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For a foodie, thrift is all well and good, but the primary concern usually is quality. After all, there is something of the sybarite in a true food lover and, as nice as it may be to save a buck or two, the most important thing is that food be delicious and enjoyable.Even so, there is something interesting about trying to eat for only pennies a day. Jeffrey Steingarten tried it in The Man Who Ate Everything, where he spent a chapter exploring subsistence cooking, even going so far as to try MFK Fisher's recipe for "Sludge," a ground beef-based Depression era meatloaf. For that matter, urban locavores and "freegans" have explored the wonders of harvesting free, if somewhat wilted, produce from backlots and dumpsters.
Even so, attempts at extremely low-cost eating have usually been characterized by an impressive lack of culinary savoir faire. For example, in One Dollar Diet Project, a blog in which two California high school teachers documented their month-long attempt to eat for only $1 a day, the focus was on subsistence living, with oatmeal and PB & J's occupying center stage.
With that in mind, Rebecca Currie's attempt at thrift, documented in her blog, Less Is Enough, is particularly interesting. Normally a frugal shopper (she spends an average of $80 a month at the grocery store), Currie has only spent an average of $1 per day on food for the last few weeks.
Currie's blog is interesting reading, and it demonstrates that a $1 a day diet doesn't necessarily have to translate into uninspired or unhealthy food choices. Over the last sixteen days, Currie has prepared a broad selection of meals, including pasta with spinach and marinara, chicken fried rice, and black beans with rice and jalapeno. While her diet has skewed heavily toward high-protein legumes, whole grains, and eggs, it has also displayed a reasonable amount of flavor, a tendency toward fresh, healthy ingredients, and a pretty impressive amount of flavor. In short, while it may not be an ideal diet for everyone, Currie has shown that most of us probably have a lot of room to reduce our food expenditures!
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2-27-2009 @7:55PM RJ said... $80 a month!! I have a family of four and I spend $100 a week. I might be doing something wrong.....but I love the grocery store! And...I don't even really get any prepared foods. I'll have to revisit my spending..
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2-28-2009 @3:00AM Rt said... RJ said. "I'll have to revisit my spending".
Indeed, I fear there are many who will have to learn to 'live within their means' before this is all over (it appears their 'means' is about to change). It is harsh for those who have to go thru it. My brother was just 'let go' from IBM.
That said, it is a cyclical thing - something about 'those who do not learn from the past are destined to repeat it'.
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3-02-2009 @12:53PM Nicole said... If you google "food stamp diet", you'll find other frugal eating experiments from a couple of years ago. One was for $21 per week per person, and one was for the full food stamp ration, which is actually about $35 per week per person. Both are vegetarian, and the one with the full ration is also organic and includes a weekly CSA box.
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3-02-2009 @1:49PM laura said... I read her blog, and she isnt eating healthy at all. Jiffy corn muffin mix, and organic millet does not equal a balanced healthy diet.
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3-02-2009 @2:13PM Astin said... If you actually think about proper portion sizes, and you live in an area that has a full-year growing season (hence, cheaper produce or grow-your-own), $1/day/person isn't too terrible an idea. Homemade pasta with a simple butter/oil and basil top would cost pennies per serving. Homemade bread for sandwhiches would cut costs substantially as well. In fact, going from scratch on most meals could easily reduce costs. If you pick up whole chickens and cheap cuts of meat, then prepared and froze them for individual use as part of a larger meal, then you could even get those into a diet.
Of course, if you think of it as "I must literally spend $1 every day" instead of "I can spend $30 on groceries for the month", then it seems harder.
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3-04-2009 @9:43AM Amanda Grainger said... I agree with you Astin. It can be difficult to create exciting meals when the rule is "I can only spend $1 a day". I get excited when I create a large, healthy and exciting meal for $5 to $10, but it makes enough leftovers to last through the week. In that case, I've still managed to not spend too much money per day, and I know I'm in for scrumptious food.
It is hard to eat cheaply and also avoid using a lot of grain, that's for sure.
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3-25-2009 @12:29PM Karla said... Great blog and information!
We, too, took on our own "Dollar-A-Day" Challenge back in January and found it to be such a humbling and worth-while experience.
We invite you and your readers to check out our archives found here:
http://1-dollar-a-day.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html
Ours may have been a little more challenging because we had to overcome my own food allergies (Celiac - no gluten, wheat, rye, oats, barley, etc), as well.
We have since taken on other projects - February we lived as Freegans - here in March, we're doing our Helping Hands Project and paying it forward each day with a random act of kindness.
It's all been a lot of fun and we do encourage everyone to come check us out:
http://1-dollar-a-day.blogspot.com
We're very much looking forward to our April project which will be announced in our blog this Saturday. It's a Dollar-A-Day but with a whole new twist.
Don't miss it!
Thanks
Karla n' Amy
Hope Heals
Grand Rapids, Michigan
http://www.hope-heals.org
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3-25-2009 @5:28PM tom habanek said... She's cute...and I saw no ring. Are you available Rebecca Currie?
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