I recently ran across this blog (forum?) called Chowhound, and this series of posts regarding eating well in San Francisco on $3 usd a day. From what I understand, some politicians tried to eat on $3 usd a day and concluded that it couldn't be done without resorting to junk food. The poster took up the challenge with some great results.
Then there was this article in the NY Times that stated that healthy food costs 10 times more than junk food. Wow! I have been pretty poor, and while I admit that my kids loved Ramen, when I finally read the label it stopped being a staple on our table, oh, it made it's appearance on occasion because it is an easy, tasty and fast lunch. Oops, I got off on a tangent, anyway, there was not a lot of junk food in my house. I find that premise disquieting at best, also I don't entirely agree. Junk food is expensive!
Reading the comments, there seemed to be a vocal group that said that while it was certainly possible to eat well for less, that diet would be boring. There was much maligning of the humble lentil. I think it is more than possible to eat well on less than $3 (for the purposes of this post I am using dollars because most of the information is in USD) but the key is variety in seasoning.
I also found this interesting slide show called "What the World Eats" on Time's website. There was an American family of 4 living in North Carolina who spent $341.98 usd per week, another 4 member family in California who spent $159.18, a Mexican family from Cuernavaca of 5 who spent $189.09 (did you see all that soda?), the family of 4 from Great Britain spent $253.15 and for contrast the 13 member family in Bhutan who spent and amazing $5.03! The German family of 4 spent the most, $500.07 a week.The photographs, shot by Peter Menzel are from the book "Hungry Planet".It sounds like a good read, it would also be interesting to know what percentages of the families' income is spent on food.
All this got me thinking about how much do I spend on food a week? Part of me wants to take the easy answer and say $60 max, but I don't really know. We have tried to keep track of our expenses with varying degrees of success, computer crashes and lack of follow through have been our downfall. I like to think that on an average I spent 600 pesos every 2 weeks at the grocery store, but that isn't accurate, since I also shop at Costco and that stuff lasts much longer (I have half of a jar of sun dried tomatoes in olive oil in the fridge that I bought about a year ago, I use the tomatoes but a little goes a long way.). So I think I am going to keep track of what I spend each day on food, starting tomorrow. I'll share the results with you next week.
I'm pretty sure that I spend less than $3 a day per person, but maybe I am deluding myself?
I also added a poll for you to participate in, how much do you spend?
There is a charity here in San Miguel that provides lunch for school children mostly out in the campos where they were sometimes going hungry. Some children said that in their family they only got to eat every other day and some children fainted at school. At any rate they have had a dietician help them develop the diets and it is vegetarian but they make it varied and tasty. They can provide a hot meal every school day for a child for $65 USD per year. I've been out to some of the schools. The kids love it and many times go back for seconds. I was at one school the day the new kitchen opened. Almost every kid went back at least once and some twice. These children are hungry.
ReplyDeletebillie, there is a very wonderful Canadian lady at the beach here, who started a food bank. The food bank now also provides breakfasts for school children in the small fishing town.
ReplyDeleteregards,
Theresa
Thank you for doing this, Theresa. It will be really helpful and I am looking forward to your numbers/descriptions. Also I enjoyed the Chowhound's writings and the pictures of the various families along with their foods and costs. Great post!
ReplyDeleteThank you Hammockman,
ReplyDeleteYour milage will vary, we are eating more salad and soup these days,and we aren't being particularly frugal. So we will see.
regrds,
Theresa