Budget Food Shopping at Whole Foods on $4 a Day --- Or How to Have Wholesome Food without Spending the Whole Paycheck --Hunger Challenge 2010



Whole Foods' Perri Kramer at bulk bins

 Shop Whole Foods Market for a full day’s worth of organic food for a family of four for just $4 a person?

It seemed like an extreme test, but as part of my participation in the San Francisco Food Bank’s Hunger Challenge 2010, I took it on, and thanks to help from Perri Kramer, marketing team leader of the Oakland, CA, store, I was able to do just that. (You can see more about the background on my shopping trip here and the day’s menu and recipes here. To read all of my Hunger Challenge 2010 posts, click here.)

Perri leads regular “shopping on a budget” tours for customers and she offered to walk the store with me to show me how to cruise the aisles for affordable and often locally sourced goods. She helped highlight some items that would work in my meal plan, which was restricted by the Hunger Challenge rules of $4 a day per person (the amount a typical food stamp recipient would have to spend) and by the further constraint that I wanted all the food to be certified organic.

Since some have nicknamed Whole Foods “Whole Paycheck,” I was worried when we started that my options would be very limited. But that just wasn’t true. I had a number of choices, although my dinner pasta sauce recipe really just had just a hint of chicken. Sure some produce might have been less expensive in an organic farmer’s market, and some other items might have been lower priced elsewhere, but the chain offers some good values, especially for those who want to eat organic, and if you shop carefully, some exceptional ones. In some communities one of the chain’s 270 stores might be the only resource for organic products, although in others there are regional, national or local alternatives. Just looking at food pricing and availability of organic products, I found Whole Foods to be an excellent one-stop resource for those who want to eat wholesome foods on a budget.

While Perri's tips are for budget-conscious shopping at Whole Foods, they could easily be adapted to shopping at most large supermarkets.

•  Allow yourself enough time. Budget shopping anywhere takes more time as you compare deals and options
• Pick up the chain’s “Whole Deal” semi-monthly flyer  at the store entrance for coupons, special deals and recipes. On my tour she pointed out that the butcher shop had some sausages on special that had an extra dollar off coupon in the flyer.
• Watch for in-store produce specials, usually towards the front of the produce department. “We always have five to seven on special, and often they are local and seasonal from smaller farmers” where Whole Foods wants to increase demand for the farmers and sell through the perishable item as soon as possible.
•  Choose seasonal produce for the best pricing. In season fruits and vegetables will almost always be the best values.
•  Look for the store branding on packaged produce and other items (such as the 365 Everyday Value brand). If organic is a concern, look for that on the label. When 365 store-branded products are not organic, Perri says they are still as natural as possible and have a higher level of quality control than other sources. 365 produce is also sometimes locally sourced.
• When shopping for fish or meat, consider shopping on Friday, when Whole Foods often has one-day specials in these departments. Also look for the 365 brand  on packaged meat and the store’s “value-packs” which offer per pound discounts on larger packages of meat and chicken.
•  Grocery specials are often displayed near the front the store, so Perri advises checking there first and advises looking for store brands to help pare down costs.
• Buy from the bulk section, but only buy what you need. “You can buy just a tiny bit of a specialty item and only have to pay for what you need,” she said. It is also a great place to stock up on staples such as frequently used grains and beans. Prices are cheaper since you are not paying for packaging.
•  Look for ways to add low-cost flavor to your dish to keep costs down. Buy a bit of a spice or seasoning mix from the bulk section, consider using bullion or broth as a base for soups and stews or for cooking rice or other grains. Perri pointed out a package of organic vegetarian or chicken bullion that cost about 14 cents a serving.
• Watch out for processed frozen, canned or other packaged foods if you are on a tight budget. Perri says that some items on the grocery aisle might be tasty or convenient but that they add to your grocery bill. In general choose foods with as minimal processing as possible to get the most out of your food dollar.

She also suggested checking out the low-cost recipes on the Whole Foods website and contacting your local Whole Foods Market to get your own budget shopping tour.

Note: I was putting together an all-organic menu. Prices at Whole Foods Market for non-organic alternatives were lower. Choosing some of these goods would have lowered my food bill, allowed me to have more fresh produce or chicken or changed what I selected for my day’s menu.

