I am longing for...

I am longing for fruit.

Oranges and peaches that are so ripe the juice drips off my hands and face as I eat them.  Berries that are bursting with flavor...each one an explosion of pleasure.  Limes and lemons and grapefruit that in their perfect tartness make my lips automatically pucker.  Watermelons that I can eat in the yard and spit seeds like a kid.  Pears that in their gritty sweetness make me grin in pleasure.

It is a longing...a yearning...a hunger...for fruit!

SNAP Volunteer Day...and a free meal, too!

I'm stuffed!  I ate way too much, and I ate every bit of what was on my plate.  It was the best meal I had all week, and it was free!  Did I mooch off family or drop in on friends?  No.  I just did a volunteer day over at The Community Table in Eau Claire.  If you've read my earlier posts, you know that the volunteers and staff at The Community Table cook and serve the meal, eat with the community members who come for the meal, and then clean up the mess after.  It's pretty much like working a potluck in the basement of the Lutheran Church; but the menu is planned, it is on the first floor, and there are members of all religions and traditions working and being served.

By the time I got there, stations were set up in the kitchen and different projects were happening in different areas.  One station was working on chopping vegetables for the Ramen noodle salad, a station was working on cleaning and drying lettuce for tossed salad, and one station was busily dicing eggs for the egg salad.  I was quickly dispatched to make the dressing for the ramen noodle salad and was given a young helper named Zach to be the ramen noodle master.  His job was to open the packets of ramen and bust up the noodles.  We called it "rage against the ramen."

There is no time wasted and no food wasted in that kitchen.  Kim guided us through the recipes, the serving and the cleanup with minimum fuss.  We even had some time to prep some fruit for the Sunday meal and clean some potatoes for the Monday meal.  Between sharing the labor, we shared a lot of laughter.  The mouths were moving as fast as the hands--it was like preparing a meal with an extended family of strangers.

There was a man who played the piano in the corner.  He came with binders of music and went from one song to another without taking much of a break between them. At first, I thought there was a radio in the dining area, then I realized it was just one man.  He was fantastic!  He must have played for about an hour.  Then he just packed up his music, got a tray of food, and sat down to eat.  Another man took his place at the piano and started plunking out a blues melody.  It was wonderful!

After the line dwindled down to stragglers, a few stayed to serve and the rest of us caught our meal.  That is when the reality of The Community Table sets in--you get to see where we as a nation are failing people.  I discovered that poverty has no race.  It has no age.  It has no gender.  Poverty can strike any one of us.  I sat there thinking that if I didn't have insurance, I would be one health crisis away from being on the other side of the counter.  What if I had a condition that manifested itself behaviorally and I couldn't afford my medication?  I could be the woman saying, "Don't talk to me!  Just trouble!  Just trouble!"  I could be the parent there with my cognitively disabled child getting her a healthy meal.

Without a decent job with decent insurance, I could be the person who had just finished my meal, brought my plate back to the counter, packed up all my worldly belongings, pulled my hood back over my head, and went back out in the rain.

SNAP Challenge Observation: Healthy, Quick, and INEXPENSIVE Food is Hard to Find. Need to find a SNAP Nutritionist

One of the challenges I'm running into with the challenge is finding healthy, quick and inexpensive foods.  I need something portable for the days that I'm on the run.  A lot of the time, I'm resorting to oatmeal with cinnamon and a few raisins thrown in for flavor.  Normally, my oatmeal would have pecans in as well, but I just can't afford the luxury.  Today, for instance, I was going to get up and make oatmeal pancakes, but the yard is like a hay field and I need to be to work by 11:30 this morning.  Instead, as I write this, I'm eating oatmeal.

I was going to make banana bread out of the bananas that I have on the counter, but maybe muffins will be a better choice.  I could also make some rhubarb muffins.  Muffins aren't always a nutrition powerhouse; but at least when I make my own, I'm sure that they won't all be sugar and no nutrition.  

