- its amazing what having experience and skills in budgeting and meal planning can do!
- the Food For All recipes are truly great tools
If you read my earlier post today, you know this isn't my first brush with eating on a very tight budget. Last time I was brand new to adult responsibility, lacking any skill or experience with cooking or finances, and had few options for help. This time, its voluntary and I am taking it on after 16 years of running family budgets and meal planning as well as years of business budgeting and learning cooking skills in a commercial kitchen for five years. And yes, it is much, much easier and much less frightening. I chose that word intentionally, because I was afraid the first time when it came to food. I was afraid of ruining the little food we could afford with my lack of skills. I was afraid of having to just eat foods I could barely stand and dealing with how that lack of pleasure would wear me down. That's one of those things we are not suppose to care about when we are poor, right? Heck, we can hardly acknowledge that pleasure is necessary for our healthy functioning when we aren't poor. We feel guilty talking about it, but its how humans are wired. Without pleasure we become depressed and angry, life starts lacking the sparkle that makes it worth living. And I'm not talking about the kind of overload we call pleasure or "fun" often these days, I am talking about just eating a meal that taste good, satisfies your hunger fully, and leaves you feeling peaceful. This time I was not afraid, I knew I could make delicious, satisfying meals even if I had to skip favorite ingredients now and then. I had skills and faith in those skills backing me up this time, and that is a huge difference.
Like most of us, I am very uncomfortable saying out loud that anything I've done or been a part of is pretty darn great, so this isn't easy for me to say, but I am so proud of the Food for All recipes. I cannot imagine getting through this challenge without them, where would I have found the time to figure out what I could afford to cook? I work between 45-55 hours a week, my partner works full time, and we are raising an active toddler. I'm also one of those people who is always over committing, using my "spare" time to work on community projects I care about. Oh, and I occasionally, very occasionally, make time to even see a friend for an hour or two. Last week I sick half the week, the week before that I traveled all week for work, this week I have a huge event at work I am working on. I can't imagine where I would have found the time. Luckily, I could just pull out all my Food for All recipe files and just go shopping and plan the week's meals within a short time. I can't wait to design more of these, they feel like one of the best things I've ever put my energy into right now.
So, what did I eat today? Here's the list and the cost:
Breakfast -
organic rolled oats with peanut butter, honey, sliced banana, and a few chocolate chips, $0.63
Lunch -
2 cups spicy black bean soup made at home, 1 slice whole wheat bread, $1.36
Snack -
1 small local apple and 2T raw almonds, $0.72
Dinner -
Ramrong Over Noodles (Food for All recipe), $1.82
TOTAL for the day: $4.51 (goal of $4.50)
Oats are such a satisfying and filling meal, I may actually have to work to resist having this oatmeal bowl for breakfast and dinner some days, its so easy and delicious! But I am aiming to have a varied diet so I don't miss too many vitamins, so I'll try not to give into the urge. Seriously, I like it that much, it might as well be dessert.
By the time I got to lunch I was hungry, but that made an otherwise ho-hum lunch rather delicious, I so appreciated the food. I do usually eat a mid-morning snack of fruit or nuts, so it was a bit challenging to skip it, but no big deal. Yet. But by the time I got to mid-afternoon I was glad I had planned to spend my whole snack budget then because I was starving and getting sleepy. The snack gave me the pick me up I needed.
By the time I got to cooking dinner I was once again quite hungry, not starving, but certainly wanting my food. When I portioned out the cooked food I almost clapped for joy to see how big the portion was, take a look!
Trust me, that looked like heaven to me, I was so happy to know I was going to leave the dinner table with a happy and full belly.
All day I noticed a side effect I had not expected - I was so excited about food! I would have just enough food in my belly to power me to my next meal and by the time I got to that meal I was truly delighted with the sight and smell of my food from the second I began heating or cooking it and felt like a gleeful child when I got to the meal itself, ready to dig into that first bite. I had forgotten this feeling and how it was how I felt about food all the time as a kid (except when mom made stuff I didn't like, of course. Poor mom!) I feel almost weird admitting this, it sounds like I am saying living on a food stamp budget is some kind of party and that's not what I want to convey at all. I am not under the kind of stress someone on food stamps is under and that makes all the difference. This is not about walking the razor edge of hunger for me but instead an intellectual and emotional exercise. The stakes are not the same, they could never be compared. That said, this is an unlooked for but welcome blessing from participating in this challenge, I am truly bowled over by it and wonder if it will continue or if it will turn into irritation. Right now, it is bringing me mindfulness of my food and of my good fortune, and I am grateful.
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