How to Help The SF Food Bank Get 15 Tons of Food -- Hunger Challenge 2010 Update

Breaking news:
Make a comment on San Fransico Food Bank's post on the Tyson Foods website and the food processor will get 100 pounds of chicken and other food!

Tyson will donate up to 30,000 pounds.  Thanks to Tyson for coming through for the food bank again (they also donated in 2008 and 2009.

Read more and leave your comment at this post.

Thanks.

9.20.10 Update:  We got 300 comments on the post and the San Francisco Food Bank will be receiving 30,000 pounds of chicken.  The truck pulls up on October 5th.

Last Night's Hunger Challenge Dinner and a Holiday Hold

Last night, I made the very excellent tortilla lasagna for dinner. The recipe is here.  I skipped all the additional vegetables except a little garlic and 1/2 lb. of leftover frozen spinach and made it a bit smaller (only 6 tortillas instead of 9 and less shredded cheese and sauce), so it made 4 servings instead of 6. I used leftover sauce (about 12-16 ounces) and it came in at around $1 serving and was very tasty.  This recipe is from Hunger Challenge 2009.

I'm glad I have a depth of budget cuisine recipes to cull from now, it gets tiring to have to plot out every day and figure out every recipe. 

Blog Appetit's Hunger Challenge 2010 write ups are going on hold for a few days.  Because of the impending Jewish holiday, I'm taking today and tomorrow off from writing up my Hunger Challenge posts -- still to come are the Whole Foods budget shopping guide and the ethnic shopping experience.

Recipes & Menus for Eating Organic on $4 a Day (Part 2) - Hunger Challenge 2010

Four dollars a day per person is a tough food budget for anyone, but if for health or other reasons you are committed to eating all organic it can be a daunting experience.  As part of my participating in Hunger Challenge 2010 and spending only $4 a day/person on meals (similar to what someone on food stamps would receive), I decided to plan an "all organic day" to see if I could do so.  The answer, was yes, one could eat 100 percent organic, but not without a lot of time shopping and cooking.  While there was definitely enough to eat and I was able to create a relatively nutritious meal plan for the day, I kept thinking if I could have only bought some ingredients non-organic I would have had more food (and definitely more chicken) in my day. Another compromise was relying on frozen and canned produce to keep down costs. Even within those constraints I tried to work in fruit, vegetables, fiber, calcium and a little variety.

For Part 1 and more background on the Hunger Challenge, please click here. For what else I've posted on Hunger Challenge 2010 and links, please click here.

Here's my menu plan and costs with some recipe suggestions.  All foods used were certified 100 percent organic and were purchased at Whole Foods. (For more on Whole Foods and how to shop for healthy food on the cheap, check out the post on my budget shopping tour.) 

Note: Menu plan was based on 4 servings.  (So that's leftovers for 1 or a complete meal for a family of 4).  Everything was organic.  My per person total for the day came out to $3.90. Since I like strong flavors, I would have used that "extra" 10 cents to add some more spice to the corn soup and or the pasta sauce.  I utilized "fractionalized" costs on ingredients that I did not use up in total in a recipe.  Some are pantry staples, others would be used in other meals on another day (such as the leftover pasta sauce and pasta).

See below the menu and recipes for my lessons learned.

Breakfast   -- Oatmeal with Fruit and Yogurt -- 75 cents a serving:
Rolled oats (per serving: 1/2 cup oats in 1 cup boiling water with dash of salt, cook, stirring for about five minutes) served with sliced apple, a drizzle of honey and 2 Tbs. of yogurt per person.

Lunch -- Corn Soup with Bread -- $1.25 a serving
My Hunger Challenge Corn Soup might have been a little less expensive with fresh corn since it's in season, but I wanted to make it a quicker meal.  Serve with 1 slice per person of whole wheat bread.