If I was a bread eater, this would be much easier, but a lot of things made with yeast make my allergies go catawampus.  Sandwiches are such a great idea, aren't they.  Every culture seems to have their version; some are wrapped in bread, some in a tortilla, some in a pita, some in a dough.  Portable food for the working class is a very old idea--additives are the new idea.

If you look at the basic ingredients of fast food, it isn't bad.  Then examine the amount of sodium, preservatives, corn syrup, flavor enhancers, fat and mystery chemicals that are in it and it becomes something else entirely.  So many people end up resorting to the drive-through, though, because they do not know how to cook or don't think they have the time and this food is turning us into an unhealthy nation.  It is, however, cheap and easy and filling.

Today's mission for me is to find a SNAP Nutritionist for the County and find out how a person on food stamps can make a healthy, inexpensive meal on the go.

SNAP Challenge field trip: Learning about the Community Table

Today, I sat down with Rachel from the Community Table and what I learned is too much to write about on one blog post, so I will give you an overview of the organization and go more in depth with some other aspects in later blogs.

The Community Table in a nonprofit organization whose main mission is twofold:

1)      They serve meals to those who need food or community.  (I want to interject here that there is no income requirement to eat at The Community Table.  If you are lonely and just want human interaction and a really good meal, they are there.  It is so much more than a soup kitchen!)

2)      They educate the public on nutritional needs of the community.  (Another personal aside…This education extends toward the client as well as the volunteers as well.  When one is taught to cook and eat nutritional meals for themselves and for others, one learns to make better food choices.)

The Community Table has a small staff, but they rely on volunteer teams of (hopefully) at least six people from the community to cook the meals and do the serving and clean up after.  There is a cost for each team to prepare a meal at The Community Table.  The minimum suggested donation is $100 and eight gallons of milk.  There was a time, when the church and civic organizations that would send teams to The Community Table would have to plan their own meal and do their own shopping; but over time, having Tami, the kitchen manager, plan the meals and provide everything but the milk was found to work better. 

You see, the Community Table is able to get fresh produce and other food donations from local business and get food at reduced cost from Feed My People Food Bank.  No hassle for the volunteer team to try to think up a menu and an incredibly nutritious, incredibly delicious meal prepared on site.  The money the team donates then goes to pay for the costs of rent, utilities, etc.  For those of us who work a full-time job but still want to volunteer, this works out so much better!

In the summer months, it is hard for The Community Table to find volunteer teams.   People get busy with vacations and the kids are off from school.  Hunger doesn’t take a vacation, though.  What better learning experience for your kids than to go together with a couple of other families and form a volunteer serving team.  After the serving is done, the volunteer team is encouraged to sit down with the community members and staff.

This interaction with each other is one of the really great things about The Community Table.  There is a magic that happens when people get together over a meal.  Barriers come down and the social stigmas go away.  We are just people coming together and showing some loving kindness.  And like we all know from any church dinner in any church basement in the world, food is an incredible way to nurture.

 

Survived a week on the SNAP Challeng...lost ten pounds

Well, I did a week!  I survived, but I've purchased food for 4 weeks; so I have another three weeks to go.  Can I make it to the end of the month without spending any more money?  I will do it the same way someone who is on the system does it and I'll take you with me on the journey.

The other side to this is that I lost ten pounds in the first week.  You see, my goal on the SNAP challenge is to eat healthy food and see how far I can go with it.  Since I need to ration my food, it doesn't go far.  As of today, I am heeding the advice of the people at Human Services, Rachel at the Community Table, and Emily at the food bank--I will be taking a multivitamin for the duration of my time eating within the challenge.

I visited with Rachel at the Community Table this morning.  I'll blog more about it later--my head is spinning with the amount of  information that I received.  There is no one post that could do any one of these organizations justice.  I got my first assistance beyond SNAP today.  Rachel sent me home with some coffee.  Food may equal love in many cultures, but coffee equals camaraderie.

x

My SNAP Challenge garden is in. What is available for SNAP recipients who don't have land but want a garden?

