Skip to main content

Nutritious Food on $29 a Week? Probably not Possible

Here's what $33.58 will buy--that's pretty close to the $29 a week challenge some people have taken lately in sympathy with people on the SNAP program. (The maximum amount you can get on SNAP is $194 per month according to the USDA, which comes out to $44.77 per week.)


The grass-fed angus was inexpensive ($3.90 per pound) because I buy it in bulk--and it's an odd cut (cheek meat).

There are a lot more calories here than in the rice, beans, tortillas and vegetation others have bought on the challenge. Nevertheless, what you see here amounts to only 5,397 calories, or 771 calories a day.

caloriesprice$/100 calorie
12 eggs852$3.00$0.35
4.75# beef3,629$18.53$0.51
2 cans sardines400$6.98$1.75
head cabbage218$1.62$0.74
avocado227$0.88$0.39
red bell pepper37$0.88$2.38
English cucumber34$1.69$4.97
Total5,397$33.58$0.62

To eat such a diet for a week on 1,500 calories per day would cost $65.

You might get more calories for less money on potatoes, rice and beans, but many people on such a high-carb diet will spend a lot of time hungry and tired because it will give them roller-coaster blood sugars. Diabetics will need more medication. People with bad teeth may see them get worse. As for nutrition, grains and beans have nutrient blockers that interfere with mineral absorption. 

But note that the first letter of SNAP stands for Supplemental. It's not meant to be a person's entire food budget. What to do? Here's one idea. 

Get a job.

ETA: If you're willing to eat non-pastured meat and eggs and shop the sales, a $29-a-week low-carb diet can be done. See this.
Labels:

Comments

Sharon said…
Did you find the beef cheeks at Sprouts? There is one kind of a drive from me but it may be worth it to stock up. I cannot get grass-fed anything in my area for that low.
May 10, 2015
Lori Miller said…
I got the beef cheeks from Sun Prairie Beef. You can order from them online and they make a run along the Front Range four times a year. Their next run is May 16; you can also get delivery by UPS if you're in a state neighboring Colorado.
May 10, 2015
Lowcarb team member said…
If possible it is better to buy the higher fat foods and not so much of the higher carbs food ... it should provide more satiety (have I spelt that right?). Many do of course grab the cereals, rice, potatoes yes they are generally cheaper but when you weigh up the pro's and cons higher blood sugar numbers .. not such good dental health etc I would always suggest you buy the best you can afford.

All the best Jan
May 10, 2015
Lori Miller said…
Agreed. If you have to buy bigger clothes and medicine for everything from diabetes to upset stomach, and get a bunch of cavities filled, that cheap diet of crap-in-a-bag may not be so cheap. See http://relievemypain.blogspot.com/2010/06/is-low-carb-expensive-diet.html
May 10, 2015
Galina L. said…
Probably, only very cheap meat like chicken and chicken organs, and some pork cuts(shoulder is often less than $ for a lb) are affordable choices on a such budget. It is possible to buy vegetables at low prices if you know where to go.
May 10, 2015
Lori Miller said…
If you could get pork for less than $1 a pound, you could probably swing a $29 grocery budget, if the omega 6 from the CAFO pork fat didn't bother you.

Something that annoyed me about my Section 8 neighbors from years ago was that they seemed able-bodied, they were home all day, and had a yard, but none of them ever grew a garden.
May 10, 2015
Galina L. said…
When I straggled financially, chicken was my #1 choice. It was possible to find chicken thighs under $1 per lb, however I preferred whole animal - it allowed more variety(chicken patties from a breast, fried legs, liver for a pate) and a carcass as a soup source. When there is not enough money, type of fat can't be a preference. I used chicken fat for sauteing root vegetables for a soup.
May 10, 2015
Lori Miller said…
I haven't seen chicken for that price, but the whole ones are way cheaper than the tough, dry, and less nutritious boneless, skinless breasts. The gelatin from a roast chicken makes a good, thick sauce, too.
May 10, 2015
Galina L. said…
Somehow the number missed at the pork price in one of my comments. Shoulder roast with bones is normally available now at $ 1.99/lb, on sale sometimes 1.49, in a more expensive store the price is $2.29. Buying turkeys at the end of season is a very reasonable practice. The turkey broth tastes the best, and the soup is the must food when money is tight.