Hunger Challenge Corn Soup
Serves 4

In hindsight, if I had cut out the chicken in the pasta sauce and used beans, I would have put some of the savings into amping up this soup, which but could use some more vegetables or some beans.
1 Tbs. oil
1/2 small onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp. paprika or chili powder (optional)
1 carrot, chopped
4 cups water
1 vegetarian or chicken bullion cube
15-oz. can of corn, drained
8 oz. frozen spinach (1/2 bag, reserve rest for another use)
7 oz. diced tomatoes (1/2 can, reserve rest for another use)
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in bottom of soup pot, brown onions and garlic. And optional paprika or chili powder and carrots.  Saute for a few minutes. Add water. Bring to simmer. Add bullion cube, stirring until dissolved.  Add corn, spinach and tomatoes. Add salt and pepper. Cook until carrots are cooked through. Taste and correct seasonings. If desired, puree part of the soup for a creamy texture.

Snack: -- 1/2 cup per person of non-fat yogurt --- 40 cents per serving

Dinner -- Pasta with Sauce and Bread OR Half of an Apple -- $1.50
This meal was the hardest, I kept having to take out fresh veggies (such as steamed broccoli or a green salad) and reducing the portion of chicken because of the cost of organic meat.  Another way to go would have been to skip the meat and use 2 cups of cooked white beans with bulk beans that would have cost a total of  56 cents, a savings of $1.19 over using just the 1/4 pound of chicken in the pasta sauce. I also could have skipped the bread or apple and used a bit more chicken in the recipe. 

Pasta with Peppers, Onions and a Hint of Chicken
Serves 4

Pick a pasta sauce with strong seasoning to help flavor the sauce without having to add other herbs or spices.
If you are not going to serve the sliced bread or half of an apple (either with the meal or as an additional snack), you can add an additional chicken or a side of steamed carrots and stay on budget.

1/4 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs (about 1 small thigh)
1 Tbs. oil
8 oz.  frozen red and green pepper and onion mix (1/2 bag, reserve rest for another use)
7 oz diced tomatoes with liquid (reserved from soup recipe)
1 cup pasta sauce (from 25oz. jar, reserve rest for another use)
Salt and pepper to taste
4 cups cooked whole wheat pasta

Chop chicken very fine.  Heat oil over medium high heat in a deep fry pan or wide pot. Saute, stirring until chicken is browned, breaking up any clumps.  Add pepper and onion mix, and stir until beginning to defrost. Add tomatoes with their liquid, and pasta sauce.  Lower heat to simmer, and cook covered, stirring until the vegetables and sauce are heated through.  Serve over pasta. (If using beans, leave out the oil and chicken and add 2 cups cooked beans when you add pasta sauce.)

Lessons learned:  I think if I had kept the day vegetarian I would have been able to have more food and more choices (and a more filling lunch), which would have been very much appreciated.  Another tact would be to decide which foods were the most important to have kept organic and just looked for high quality alternatives that were not necessarily organic.  I was determined to shop in one place (Whole Foods in this case), because many food stamp recipients don't have the wherewithal to go from store to store looking for bargains.  One place to look might have been local farmer's markets.  Another here in the West is The Grocery Outlet chain, which sometimes has organic canned and packaged goods for very low prices. Overall, though, I thought that Whole Foods was a good choice for accessible one-stop organic shopping, although locally I have several independent food stores that offer good choices. Many regular chain markets now offer some organic choices as well.

Eating Organic on $4 a Day -- Hunger Challenge 2010 (Part 1)

During past Hunger Challenges,* I have read posts from participating food bloggers about having to forgo organic food in order to eat a varied and filling diet on $4 a day. I thought it would be interesting to try and devise a Hunger Challenge $4 a person a day menu using only organic ingredients.

While organic products and produce are available much more widely now (even some items at my favorite discount grocer, The Grocery Outlet), for many people in the Bay area the widest variety of organic produce, meat, dairy, processed foods and more is Whole Foods. To get a good idea of how to accomplish this, I got a “budget shopping” tour from Oakland, CA, Whole Foods marketing team member Perri Kramer. Read more about that here.

While everything on my shopping list and my menu for the day was organic, it didn’t come without other compromises. My meals were mostly vegetarian and my dinner dish could be called more pasta flavored with chicken then pasta with chicken. I did need to opt for frozen organic vegetables to keep costs down and relied heavily on in-store specials to make up my menu (which meant shopping took even longer since mid-shopping trip I had to alter the menu to fit the specials).

