Week 1, SNAP Challenge planning

There are so many ways in which this challenge excites me but I’m trying to quell the urge to talk about all the ways at once. Let me instead start with a personal hypothesis about food, which is this: we’ve been sold a line that real food, organic and local food, is too expensive for all of us and if we could find a way for most families to afford it, it would take slaving in the kitchen constantly. We’ve been told that real, wholesome food is out of the reach of our resources, whether it be money or time or skill or all of them combined. Decades of big ag and food conglomerate propaganda has worked it magic on us, but what they have been selling us is not the truth. My belief is we've been sold a destructive myth.

The very nature of a hypothesis is that it is an idea, a proposal meant to explain certain facts or phenomena observed. You develop a hypothesis as a starting point and then you test it. I’ve been testing this hypothesis in various ways for a while now in my home life and in my development work on the “Eating Healthy on a Budget” class I offer at Common Ground, but this SNAP challenge is giving me a chance to test it in a whole new way.

But enough of my theories, let’s take this back to the kitchen! The SNAP Challenge is to eat for an entire week on the average food stamp allotment of $30, or a smidge over $4 a day. The way I see it, that means we’d better start our day with a breakfast, the most important meal of the day, on $1 or less. And our solutions have to be fast, because who’s got spare time in the morning most days?

I’ve got three ideas for fast, easy, nutritious-as-heck breakfasts: oatmeal, yogurt, and quiche. I have not costed these out beforehand, we’re going to do it right here, together. Will these fit into our $1 budget? I’ve decided its non-negotiable that I must fit in some healthy protein and fresh fruit into each of these meals. I’m thinking like a momma while doing this, and there’s no way I’d let my little boy out the door in the morning without either of those things to start his day right.

And so we begin with oatmeal. Ahhh, boring old oatmeal, the meal you can eat or use as spackle when it gets cold. Love it or hate it, you can’t beat it’s nutrition. Let’s take a look:

½ cup uncooked rolled oats
190 calories
7 grams protein
5 grams fiber
lots of iron and calcium

This is a great food to start the day with, especially for growing kids. Now, how do we make these oats the center of a well rounded meal for $1 or less and how do we make it interesting enough that kids from 1 to 99 will eat the darn stuff? I’ve got four different recipe ideas for how to do it. I made batches of two of them up this morning to test out on my willing partner and myself. We give them two big thumbs up. All prices listed in the recipes are from Common Ground Food Co-op.

Apple-Zip Oatmeal
½ cup organic rolled oats from the bulk bins ($0.14)
1 scant cup water
A pinch of salt
½ T Organic Valley butter ($0.13)
2 T Plank’s apple butter from Arcola, no-sugar-added variety ($0.20)
2 T walnuts from the bulk bins, diced ($0.16)
1/4 tsp cinnamon powder from the bulk bins ($0.01)

Instructions:
Put the oats, salt, and water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat with a lid on. Once it reaches a boil, turn it down to a low simmer and let do its thing for 10 minutes. While its cooking, mix the apple butter, cinnamon, and walnuts in a heat-proof single-serving bowl. When the oats are done pour them into your heat proof-bowl and mix well with the other ingredients. Put the butter on top to melt and serve.

Total cost: $0.66 per serving
Total calories: 397
Total time to make: 12 minutes

What I love about this oatmeal recipe: Its so easy! But then, all oatmeal is. Well, let’s talk then about how the walnuts add essential fatty acids to your day that are crucial for everything from heart health to brain function (especially important for young, developing brains) as well as more protein and calcium and a nice dose of mood-balancing B vitamins. The apple butter boosts the fiber count of the whole meal and makes the dish sweet without added sugar. My first batch was sans butter, but Mike felt it needed a creamy-salty note and that butter would fit the bill. We added it and felt it really did make a big enough difference to be worth including. Vegans, feel free to sub this out with Earth Balance, the cost is very similar. Mike felt the cinnamon flavor was a little intense at the original ½ tsp suggestion, so we cut it back to ¼ tsp. Perfection.

Mighty Monkey Oatmeal
½ cup organic rolled oats from the bulk bins ($0.14)
1 scant cup water
A pinch of salt
1.5 T cashew butter from the bulk bins ($0.32)
1 T local honey ($0.14)
½ an organic banana, thinly sliced ($0.16)
7 organic dark chocolate chips from the bulk bins ($0.05)

Instructions:
Put the oats, salt, and water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat with a lid on. Once it reaches a boil, turn it down to a low simmer and let do its thing for 10 minutes. While its cooking, mix the cashew butter, half the banana slices and honey in a heat-proof single-serving bowl. When the oats are done pour them into your heat proof-bowl and mix well with the other ingredients. Edge the bowl with banana slices and use the chocolate chips to draw a smiley face on top and serve!

Total cost: $0.79 per serving
Total calories: 526
Total time to make: 12 minutes

What I love about this oatmeal recipe: This one was my pick for breakfast this morning and it was so delicious I was swooning! This is a super kid-friendly bowl of oats but lemme tell you, big kids can enjoy this too. I used cashew butter just because so many parents have concerns about peanut allergies but if that is not a factor in your house you can switch to peanut butter instead and save another $0.07 per serving. The chocolate chips are, of course, optional, but they add almost no cost and the way they start to melt into the warm oatmeal is a special treat. Plus, imagine the delight of kids waking up to that chocolate smiley face as breakfast! Those chips might be the deciding factor in getting a child to give oatmeal a try, you never know.

Nutritionally, the banana added a whole bunch more fiber not to mention a big dose of vitamin C, magnesium, and B vitamins. And again, the fabulousness of nuts! The nut butter, no matter which one you used, added essential fatty acids to keep those neurons firing great all day and if you added cashew butter there was a good bit of magnesium, if you used peanut butter there was an extra super charge of iron to keep your energy up for the whole day.

This dish is super filling and full of calories and that’s a great thing. I don’t often get to say its “great” that a dish is calorically robust, but when you are trying to feed adults with physically demanding jobs, teens, or growing kids of any age on only $4 a day, getting in enough calories is a real factor.

I took some great pics of this oatmeal dish this morning, then realized hours later that I didn’t have the memory card in my camera when I took them. Shoot. I promise, pics in my next post! Oh, and while it took 12 minutes from starting this dish to serving, most of that was waiting for the oats, I had plenty of time to wash a few dishes and set the table in there too.

We’re not done with oatmeal yet, I’ve got a few more good ideas for you: the kid-approved PB&J oatmeal bowl and the Peach Dream oatmeal bowl made with fresh, in season peaches. I’m sure I’ll have more ruminations to share on food and the cost of it then too. Got a favorite way to fix oatmeal? Please share in the comments!