Astrogirl

The USDA offers what they call a Thrifty Food Plan which is a guide to feeding a family of four on food stamps. They studied this in 2000 in Washington, DC by attempting to purchase their recommended foods at urban supermarkets.

This report, compiled in May of 2001 details the shopping order and the results of their urban foraging. A few factoids from this:

• Eight items were hard to find in urban markets. In order, starting with the hardest: ground pork, fudgesicles, yolk-free egg noodles, breadcrumbs, cottage cheese (!?), bagels, garbanzo beans, chocolate chips.
• During the time studied, the TFP cost was an average of $101.70 for a family of four
• The TFP market basket costs almost the same in high poverty areas ($98.26) and low poverty areas ($98.92)
• Meats and meat alternatives take the largest share of the TFP dollars at $25.98. Following a distant second is frozen fruits and vegetables at $14.70. Based on our experience so far, I’d guess that dairy has outpaced frozen vegetables by now. In 2000, dairy was at $10.40.

Here’s what was used up in the second week of the two-week TFP meals. You will note that it is impossible to purchase food in these amounts, so they are clearly going by unit costs, not the grocery bill total.

All of the information that went into this study cost the taxpayers millions of dollars. The menus were formulated at great expense, and brochures are given out to folks on food stamps, yet the congressmen trying to live on $21 a week took advantage of *none* of this. The only one that seems to have even taken a crack at eating a balanced diet is Congressman Jim McGovern and wife Lisa. The right way to do this would have been to go to the USDA and get the shopping lists, recipes and meal plans that they offer for free to anyone who asks.

Here are the recipes that match up to the TFP shopping lists. Reading the recipes, the food sounds a lot better than it looks on their meal plan. “Pizza meatloaf” sounds gross, but the recipe sounds perfectly reasonable. It’s a meatloaf that uses spaghetti sauce in place of catsup and adds some mozzerella cheese to the meat.

I find their effort hard to take seriously, and we will be setting out to prove them wrong starting today. I really don’t have any doubts we can get enough food on $1 per meal per person. I do have to cook everything, but if my only income were from the government or even if I were working part time, I would certainly be able to do this. I do work *now* and I can do it. If I were commuting, I’d do more cooking today and I would probably plan that more lunches be from leftovers.

Rebecca Blood is living within the actual food stamp budget ($74 for two). She’s eating one heck of a lot better than we will be as she belongs to a produce cooperative. We just don’t have that available here. Eating cheap or no, I’d be all over that.

Here’s her site for Week 1 of her challenge

This is the breakdown of where we spent the money. It actually comes out to $54.04, not $54.11, so I picked up 7 cents somewhere.

I normally do all my shopping at Martin’s. I went to Food Lion because Martin’s does not carry any ramen that’s vegetarian, and Top is better than Maruchan anyway. While I was there, I bought the other items on sale.

Before you think I went running all over town, don’t. Food Lion and Big Lots are on the SE corner of Remount Rd and South Street and Martin’s is on the SW corner of the same intersection.

I usually don’t by house brands, and I usually spend pretty indescriminately on produce. Also, I usually buy Morningstar Farms products for both of us and one kind of meat for me. Both are too expensive for this plan, but I like bean dishes and this diet is quite healthy anyway. I also wouldn’t normally buy margarine instead of butter or “vegetable” oil. I usually use peanut for cooking and olive for other things. Dry milk, of course, is not something I’d buy, and I do normally drink coffee instead of tea.

I’ve gotten a lot of money saving ideas from Miss Maggie, the Hillbilly Housewife. She really knows how to stretch a food dollar and has great, simple, satisfying and nutritious recipes. As you can see just by my groceries, I’ve gone the southern route with the food. It’s cheap AND tasty!

I am using a bread maker, but you can pick those things up at Goodwill and garage sales for not much money, so it would be a good investment for someone anyway. The general government guideline is 30% going for food spending, so that leaves 70% for a one time investment that will be usable for a long, long time.

Other than that, I’m not using any special equipment. It’s just not necessary. I’ll measure the nutritiousness of this diet on fitday.com. I will give my public address out later once I start posting over there.

Some of the congresscritters are trying to get the food stamp allocation increased and are pulling a publicity stunt.

They are trying to eat on $21 per week. That number is basically pulled out of a hat as it is an average of what a food stamp recipient *spends*, not what they actually get. You can get partial food stamp assistance, or, if you are truly poor, you can get the maximum allotment which is $155 for one person for one month. All the food stamp money is put on a debit (EBT) card at the beginning of the month, and it’s use it or lose it, but they do get it all at once.

Part of the stunt here is that they are trying to fail because that will prove their point. They have *no* idea how to cook (apparently) or shop on very little money. They are assuming they have $21 for seven days, not that they would be buying more heavily at the beginning of the month and then filling in the used up items. It’s much cheaper to buy quantities on sale, and this is what any sane person would do. No one on food stamps wants to be hungry, so they are going to try to make the most of that money. The congresscritters are NOT doing this.

Since this disgusts me, we will doing this next week (May 20 - May 26). I have purchased $51.42 worth of groceries, but this includes *everything* including 8 qts. dry milk, salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, chili powder, baking powder, soy sauce, 100 tea bags and 32 oz of vegetable oil. I will not use that stuff up in a week. I’ve figured unit costs and getting the actual foods used down to $42 will be a snap, I think.