While eating 100 percent organic was doable on $4 a day, I couldn’t have done it on $3, which was the “regular” California allotment for food stamps. A temporary $1 a day increase is due to expire this December 31st. Even without the organic restraint, fitting in fruits and vegetables was very difficult in 2008 when I did the challenge on $3 and that extra dollar a day is very meaningful to those who depend on the program. If you would like to see this funding extended, please contact your member of Congress and let them know how important you think it is.

To be truthful, it’s late and I’m tired. Catch up with rest of the story with Part 2 and my Eating Organic on $4 a Day menu and recipe.

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*The Hunger Challenge is being sponsored by the San Francisco Food Bank to increase awareness of hunger in the Bay area and elsewhere. This is the third year of the challenge. It has not only raised awareness but also funds and literally tons of food for local food banks. This year 25 five food bloggers are living as if they were on food stamps for a week, with a total food budget of only $4 a person a day and blogging about their experiences. Links to all the participating blogs can be found at http://www.hungerchallenge.blogspot.com./ You can see what else I’ve written about the Hunger Challenge this year here.

About the photo: Overview of Oakland, CA, Whole Foods

Kosher on $4 a Day -- Hunger Challenge 2010 and a Stuffed Cabbage Roll Recipe

It’s tough to eat on the $4 a day a person the food stamp program allows and even tougher if you have religious or health constraints. So I thought as part of my 2010 Hunger Challenge experience I would try a sample day where all I would consume would be kosher (according to Jewish dietary laws) and another where everything was organic. Here’s a bit about my experience of trying to keep kosher on $4 a day.

(A brief recap – the Hunger Challenge is sponsored by the San Francisco Food Bank to increase awareness of hunger and related issues in our community by having bloggers and others live on a “food stamp budget” of $4 per day per person for food.).

These constraints can be costly and time consuming. For example, the kosher ground beef I bought for the recipe below was $5.99 a pound. The same grade of ground beef without being butchered and handled in the prescribed religious manner was about $2.29 a pound. Also, any processed food has to be certified and labeled kosher, meaning it does not contain any prohibited food items (such as pork or shellfish) and does not mix meat and milk products. Such certification limits choices and can add to the cost as well. I kept costs down by shopping discount food stores spending about double the amount of time I normally would comparing prices and reading packaging to make sure my choices were properly certified.

I bought quick oats certified kosher in bulk and having that for breakfast with a small piece of fruit and a dollop of yogurt also helped keep my overall food costs down. For lunch I had a large bowl of vegetable soup with a slice of bread, but a serving of my Hunger Challenge Chili (cut the recipe in half and use only ½ pound of ground beef) over some rice or a baked potato would have worked well. I snacked on some carrots and celery stalks dipped in yogurt.

Since we are in the middle of celebrating the Jewish holidays this fall, I thought I would break some of the rules I make for myself when it comes to the Hunger Challenge. I generally develop easy, relatively quick-to-make entrees, but I wanted to make something special for a holiday dinner. This Hunger Challenge Stuffed Cabbage will take a little more time but can be made ahead and reheated. Serve it to a group of guests or enjoy it for several meals.

I had to change the recipe to reduce meat and seasonings to trim costs. My cost for the food used was $1.05 a serving, which means I could serve the stuffed cabbage rolls with mashed potatoes or rice and steamed carrots on the side and still come in at about $1.25 a person for this meal.

Hunger Challenge Stuffed Cabbage Rolls
Serves 8

1 cup long grain rice
½ cup raisins
1 large green cabbage
2 Tbs. oil
1 small onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 carrots, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
½ cup chopped mushrooms
½ lb. ground beef, 15 percent fat or less
¼ tsp. and 1/8 tsp. salt
½ tsp. ground black pepper
Dash hot pepper sauce
1-28 oz. can crushed tomatoes, divided
1-15 oz. can tomato sauce
¼ tsp sugar
1 Tbs. apple cider vinegar

Make rice according to package directions. Leave covered and set aside.

