared meat and stir fry. And folks for gravy, you learn that corn starch, arrowroot and some flour is your best friend. Morover, Lipton tea goes a long way, iced or otherwise... Hayle if you are smart, you can get the tea bags for free at Hotels. And for sugar, think about where you are going. As long as you have functional appliances, you can make just about anything. Hayle, I could make some breads if I have to. It may not taste too good at first, but I can perfect it.