{"id":1859,"date":"2014-10-04T15:46:03","date_gmt":"2014-10-04T22:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/?p=1859"},"modified":"2014-10-14T07:02:30","modified_gmt":"2014-10-14T14:02:30","slug":"snap-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/04\/snap-decisions\/","title":{"rendered":"SNAP Decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1861\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1861\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/MarketBasket.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1861\" src=\"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/MarketBasket.jpg\" alt=\"$29.06 doesn't buy a lot, and I have to give the pears to Pat to fit under the $27 limit.\" width=\"800\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/MarketBasket.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/MarketBasket-300x180.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1861\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">$29.06 doesn&#8217;t buy a lot, and I have to give the pears to Pat to fit under the $27 limit.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Two 28-ounce cans of tomatoes.<\/li>\n<li>One 14.5-ounce can of sweet corn.<\/li>\n<li>A 1-pound sack of dried black beans.<\/li>\n<li>A 1-pound sack of brown rice.<\/li>\n<li>3.95 pounds of chicken thighs.<\/li>\n<li>Three bananas.<\/li>\n<li>Three Bartlett pears.<\/li>\n<li>One head of green cabbage.<\/li>\n<li>One 15-ounce jar of extra crunchy Skippy Natural Super-Chunk peanut butter (lower in sugar and fat).<\/li>\n<li>18 large eggs.<\/li>\n<li>One gallon of 2% milk.<\/li>\n<li>One 5-pound sack of russet potatoes.<\/li>\n<li>One loaf of wheat bread.<\/li>\n<li>Two, 16-ounce boxes of Barilla pasta (Yes, I realize their chairman is a homophobe&#8230; but the pasta was on sale for 79 cents a box. We all have to make sacrifices).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Grand total: $29.06.<\/strong> Damn you, Bartlett pears. I knew I shouldn&#8217;t have, but I wanted a little something extra in the fresh fruits-and-vegetables column. Suffice it to say, I&#8217;m giving those sweet treats\u00a0to my sweet husband, Patrick, when I begin the <a href=\"http:\/\/azcaa.org\/snapchallenge\/#!event\/register\/2014\/10\/6\/snap-challenge\">2014 Arizona SNAP Challenge<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The goal of the SNAP Challenge is to live for one week on the same food budget of an Arizonan on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as &#8220;food stamps.&#8221; For a single person, that&#8217;s $27. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vocabulary-lesson-plans.com\/vocabulary-per-diem.html\" target=\"_blank\">Per hebdomadem, not per diem<\/a>. I can easily spend $27 on a single meal &#8211; and this week, I have $1.28 per meal.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, I could not persuade Patrick to join me on this journey in order to\u00a0score a luxurious extra $18 on our food allowance.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The SNAP Challenge is designed to raise awareness of hunger and poverty in our state. Currently Arizona is the third-ranked state for Childhood Hunger, with 28% of our kids considered <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nokidhungry.org\/problem\/hunger-facts\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;food insecure.&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0Hunger cascades into poor performance in school, increased incidences of sickness, lower likelihood of high school graduation, which results in a greater likelihood that the cycle will repeat in the next generation.<\/p>\n<p>These are kids. They didn&#8217;t come into this world asking to be hungry or poor. The least I can do is sit a week at their lunch table.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the rules: I have a total of $27. I can&#8217;t eat any existing food in my pantry (which is why I&#8217;m polishing off the champagne and orange juice today). I <em>can<\/em> use basic seasonings, but\u00a0I&#8217;ll pass on the $12 bottle of hot sauce or the $7 sea salt that I bought in the Bahamas. I can also eat\u00a0anything I grow myself: Fortunately, we have a virtual Avery Island of tabasco peppers in our raised bed, as well as a healthy shrub of rosemary and a flourishing basil plant &#8211; hence the pasta and tomatoes. (Cheese, my luscious weakness, was too expensive and I don&#8217;t have the patience to pull\u00a0my own mozzarella).<\/p>\n<p>Yes, I could have just gone gonzo on Top Ramen ($2.09 for a box of 6 servings), but I really want to try to eat as healthfully as I can this week. I did use coupons and in-store offers, resulting in a somewhat disturbing $6.66 savings, or 15% of my total bill, or basically my entire animal-protein allotment.<\/p>\n<p>So, now I gotta go soak my black beans (I couldn&#8217;t afford the bell peppers, onions and celery to make red beans). It&#8217;s not too late to sign up for the challenge, which runs October 6-13. Join me at the table.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two 28-ounce cans of tomatoes. One 14.5-ounce can of sweet corn. A 1-pound sack of dried black beans. A 1-pound sack of brown rice. 3.95 pounds of chicken thighs. Three bananas. Three Bartlett pears. One head of green cabbage. One 15-ounce jar of extra crunchy Skippy Natural Super-Chunk peanut butter (lower in sugar and fat). &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/04\/snap-decisions\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">SNAP Decisions<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1859"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1888,"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859\/revisions\/1888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}