I thought I was done planting my garden, but my husband let me know that if he was a SNAP recipeint that his garden would have radishes in it.  So, yesterday, I went to the Amish greenhouse down the road to get some radish seeds and found a 50% off sale in progress.  I got radish, beet, squash and popcorn seeds and plants for tomatoes and peppers.  The whole lot cost me $3.14.  Total Score!

It wasn't raining this morning, so I covered myself with deet and planted the rest of my garden.  It was a foggy, muggy morning and the woodpeckers were in the trees just beyond the chicken coop calling to each other and drumming on the poplars.  It was my own personal jungle and I was hoping the tropical plants like the tomatoes and peppers would appreciate the humid weather more than I did.

Later, I called the University of Wisconsin Extension office in Eau Claire to ask them about community gardens.  They actually have garden plots for rent for anyone who wants one--no income requirement to qualify.  It is just a first-come-first-served system.  The county tills the land in the spring and mows the surrounding grass. There is a porta-potty (do not just drop trou in the garden, please!) and a hydrant to provide water for the gardens.

The plot renter needs to provide the seeds, labor, tools (including hose), and fee.  This year, the fee is $35 dollars and it is for a plot that is 20 x 45.  Usually, the ones closest to the water are the first ones to be spoken for.  There are still plots available, so if you are on SNAP and want to plant a garden and your landlord isn't cool with you tilling up the yard you can find more information here: http://eauclaire.uwex.edu/community-gardens/  Remember, though, that there is no income requirement to rent the plots; so if you are flush with cash but are land poor, you can still rent a plot and start a garden.

There are other community gardens around the area that rent out spaces and some that share the food among the volunteers and with the Community Table.  I hope to contact some of the people in charge of them to find out more and share the information.

So, about the Community Table...One of the things I've been hearing by many in the hunger aid field is that I need to go there.  It is a hub of activity and there is no income requirement to eat there.  If you are lonely and just need to connect with humans, it is there for you.  I'm meeting with Rachel from the Community Table tomorrow morning to find out more.  She said she would make coffee.  I'm so there!

Signing up for SNAP benefits

Yesterday, I spoke with someone at Human Services about SNAP.  If someone has just lost their job, they don't always qualify for SNAP because they may still have income coming in that after the final calculations puts them over the income threshold.  There will be final paychecks and perhaps a severance package.  If they DO qualify, they don't always qualify for the total amount of benefits because the formula to determine qualification takes into account the amount of people in the home, childcare costs, energy costs, disabled or elderly family members, etc.  It isn't just a matter of a person going in because they just can't budget well and having to get food stamps.

If there is no income coming in, the person/family can get an express application where they will be issued a card that day with enough benefits on it to get them started.  Otherwise the application takes 30 days to go through the system.  Meanwhile, many of them go to organizations that deal with hunger insecurity:  food shelters, community meal programs, churches, etc.  SNAP is supposed to be supplemental, but it turns out that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program often needs to be supplemented.

Through my time on this challenge, however long I last, I will go into the different parts of the hunger network and see how they work together to help keep people fed.  I will be focusing on my area of western Wisconsin and will try to get stories from cities and small towns.

As for my own time on the challenge...I've had popcorn on the stove for dinner two times this week.  I'm afraid to eat too much because I can see everything that is left for the month.  I have my own shelf of groceries in the house.  That's right--shelf!  I also have my own shelf in the freezer downstairs because I figure a lot of families don't have a freezer to store extra food in, so they usually have only what is attached to their refrigerator.

As for the feeling of frustration and anger that comes with being hungry, my Human Services friend said that they refer to it as being hangry.  I wonder how much bad behavior nationwide is due to hangry people?

Is coffee a luxury on SNAP?

