Poverty Line Essay

Call me a snob, call me an optimist, call me whatever you like but I still feel that one can still eat well at the poverty line. Sure, it’s a bit more strenuous than if one had a larger budget, but it is still doable. I strongly feel if I had only three dollars to spend on dinner, I would be cooking up a storm every night. What’s the trick? Sales, discounts, and coupons. These three magic words do wonders in a supermarket; they are secret to a substantial meal at the poverty line budget. Or, why not start your own garden? I have learned through this project that even if a recipe seems expensive, the final price greatly depends on the deals one can make or the food grown in one’s backyard. My group went to 3 different grocery stores to find the best deals possible to stay under the budget (none of us had a garden). In the end, we made a meal with appetizers for five people for fewer than fifteen dollars. Through the use of bargain shopping, growing one’s own food, and educating the public on the benefits of organic eating, creating a meal on the poverty line can be affordable as well as healthy.

            Have you ever checked the websites for Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and Fresh Market? As these are my favorite places to buy food, I check them frequently. On their websites, they all have a section of where they list the sales that are going on in their local stores. Not only are there some great sales, but the sale items are actually healthy. For example, this week, Trader Joe’s is offering a 16 oz. bag of “Harvest Bagels” made with wheat, flax, millet, rolled oats, etc. for $2.99; a 28 ounce bag of frozen mashed potatoes that feeds seven for $2.29; or a can of whole kernel corn with no preservatives and no added sugar on sale for 89¢ (Fearless Flyer). Now I know these seem awfully starchy, but this is because Thanksgiving is around the corner and it’s the one day a year that glorifies scarfing down food that gives the holiday gift of cellulite. But the point is, these grocery items are cheap and plentiful. Anyone living on the poverty line can afford these items and have a feast, which I guess is what Trader Joe’s is going for – the affordable feast.

            When my group got together for this project, we quickly decided on a big meal that could feed all five of us but looked fairly cheap. Unfortunately, in the end, the majority of the group was more in favor of how cheap and easy the recipe was rather than how nutritious it would be. We decided to make a chicken pot pie with very few ingredients: Pillsbury crescent rolls, chunks of grilled chicken, a bag of frozen vegetables, and two cans of cream of mushroom soup. First, we went to Trader Joe’s, where they didn’t have the particular ingredients the recipe called for. Then, we drove to Ingles where we bought everything but the crescent rolls. Here we had trouble fitting the grilled chicken into our budget. Because the group had chosen the recipe before looking up the cost of the ingredients, we were stuck making monetary decisions to fit the recipe, instead of choosing the more cost-effective ingredients first. We had to buy canned chicken (used traditionally for chicken salad) in order for our plan to work. However, because there were sales going on and a group member had an Ingles Advantage card, we were under budget. Finally, we went to Harris Teeter to buy the crescent roll dough. Sure enough, they were on sale and we again had a supermarket card. In the end, we were under budget because we were able to find sales, deals, coupons, and use supermarket cards.

            Or, for a more rounded diet, one can always grow their own food. I watched a TED talk recently where a man out in South Central was growing his own food using the land between the sidewalk and the street curb. He remarked on how growing your own food was like growing your own money. One can buy cheap seeds for tomatoes, radishes, artichokes, lettuce, peppers, or whatever he/she wants and not have to even venture out to a supermarket. That’s dinner right there. I know some people don’t have backyards or even small strips of grass, but food can be grown indoors if kept in pots. Had one person in my group had a garden, we would have had money to spare. The recipe called for a frozen vegetable medley. Instead, we could have had fresher ingredients and free ones at that. In What the World Eats: Guatemala, India, Mali, and the United States, pictures were taken of families from different countries showing them “with all of the food that they consumed in a week” (Menzel 90). The Cavens family from the United States has all packaged food and the Mendoza family from Guatemala has all locally grown vegetables, a few chickens, and a couple of bags of grain. It is easy to see which lifestyle is healthier and more frugal.

            It is easily done, eating on the poverty line, and I believe one may eat healthy on such a strict budget. By educating the masses on the benefits of organic foods and the dangers of unnutritious foods, eating well on the poverty line can be attainable. In Why Shame Won’t Stop Obesity, it is stated that “instituting nutrition and health curriculum into public schools would help children learn how to read nutrition labels and identify healthy foods, as well as understand the negative long-term consequences of obesity” (Khullar 129). The truth is if more people knew what they were consuming, they wouldn't be so quick to buy it just because it is cheap. Had my group looked up more recipes that favored health rather than speed and thrift, we could have cooked a dish that was healthy and not as poisonous to the body. It’s true, it tasted good, but the effect was short lived because my body was worse off than it was before I ate that meal.

            My group was able to create a meal for under fifteen dollars for five people easily without considering the health benefits/disadvantages. However, if we had taken time to examine the sales at the supermarkets, grow our own food, and research the health benefits each recipe contained, we could have made a better meal. For this poverty line project, I think this outcome could have been achieved since the ingredients my group bought were under budget and easy to obtain. From the sales and coupons we had, we easily afforded the groceries. Had we had a garden, this bill would have been even less. We learned all semester about the pros and cons of processed/organic food and my group, with the extra money we saved, could have made a very nutritious meal. With deals, gardens, and education, one can eat well on the poverty line and live healthily.