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Sarah's Home Cooked Food

Sarah's Food

Friday, March 26, 2010

This morning my stomach was still somewhat tender so I stuck with PB&J on toast.  I just had water to drink.  Then for lunch I had tomato soup with soda crackers.  The tomato soup was $0.99 and the milk I added was $0.31.  The crackers cost about $0.50.  I used a lot and mixed it all in.  Then for dinner I took another one of my mom’s recipes and made it up. Goulash!  Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

1 lrg tin diced tomatoes with herbs and spices (or add your own)

1 ½ cup uncooked macaroni

1 lb hamburger

1 pkge marble cheese

Instructions

Cook macaroni for 8 min and drain.  Cook hamburger and drain off fat.  Shred marble cheese.  Leave enough cheese for top of casserole and mix the rest with all other ingredients. Pour into large casserole dish and sprinkle remaining cheese over top.  Bake in oven at 400 F for 20-30 min.
My tomatoes had no spices so I added some garlic and basil, which cost about $0.05 together.  The tin of tomatoes cost $0.97.  The macaroni used was $0.53.  The hamburger cost $3.00.  And the cheese cost $4.00.  So the casserole in total cost $8.55 but it could hold me for four meals.  I only ate a quarter of it for dinner so that would be $2.14.  I also had a glass of V8 juice with it.  I then also had a glass of milk and a glass of V8 before going to bed.  So my total spending on what I ate today would be $6.58. I had 7 servings of vegetables, 5 servings of grains, 2 servings of dairy and 1 serving of meat.

So now that the food campaign is over I figured I would add up what I spent and what I could have spent. So the total money I was supposed to have for the Campaign was $142.50.  I spent $114.41.  I had 9 free meals over the course of the Campaign as well as a couple snacks that people gave me.  Also, I had 4 days on the campaign where I was sick, which usually affects my appetite. There was only one day where I got in all the servings that the Canada Food Guide says is healthy and that day I went almost $1.50 over budget.  So my conclusion:  Do I think it is possible to live a healthy balanced diet on only $7.50 a day? No.  I tried my best but unfortunately there was not a single day where I both stayed on budget and got all my servings in.  I also think it would be worse for guys as they are supposed to have even more servings than me.  Thank you everyone for reading my blogs.

Sarah Baker

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Last Blog:

Over the course of this campaign, several themes and patterns arose. One is the pattern of what I consumed on a daily basis. Every single day of the campaign I ate cereal for breakfast, most of the days I had some sort of derivative of pizza, and most of the days (though not as much as pizza) I had some sort of pasta (including KD). It made doing daily blogs difficult because I had nothing else to talk about other than the same meals everyday. However, such is the life for someone busy like I am and on a very restrictive budget such as I was during this campaign. One of the themes that arose during this campaign is the notion that healthy eating on a $7.50/day diet is not tangible. I alluded throughout the campaign that I was lacking in several areas in terms of daily nutrition; that came out in one of my blogs this week when I said that I was several servings short in 3 of the 4 food groups (especially veggies and fruits) on what I considered a pretty healthy day compared to my patterns lately. The last theme I alluded to was the notion that being an involved person on campus and trying to eat a healthy diet on a restrictive budget is simply not possible; when the cheapest meal on campus is pizza and that takes up nearly half of your budget for the cheapest kind of slice, you realize that it simply isnt possible. There are ways to try to save on food–but often, like I have mentioned, the free food is not that healthy or is even downright bad for you. So while you save money, you are often not helping out your body. Arguably, you may assert, one has more money now to use as a result of the free food–true, however you still consumed those calories of the unhealthy food (so you will not be eating the healthy food afterwards because you are satiated), and often your savings is not significant enough to afford a healthy option. It comes down to this: students living on a $7.50/day budget that is allocated by OSAP cannot afford to eat healthy…that is simply the bottom line. The time invested in trying to minimize your spending on food becomes prohibitive at a point where you are taking away from academic time and other important pursuits. Even then, with that invested time, it is difficult to make it within the $7.50/day threshold.

So despite keeping within my daily allotted budget throughout this campaign, I do not feel very good about it. I know that my body deserves better and I know that if I had eaten healthier throughout this time I would have been more productive in school, sports, extra-curriculars and even my social life. Students should not be expected to take on this unnecessary stress during 4 very important years of their development. I am not saying that tough times do not build character; adversity is important, but do not leave the student in a de facto situation that leaves them below the poverty line. That does not allow for students to pursue and reach their full potential during their university experience.

I would like to thank everyone for tuning into this blog and I hope you have had the opportunity to reflect on what is a very important issue for OSAP-receiving students. Should you want to know more about my experience throughout the campaign, before it, or even well beyond the end, do not hesitate to contact me. Intelligent dialogue and discourse about the real experiences of students is how we will be able to find a way to make this situation better. OUSA has proposed several solutions to these problems and we hope that people give them a real look to ensure that we can solve the problem–our educational institutions ar the key to our future prosperity!