My coffee isn't going to last the month.  For many, that wouldn't matter, but I'm of Nordic descent, and there is always a pot of coffee brewing.  Over the years, the coffee has gotten more and more expensive.  I still buy it at the store, but it isn't the cheap stuff one gets in a can.  That may change very rapidly.  I have a bit of money left for the month's supplies and may get a small can of cheap-o coffee.

 SNAP benefits include food AND beverages, so a person's morning coffee counts toward that.  You could make the argument that someone on assistance doesn't need a luxury like coffee.  I disagree.  The English have their tea, and the Scandinavians have their coffee.  It is the start of the day and breakfast for some.

Where we have gone awry, is to have turned a simple beverage into a luxury by adding stuff to it.  When it comes in a special cup with its own little cardboard wrap...when it contains flavored syrups...if it is topped with whipped cream or frothed milk...if it has a cutesy little name...

If your cup of  coffee costs as much as a meal on the SNAP benefits, then it is a luxury.  If someone on SNAP can find a can of coffee that costs less than what we spend for a designer coffee drink and they consider that stuff to be a luxury to them...I say let them have it and don't give them grief about it!

Hungry = Cranky

Fair warning folks, hungry makes me cranky.  My brain does not function well without nutrients and that makes me frustrated and edgy.  It's only day four and I've committed myself to at least 30 days.  I wonder if it becomes a way of life after awhile.  I wonder how long it takes for the human body to get used to a decrease in the amount of food ingested?  Hmm...

I envied someone sitting in the lunchroom at work eating a big ol' takeout burger and some fries.  I don't like fast food, but it smelled SO good to me.  I wanted to sit at his feet and beg a french fry.  At that point, I would have probably held it on the tip of my nose if that's what it took.  I left the room before I embarrassed myself.

Ahhh...rhubarb. Cheap and versatile!

Pardon me if I wax poetic about rhubarb.  I am of Scandinavian descent, so it has been a part of my life since I was yay high.  One of the first plants I learned about was rhubarb.  Mom gently steered me away from the burdock toward Nordic nirvana.   "Shiny leaves, Cissy, shiny leaves.  Don't eat the leaves, just the stem."

In the summertime, when we visited cousins or they visited us, the adults could entertain us by just giving us a glass with some sugar in the bottom.  The oldest child would have a knife to cut the leaves off the rhubarb and we would rub the dirt off and dip it in the sugar and eat it.  One sugar glass was usually good for three or four kids.  If we got scrappy or hoggish on the sugar, any random adult would just holler, "Share!"  If things didn't settle down, the sugar went back in the house and we got no more of the tart treat.

This morning, I spent a few hours making rhubarb lemonade.  It is really easy to make and I am going to can my bounty.   Here's how to make it:  Take 8-9 nice sized stalks of rhubarb and cut it in chunks into a large pot.  Cover with 8 cups of boiling water.  Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 45 minutes to get all the flavor out of the rhubarb.  Strain it into another large container and add 1/3 cup sugar and 5 drops of red food coloring while it is still hot.  Cool, pour over ice and enjoy!

Fair warning....rhubarb has laxative properties for some people, so you might not want to make this a steady part of the diet.  Here's more about rhubarb...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhubarb

While the rhubarb was simmering, I tilled my garden plot from last year.  I wasn't going to plant a big garden, but this adventure is teaching me that even if I can't use it all, someone else can.

Feeling real hunger

I couldn't get to sleep last night.  I was hungry.  Real hunger.  I can't remember the last time I felt real hunger.  It is an empty feeling.  A restlessness.  Almost a pain.  At about midnight I got up and made myself some oatmeal with some raisins.  I'm doing my best to stay healthy on this challenge, but there isn't enough protein for me.

I remember being poor as a child, but we lived on a dairy farm.  I don't remember being hungry, though.  We raised our own beef and had unlimited milk.  We had a huge garden and my mom canned everything we didn't eat fresh.  Nothing went to waste.