You have to be used to a budget creativity in order to manage successfully.
May 10, 2015
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An Objective Book about Other Childhood Vaccines

Today's decision by the CDC to add COVID shots to the schedule of childhood vaccines has some people concerned about the rest of the vaccines on the schedule. Contrary to fact-checker claims, adding COVID shots to the schedule means children will be required in about a dozen states to get a COVID shot to attend public school. Indiana isn't one of them--our childhood vaccination law doesn't mention the CDC and such a requirement could run afoul of our ban on COVID vaccine passports. But even freewheeling Indiana has some vaccine requirements and this kerfuffle has people wondering how safe those vaccines are.  There's a book called Vaccines: Truth, Lies and Controversy  by Peter C. Gotzsche, DrMedSci and co-founder of the Cochrane Collaboration, about the safety and efficacy of all those vaccines, including COVID and others. Cochrane was founded to "to organise medical research findings to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions involving healt
Post a Comment
Read more

Diabetes Down, COVID Curiosities, New Glasses after Accident

Diabetes Down Despite Dietitians' Directions Last Sunday when I wrote about the grifters over at EatThis.com, which calls itself "Eat This, Not That," I was worked up enough to tweet to their medical expert board members if they stood by the site's article flogging sugary drinks and fast food for St. Patrick's Day. The site has over 1,300 articles, mostly puff pieces, on McDonald's and a news feed full of "the most important breaking news" on Doritos, burger joints and Chips Ahoy! I asked a dietitian who responded to me what exactly the "not that" part was in "Eat This, Not That." Important news about what you should eat! I was worked up until I remembered the saying, "You can't cheat an honest man." Meaning that this con, like a lot of others, requires some dishonesty on the part of the mark. Every Joe Six-Pack knows that cookies, chips and coffee-flavored milkshakes from Starbucks aren't health food. It takes s
1 comment
Read more

Battered Cod and my Eclipse Pictures of my Colander

If you miss battered cod on a low-carb, grain-free diet, here's a recipe that'll satisfy your craving. It's based on a Dr. Davis recipe. Battered cod and cole slaw Ingredients 1 pound cod fillets 2 eggs 2 tablespoons butter, melted 1/2 cup ground golden flaxseeds 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese 1/2 teaspoon onion powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 1 teaspoon garlic powder Instructions Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Slice the cod into 1-1/2 to 2 inch pieces. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs and butter. Beat continuously--don't let the butter cook the eggs. In a shallow bowl, combine the flaxseeds, cheese, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Coat each piece of cod in the egg mixture and then roll in the in the flaxseed mixture. Place on the baking pan. Bake for 20 minutes, turning once. Eclipse Crescent Shadows Today was the total solar eclipse, and my house was in the "path of totality."
1 comment
Read more

Eclipse Glasses, Probiotics for Heart, Muscle Recovery

Are your eclipse glasses fake? The total solar eclipse over North America is almost here, and Indianapolis is in the "path of totality," meaning the moon will completely block the sun here. A lot of people have gotten special glasses to safely look at the eclipse. But the American Astronomical Society says , "counterfeit and fake eclipse glasses are polluting the marketplace." Some of the counterfeit glasses appear to be safe, the society says, but others are fakes that are no more effective than sunglasses. One of the counterfeits they describe matches the glasses someone gave me. I don't know where she got them, and she's not someone I'd trust to perform adequate due diligence. I just got over an eye injury and I don't need another one--I'll try the pinhole method instead to see crescents during the eclipse if it's not too cloudy. Picture from  Pexels .  Heart Centered Probiotic I started getting scary heart palpitations several years ago
Post a Comment
Read more

Blog Lineup Change

Bye-bye, Fathead. I've enjoyed the blog, but can't endorse the high-fat, high-carb Perfect Health Diet that somehow makes so much sense to some otherwise bright people. An astrophysicist makes some rookie mistakes on a LC diet, misdiagnoses them, makes up "glucose deficiency," and creates a diet that's been shown in intervention studies to increase small LDL, which can lead to heart disease. A computer programmer believes in the diet and doesn't seem eager to refute it because, perhaps, scientists are freakin' liars and while he's good at spotting logical inconsistencies, lacks some intermediate knowledge of human biology. To Tom's credit, he says it's not the right diet for everyone, but given the truckload of food that has to be prepared and eaten, impracticality of following it while traveling (or even not traveling), and unsuitability for FODMAPs sufferers, diabetics and anyone prone to heart disease (i.e., much of the population), I'm
24 comments
Read more