I recently posted an article on Financial Elite how to feed a family for $5, but I think Christopher Greenslate and Kerri Leonard got me beat. Two high school teachers form Encinitas, California set out to to stick to a budget of $1 a day for food. The experiment reminded me of the documentary "Super Size Me", where a man ate nothing but McDonalds for 30 days.
The couple had five rules to live by when they began their experiment back in September. The rules were as follows:
1. All food consumed must equal $1 each a day.
2. They cannot except free food or donated food unless it was available for everyone in their area (foraging, samples in stores, dumpster diving).
3. Any food they plant, they had to pay for.
4. They will do their best to cook a variety of meals; ramen noodles can only be prepared if there is no other way to stay under $1. (They had six packages and wouldn't buy more).
5. Should they decide to have guests over for dinner they must eat from their share; meaning they don't get to eat their own $1 worth of food.
The couples breakfast and lunch's were generally the same-oatmeal for breakfast and Peanut butter & Jelly sandwiches on homemade bread for lunch. Dinners were a little more exciting having beans and rice, potato burritos, palenta with marinara sauce,
cheese-less pizza, and home made wheat gluten steak strips with rice and broccoli. Popcorn and peanut butter were used as snacks.
The couple lost a lot of weight in a unhealthy amount of time. Christopher lost 14 pounds in a month. The couple had to for go fruit and vegetables as the more healthy foods were too expensive. The couple would drink Tang to get the vitamin "C" they needed to prevent from getting scurvy.
The World Food Bank says nearly a billion people around the world live on a dollar or day or less. In the United States the typical food stamp allowance is a few dollars per person. The average American eats $7 dollars a day in food. With our overabundance here in our country how are so many people going hungry.
As the couple found out fast foods and junk food usually costs less than healthier fruits and vegetables. There is something seriously wrong with the system. It's almost like some master plan to weed people out or drive the cost of health care up.
I think what the couple is doing is fantastic and is bringing great awareness to not only our food and eating issues in our country, but shows there are ways to cut back. Maybe not to that extreme but cut back none the less. If there is a will, there is a way.
To follow what Christopher Greenslate and Kerri Leonard are doing check out their original blog at One Dollar Diet Project. You can read their latest at DollaraDayBook.com
[This post is written and copyrighted by Financial Elite (http://financialelite.blogspot.com/ ).]
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