P.S. if you really wanted to know, I had cereal/yogourt/banana for b-fast, a slice of pizza for lunch, and free food at a “volunteer appreciation” for dinner…

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Thursday Blog:

Yesterday was a great day as I noted in my blog yesterday. It really made my day today seem uneventful, and certainly made me want to stay in bed a bit longer! haha…in terms of my diet today, I once again had cereal, yogourt, and a banana for breakfast, pizza for lunch, and KD with frozen veggies. Again, like I pointed out yesterday, my food guide requirements were missed yet again quite dramatically. This is a theme that is salient throughout this campaign for me. It really has forced me to become very poised to work hard to make sure that policies change so that so many students do not have to live through this any longer…

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Wednesday Blog:

What a great day! Free hair cut, nice weather, acceptance to a prestigious leadership conference in the summer, OT win in intramaural ball hockey, and a championship-clinching win in intramaural ice hockey. Good mood for me all around! In terms of my diet, I continued the cereal streak and coupled it with some yogourt and a banana, for lunch I had a slice of pizza, and for dinner (I had to have late because I came home too late to eat beforehand) I made pasta. The total expenditure for today was about $7. I am glad that I have been very physically-active lately because the other side of the ledger (my diet) is not living up to its end of the bargain. Think about it…I only had $0.50 left over, but I was still missing 2-4 servings of grains, 2-3 servings of meats/alternatives, and at least 4 servings of fruits and veggies…admittedly, if I did not buy the slice of pizza, I could have likely made up a lot of those servings, but not enough to satisfy them. However, my busy schedule dictated that I had to buy something on campus and since pizza is about the only thing I can buy without really impairing my ability to eat well at other meals, I have to go with it…
To tell you the truth, I think that today was one of the best eating days I have had in a while and I still fell way short of the food guide requirements.

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Sarah's Final Blog

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Sarah's Kitchen

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Thursday, March 25, 2010

So today was a bad day.  I woke up and had three muffins and a glass of milk and then five minutes later it all came back up.  I went back to bed because I felt horrible and then got up later and tried toast and butter.  That didn’t stay down either.  So I broke open my 2L bottle of ginger ale that I keep for when I am sick.  Mom says that the ginger helps settle your stomach so she always gave us a big glass when we were sick.  So I drank a glass of ginger ale and seemed better so I tried the toast.  Nope, not a good idea.  So I stuck with just ginger ale for the time being.  I had to go to meet a friend because I said we would go to this class together but then I came home and had another nap.  After that I got a piece of toast with butter down.  I felt a little better, so I tried to add a little peanut butter in the mix.  It stayed down but was not a good idea.  I then had to go to campus to run the Fourth Year Meeting as I am the Fourth Year Rep at the School of Music and they had pizza there for people taking part.  I looked at the pizza and felt queasy so I stayed away and kept drinking my ginger ale.  After the meeting Shirley insisted I take a couple slices home with me so I wrapped them up and stuck them in the fridge when I got home.  I then slept for another half hour and got up and had another slice of toast with peanut butter.  By 9:00 I was starting to feel better and I was starving for something other than toast. So I got out the cold pizza and ate half a slice.  Then, realizing how silly that was, put the rest back in the fridge.  By the end of the day I had drank half the bottle of ginger ale (which I originally got for $1.99).  I don’t know how many servings I kept down today but my total spending were $2.94.  Here’s hoping I am better tomorrow.

Sarah Baker

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Food For Thought: Day 17

So, today was a pretty typical Wednesday, although I didn’t have a council meeting which always simplifies life.  I got up around 9:00, had some breakfast, and headed off to campus for my science lab.  At 11:30 I was supposed to meet a friend for lunch, but he messed up his schedule; he thought he had class 10:30-11:30, but it was actually 11:30-12:30.  So, we decided to forgo lunch and I headed off to a meeting, and then another hour of class.

After class I went and got my hair cut – it was $10 for charity, so all in all it was a pretty good deal.  I didn’t eat the hair, so I’m not counting that as part of my food and nutrition for the month.  After that I came home, showered to get all the hair off me, and changed.  Then I headed back to campus.

Since lunch had fallen through, we re-scheduled to dinner.  I took a look at the budget and decided that, since I had skipped lunch, I probably had enough money to afford to buy a decent meal on campus, so I grabbed a caesar salad and a glass of chocolate milk at our on campus restaurant.  He bought spinach dip for us to share (but he paid for it, so there was no cost to me).  The total for my salad and milk with tip?  $13.  Ouch.

After that I did some school work, met with a friend for an hour to discuss plans to head to BC next year, and then stopped by the campus pub for some live entertainment and a beer with some friends.

All in all it was a pretty good day, although in hindsight I probably didn’t eat nearly enough.

Andrew

Meal Breakdown:
Breakfast: an apple and two pieces of toast with peanut butter.
Dinner: a large caesar salad and a glass of chocolate milk.
Midnight Snack: a double cheeseburger from McDonald’s.  Bleh.

Estimate on Food Guide Servings:
Vegetables and Fruit: 4-5
Grains: 4
Milk and Alternatives: 2
Meat and Alternatives: 2-3

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Tuesday Blog:

Memo to those giving blood–make sure you eat well in pre and post donation! If you do not do it beforehand, you will likely faint or get very light-headed. If you do not eat well afterwards, you will take much longer to recover. Problem is, it is difficult to do that on a $7.50 budget…however, I was determined to take full advantage of the free food they give you post-donation (mmm cookies…). But since my diet was not-so-good post donation, I suffered in energy today. I slept in much longer than I wanted to because I simply was too tired to move. I ate breakfast today which consisted of cereal, yogourt and a banana (but since it was so late it was kind of lunch too), and then I went to eat pizza at the on-campus Pizza Pizza since I could not buy anything at the on-campus restaurant (Wilfs)–I simply did not have enough money. Since my friends did not eat much of their meals, they offered me what was left, and, once again, I took full advantage. Afterwards, I went to work on a group project and then went off to play hockey. After hockey I ate a granola bar…quite an uneventful day on the food front but the example of me having to eat pizza first before going to the restaurant is a great example of how a restrictive budget can really hamper even a rare time to go out with friends.

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Nick's Interview with Jason Pt. 1

Nick's Interview with Jason Pt. 2