Soak the raisins in ½ cup of hot water. Core the cabbage and pull off 16 leaves plus extras if they are small. Submerge the leaves in a large pot of boiling water and cook covered until tender about 4 minutes. Drain and cool. Chop remaining cabbage. Keep 3 cups and reserve the rest for another use. (Perhaps this 12-Serving Vegetable Soup from Hunger Challenge 2008)

In a large sauté pan, heat oil. Fry onions until golden, add garlic. Sauté and add 3 cups of chopped cabbage, carrots and celery. Sauté until softened. Add mushrooms, sauté for 3 minutes, add beef, browning and breaking up any clumps. Add ¼ tsp salt, pepper and hot sauce. Add ½ can of crushed tomatoes. Combine well. Fluff rice. Mix well with meat mixture. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread ½ cup of the tomato sauce on the bottom of a 9” x 13” baking pan. Place a heaping ¼ cup of filling in the middle of a cabbage leaf. (Overlap two leaves if small.) Fold over the two shorter sides of the leaf. Fold over one of the longer sides, then the other. Place folded side down in the baking pan. Repeat.

Combine remaining tomato sauce and crushed tomatoes in a sauce pan, add drained raisins, 1/8th tsp of salt and the sugar. Heat through. Add 1 Tbs. of vinegar. Taste and adjust seasoning to as needed. Spread sauce over top of rolls. Bake until heated through, approximately 40-45 minutes. Can be made ahead and reheated.

If you would like information on how to help in your area, please go to Feeding America to find a food bank near you. For more information on the San Francisco Food Bank, click here. To get the latest on the Hunger Challenge, go here.

This recipe and part of this article first appeared in the j. weekly. You can see the original column here.

Hunger Challenge 2010 -- Kick Off

Today is the kick off for the third San Francisco Food Bank Hunger Challenge. Twenty five bloggers (as well as others in the community) are spending just $4 a day per person for all their food and beverages for seven days to get a feel for what it is like to subsist on food stamps (which are now called SNAP).

Some will be blogging about how they cope with the limitations of such a budget, others will be writing about hunger in the Bay area and elsewhere.  Some will be creating menus, recipes and shopping tips that the food bank can share with their clients to help make existing on such a budget as filling, healthy and easy as possible. Many of the participants will be posting on Facebook and Twitter as well.

The Hunger Challenge participants have also helped to raise awareness, literally tons of food donations and cash contributions not just for the San Francisco Food Bank, but for food banks across the Bay area.

You can learn more about the Hunger Challenge at http://www.hungerchallenge.blogspot.com/ and get all the links and the Twitter handles to follow along.  Or if you'd like to sign up and give the Hunger Challenge a try (even for a day or two), you can also sign up there.  You don't need a blog or even a Facebook or Twitter account to join in, but if you do have one or more of those, please help spread the word about the importance of food banks (the SFFB estimates 150,000 San Franciscans a day face hunger) and the need for continued and improved funding for programs such as food stamps.

This is the third year that I've participated.  You can see everything I posted on the 2008  challenge here, including shopping lists, daily menus, meal planning tips and more.  In 2008, we only had $3 a person a day to work with, so filling up my family of four and keeping the food nutritious was even more challenging. (The extra dollar a day really makes a difference, but it is just a temporary change and is due to expire.) I think the Hunger Challenge Chili was my favorite recipe from that year. I also feel that what I wrote in my wrap up/recommendations for change post still sums my experience and what I learned and what I would like to see change to make it easier for Food Bank clients and those on food stamps to feed themselves and their families as well as possible.

You can read about my 2009 experience here.  In 2009 we were able to use $4 a day per person. Like the year before, I also planned out a weekly meal plan, gave shopping trips, shared about my experiences and developed recipes.  Probably my favorite from 2009 was the Hunger Challenge Cassoulet (a bean and sausage stew).  I summed up my reactions here.

This year, I'm going about the challenge a bit differently. I'm figuring out the cost of each meal and keeping it to about $1.25 or less per person.  I'm developing menus day by day rather than by the week to highlight the different needs of different communities -- for example: organic, kosher, ethnic and others.  Each has its positives and negatives and I look forward to sharing them (and the recipes) with you.

Please look for my daily Hunger Challenge update.  If you have any experiences with food banks, food stamps or budget meals you'd like to share, please feel free to leave a comment.

If you would like information on how to help in your area, please go to Feeding America to find a food bank.  For more information on the San Francisco Food Bank, click here.