We’ll be logging recipes and meal costs over at Tinotopia, so keep an eye on his site. Just to give you an idea of what was purchased, here’s the list and it’s costs:

Like I said, I don’t expect to use 15 oz of spices in week, never mind the veg oil and salt.

Recipes and other info later — probably at Tino’s site.

8.1 miles hiked.

This was a very easy hike for me, but very hard for the NOBOs. I’m going to buy a shower here and move along — everything here is expensive. I’ll get lunch on the road, and if I’m too tired to drive all the way home, I’ll at least get some miles in before I get a room.

—

It took 8 hours to drive home and that was with *very* minimal stops. Man, that was long.

14 miles hiked

Today was fairly challenging, but at least it was cool most of the day. The last 1500′ foot climb up to here was very hot when exposed to the sun. The contrast between that and the Rhodo tunnels was a big one — it was very nice in the shade. I’m prepared for it to get cold up here tonight — we’ll see.

I wanted to camp up high so here I am. I could have gone on to the shelter, but this is much nicer. I can see the sunset from my site, even. There are some annoying bugs here, but I think they are day time ones and will disappear at dark (they did).

The views are great up here. There are two weekender types up here with me who seem like nice guys. No thruhikers at all, which seems odd to me.

I used the woodstove to make a fire so I could eat in peace and drive off the bugs. I wasn’t planning on having it going since I had chicken salad for dinner, but there is a surprising amount of kindling up here. The smoke did the trick.

The sunset was terrific!

5.6 miles hiked SOBO from Fontana Dam

I hiked in here starting about 2:45 or so and arrived at 5:15. It was a long climb and it’s hot again.

Hikers here are Pierre, Audrey (Pippi), Pittsburgh and Back-Track. I’ve pitched my tent and the site is a bit tilty. I will probably regret this at about 2am. It’s OK now, but a slanty shanty nonetheless.

My shuttler today, Jeff Hoch, was a really nice guy and I’m a little sorry I didn’t stay with them at some point (Hike Inn), but oh well. Jeff claims my cell will work at Yellow Creek Gap and I’ll be there in the morning. It will be a novelty to have that thing be anything but useless on this trip.

The 15 miles tomorrow look tought, but I do have all day to do it. There’s a lot of up and down — probably 3000 feet of climbing in all of those.

16.3 miles hiked

It was rain or dense fog most of the day today, but at least it wasn’t hot!

I heard country music and smelled BBQ and brats all the way down into town. The music fest is at the campgound, and it’s right on the French Broad river.

Instead of staying here, I’m going to drive to the Maggie Valley and stay in a Ramada with internet and laundry. I really need that anonymous hotel sort of experience, and I want some Hardee’s. Hot Springs is cute, but it doesn’t have any of those things!

-later-

The room as a king bed and a cute balcony over a creek. I can wash clothes and dry out my gear here, yay!. Off to get that giant burger now!

16.7 miles hiked

They have cabins and a lodge for hikers, but she didn’t really offer a cabin to me. I guess she assumed I wanted cheap. As that kind of accomodations go, the place is really nice. The setting is pretty too. There’s one other hiker (female) in the lodge with me, but she’s so unfriendly that she’s almost hostile. I’ve never encountered such an anti-social backpacker before. I could use some girly chit-chat time, but she’s clearly not interested.

She’s trying to get a ride somewhere, and when she said maybe she’d just hitch, the proprietress said not to. She repeated herself — don’t hitchhike around here. Yikes.

So, last night (at the shelter), I was awoken by a chewing/gnawing sound. I’m not sure if it was a mouse or something larger, but it sounded like it was eating hiker gear. It wasn’t, thank god. It must have been eating the shelter!

The trail today was a good deal harder than it looked on the profile. They had relocated a couple of miles to go down a rocky and very narrow ridgeline. There were a lot of views, but it was all rock scrambles, one hand over hand climb.

The 2007 AT Companion also lists two water sources that are no longer ON the trail since the relo to that ridge. One looks like it’s dry (and it was supposed to be a reliable source), and the other is just not on the AT any more. I think one or both must be on the old A.T. which is marked blue and is the bad weather by-pass.

I’d like to make Hot Springs tomorrow though there is really no advantage to that. There’s a music festival this weekend and the whole place will be jammed full of people. I might hike *almost* to Hot Springs and come in on Sunday morning.

I think the other lady here managed to arrange whatever she’s trying to do. In fact, I think she’s leaving the trail, so maybe she’s depressed about that. Either that or she hated me on sight.

Anyway, I’m going back to reading Backwoodsman magazine which is pretty interesting if badly edited. It’s very informationally dense. I might subscribe to it — I’ve certainly seen nothing else like it.

11.2 miles south of Sam’s Gap

I got rained on today and wound up skipping lunch. When I got here, it was pouring and I was very hungry so here I am at 11.2 miles for today.

The shelter is pretty full: C-Shot, Big Brother, Tree Work, Shadow, Me and one more are in there shelter and Rain Check and two others are tenting. I wish I were better at remembering names, and it just gets embarrassing to ask repeatedly.

The shuttle to Sam’s Gap was a total rip-off (it seemed high at the time, but now that I’ve asked others, I’ve found that it was ludicrously high). Dan at Bluff Mountain has shuttled me before and the price was reasonable, so I didn’t shop around. When we got to Sam’s Gap in 40 minutes though, I really wondered. I’m glad I’m done with Hot Springs. Everything there is expensive!

There were two graves on the trail today, and as I was coming down into Devil Fork Gap, I head what sounded like one very pissed off donkey. With the fog and the graves it was really surreal.