As I got further and further away from poverty, I wasted more.  I'm ashamed at the amount of food that I've thrown away over the years--lettuce and other vegetables that just never became a salad...meats that soured in the refrigerator...leftovers that never made it to the lunchbox or freezer.  I wonder how many people could be fed on just what the United States throws away in food a year?  Here's a link to some fantastic information about food waste in America.

http://www.facethefactsusa.org/facts/supersized-hunger-pangs-supersized-waste-infographic/

SNAP Stew

Today, I made beef stew out of some of the groceries and it tasted fantastic.  Here's how to make it...

Take 8 ounces of mock tender or some other really cheap-o cut and cut it into chunks.  Brown it in a couple of tablespoons of oil (I used corn oil because it is cheap).  Add in two peeled and diced potatoes and two peeled and diced carrots and a half an onion peeled and cut into chunks.  Add two cups of water and some beef bullion and whatever other spices or herbs take your fancy.  (I added in some Herbs Provence because the jar came with the spice set and I just never use them.  Smash them up to release the most flavor.)  Add a can of diced tomatoes and simmer on low until everything is tender.  Thicken.  (I used oat flour because I forgot to buy flour and have a lot of oatmeal.  Just run the oatmeal through the food processor until it becomes flour.)  Ta Da!  SNAP Stew!

I even let my husband have a bowl. <grin>  He's not doing the challenge with me, but he is totally supportive of my adventure.  He did tell me that even people on SNAP probably end up with visitors on occasion.  Hint..hint...could he have a bowl?  Of course, I would never deny him food; I'll add more water to the stew if things get to tough at the end of the 30 days.

The situation did bring up a good point, though--social interaction is pretty much inevitable.  If a family is on SNAP and their child brings someone home with them, doesn't that just make that whole end of the month thing even more difficult?  Is there just more water added to the stew to make it go further?   What do you do when there is nothing left to water down?

So...maybe for a month? Maybe more?

So, as I mentioned yesterday, I had originally planned to be on the SNAP challenge for only a week.  Then I went over the amount of groceries by $6.50.  When I got home and piled the groceries on the counter, I went through what I could and couldn't live without and the cost of each item.  I fianlly decided that if I did away with the chicken breasts and one pound of rice, I would come in just under the financial limitations.  That would be easy enough.  I could actually do that--anyone can live this way for a week. Hmm...but what if I tried it for a month and wrote about my experience?  Hence, the blog.

Yesterday, I got the bright idea to talk to someone in Human Services and find out what the average time is that someone is on SNAP.  Maybe I could try this for that long.  It would be interesting to me to find out how much I can learn about who is really receiving SNAP benefits and how they make it month to month.  I want to learn from those who work in the field of Human Services and in hunger relief to find out how much of a problem exists out there.  We are such an agriculturally rich country.  How are people going hungry?

I've also learned that the $4.50 a day is a national average.  I want to be as true to my area as possible, so I researched what the average SNAP benefits in Wisconsin and got a really cool national chart. http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/18SNAPavg$PP.htm  Last year, the average monthly SNAP benefits in Wisconsin were $116.50.  That is just under $1.39 a meal.  My challenge to myself just got harder.  If a person has lost their job and needs to go on assistance for awhile to survive, how do they survive?

I will tell you that I am allowing myself to forage for food and pick wild berries and fruits.  Also, I consider rhubarb an edible backyard weed.  It is found in yards across Wisconsin and I've never met anyone who actually had to pay for it.  Rhubarb is definitely on the table for supplemental foods for me.  I'll be getting out my foraging guides and finding out what is edible in my yard.  I've always wondered what dandelions taste like...maybe I'll give them a shot.  I do know that a plain lettuce salad is not what I'm used to and I'm already willing to put weeds and grass on it to make it taste better.

I'm already feeling an emotional loss to food.  It's strange.  I miss mushrooms and red peppers and don't know if I will be able to afford them by the end of the month.

I am a fresh vegees person, so I've taken some of my SNAP money and put toward seeds and plants to feed me later; but the trade-off is that I will probably be hungry by the end of the month because I am planning for the future.  That is one of the cool things about the SNAP program that actually does make sense from a health standpoint--the recipients can use the SNAP benefits to buy seeds and plants that will produce food.  Problem is, where the devil do they plant them?  I guess that's a topic for another post...

Shopping is a SNAP...maybe

At the risk of this sounding cheesy and cliche', my decision to do the SNAP challenge really was a snap decision.  I am an impulsive person by nature who doesn't put a lot of deep forethought into life decisions.  I go a lot on instinct and it seems to work for me.  Granted, I've had some hair-raising experiences; but I've had some fun along the way and have learned about different ways of life and different philosophies.

I digress.  Back to SNAP...after I googled the SNAP challenge rules, I thought it would be an easy little adventure.  How hard could it possibly be to live on $4.50 a day?  I am the youngest of seven kids from a poor farming family, so it isn't like this is something I've never been through.  I condescendingly convinced myself this would be a cakewalk.  Then I went shopping for my food...

Initially, I was only going to do SNAP for a week.  I just needed to buy $31.50 in healthy groceries and live on them.  Total breeze.  I stopped at the grocery store on my way to work to pick up an ad to make a list.  I would be in and out of the store in the usual half hour it takes me to shop.

The ad itself is a lesson in how we eat in the United States.  As I read it over, I was struck by the sheer volume of prefabricated food that we have available.  We have so much that is convenient and easy to make, but it is filled with preservatives and flavor enhancers.  But, boy is it cheap!   I got a sense that the reason some people on SNAP don't always buy the healthiest options is because if they did, they would run out of food by the end of the month.

So, I got to the store and picked up the stuff on my list and added a couple of things that I totally forgot to put on there.  I scored big on rice...it was .68 a pound!  Chicken breasts...mock tenderloin...beans...dry cheese soup...vegees...coffee (yes, dammit! I'm human!) Thing is, my normal 20 minute shopping expedition took 90 minutes.  It takes a lot of brain power to actually think of healthy and inexpensive.  I kept backtracking...doing recipes in my mind.  One cut of meat could be four different meals, but I would need this...and this...and this....and that.  Still, I thought I did pretty darn well and was proud of myself.

Until the checkout clerk told me that the total was $37.75.  Epic failure!  I was sure I had done it!  Then it dawned on me that if I was an actual SNAP recipient and had reached the end of my benefits for the month, I would have had to decide in line at the checkout what needed to be put back.  I could not imagine how embarrassing that would be!

I've been behind that person before.  I've been the one to give that unkind, dehumanizing sigh.  I hope I never do that again.  It's hard enough to do the math on returns and redo the meal planning without a jerk behind you making noise.

What is SNAP and What is the SNAP Challenge?

I'm still new to the world of Twitter, so I'm often looking up what some of the acronyms are that people use.  RT is a retweet, MT is a modified tweet, etc.  Add to that, each party affiliation has their loving little acronyms for each other that save space on a tweet.  I ran across one recently that I just couldn't figure out and had to google to find the meaning--it was #SNAP.

SNAP is the acronym for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program which is  known to many as Food Stamps.  SNAP has gotten a lot of press lately because a large cut to it was attached to the Farm Bill that was submitted to the House.  I started  to see more tweets about the SNAP challenge, but what is  the SNAP challenge?

Again, I relied on my friend google to give me the answer.   The SNAP challenge rules are simple:
*Exist nutritionally on what a person receives on the SNAP program--$4.50 per day
*Do not eat any food purchased before the start of the challenge
*Eat as healthy as possible

I decided to do it.  Spur of the moment...seat of my pants...I can do this!

So, folks (if anyone ever reads this), this is my life on the SNAP program...

http://mazon.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/SNAP-Challenge.pdf