SNAP Challenge When the SNAP Challenge was first introduced in class I was excited and thought that it seemed like an interesting project that would be relatively easy. The first day I began working on the project I knew that I hadn’t given it enough credit. I never realized how difficult it would be to create seven meals, especially meals that met the food pyramid guidelines. I realized I wasn’t even sure of what the different food pyramid guidelines were so my first step in the project was looking those up so I could try to create my meal plan set they met them all. My next challenge was coming up with different meals. I had many different ideas in my head but I knew they would all add up to be more than my budget so I had to strategize while still trying my best to keep it nutritious. Another challenge was the grocery shopping itself. I knew that the idea of the project was to show how difficult it is to create healthy meals while on a budget. I spent time looking up different coupons and deals that would allow me to get the most out of my money. While I was at the store looking up prices I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get everything I had on my list, even with the coupons and deals, so I had to prioritize. I wouldn’t say the project was relatively easy, but I also wouldn’t …show more content…
say that is was extremely difficult. It required a lot of planning, strategizing, and research, but it definitely was a project that was capable of being done if the time was put into it. They were a few challenges that I faced while living with food stamps. I realized that I wasn’t able to buy everything I necessarily wanted for my meals. I made my grocery list prior to going to the store but once I got there I realized some of the necessities cost more than I had assumed. Things like meat, fruit, and vegetables were a big chunk of my budget and they affected the other things I could by. It was also challenging to try to create nutritious meals. Healthy foods were more expensive so I couldn’t get as much for my money. I had to strategize how I could get the most for my money but still try to keep my meals as nutritious as possible. In order to stay within my budget, I spent time looking at the different coupons that were available and all the deals that they store had going on that week. Once I got to the store I looked at all the different varieties and brands of products they had. I looked at the products and brands that had deals and then compared them to the cheapest brand to see if the deal was saving me money or if buying the cheapest brand was actually smarted. I also looked to see if it made more sense to by things in bulk or by multiple individual packages. By strategizing and doing research I was able to stay within my budget. While I was shopping and trying to find the best deals to stay within my budget I realized that the cheapest things are not the most nutritious. In fact some of the most expensive things were the fruits, vegetables, and meat which are some of the most important part of meals. Being that healthy foods are most expensive I did my best to plan meals that were nutritious. I tried to meet all the guidelines of the food pyramid but with the budget it made it difficult to reach them everyday. Fruits and vegetable are two things that are rather expensive and add up quickly. It was definitely a challenge to do this and I didn’t have enough money to buy all the different types of fruits and vegetables I would have liked. Although they were expensive and I couldn’t buy everything I wanted, I strategized and attempted to make sure everyday we had the right amount of fruits and vegetables. Having a budget definitely kept me from buying things that I usually would see as a necessity. For instance, I was not able to buy many snacks that I often have because it was more important to make sure we were getting the right nutrients rather than buying the snacks we liked because we didn’t have money for both. Another thing I often would purchase are a variety of drinks. I often like to have orange juice for the morning, and things like lemonade, pop, juice boxes, and tea. Being on a budget I knew that these wouldn’t be smart purchase, and wouldn’t help me reach the food pyramid guidelines. While I was shopping it didn’t even cross my mind that I might not have the resources that I am accustomed to.
In fact, I hopped into my car and drove to the store, not even having to worry about taking the bus or finding a way to get there. Not having the resources that I’m accustomed too would have made meal planning a lot more challenging. Instead of just having to worry about planning nutritious meals and staying within budget, there would have been the added stress of how am I going to get to the store or how am I going to store this food and keep it good for the rest of the week. These different things would have provided more of a challenge to the project and possibly more
stress. Being on a food budget for a long period of time would definitely be stressful. It would be difficult to come up with different meals for every week. It would also be difficult to make sure the meals being prepared were nutritious. It would get tiring trying to find the best deals and search for the cheapest foods so there is a chance it would just seem easier to by cheap meals like Ramon noodles that don’t have much nutrients. This could then later affect my child and I, like the amount of energy we have, and our immune systems. Then if buying cheap unhealthy foods is something that becomes a consistent thing, I could be pushing myself and my child towards obesity. There is also a chance that we would run out of food before we can afford to go back the the store. If this type of things happened I would try to find a way to get to a soup kitchen or try to find different organizations that are giving out free meals, such as churches. If times become extremely desperate I may even have to reach out to my friends and family in the community, no matter how humiliating it may be. After doing this project I have concluded that although the government is trying to assist the poor by providing them with a weekly budget, the limited budget makes it difficult to plan nutritious meals, and sometimes even buy enough food to last them a week. Although the budget is helpful and is definitely a step in the right direction I feel as if they are better more efficient things that could be done to help make providing food for my family not such a stressful and difficult thing to accomplish.
I did not participate in the snap challenge because I am on the university’s meal plan. However, I still participated in the snap challenge process and afterwards I came to the following conclusions. The grocery list was very challenging; I decided to shop for my food online instead of going to the grocery store. My first resource was Walmart, but they did not have the prices for many foods. It was then that I started to realize my monies were depleting quickly. Throughout this assignment I realized that dollars add up and purchasing the store brand items are not always the cheaper way. I thought about which grocery stores provide the pickup option and I chose Lowes Foods. When I finished my list I realized that I forgot to calculate tax, as
By being on a budget and making a plan for each individual week of what I was going to eat for each meal it made grocery shopping go a lot faster, because I had a plan and I knew what I needed to buy and only got what was on the list due to the budget. The limitation changed what I ate by not being able to buy as much expensive healthier foods or as much food in general not allowing junk food or items to snack on in the household, which is a really good thing, but it limited what I ate because there wasn’t enough money in the budget to buy a bunch of food that wasn’t needed for that
This process has not been easy and I have struggled to stay consistent with my healthy eating habits. Keeping my cravings under control has always been a challenge and my love of bread makes things a little harder. I also recognized that I am a stress eater. I had never paid attention to my eating patterns until I begin to keep a journal. This project has definitively helped me monitor and attain a better Healthier lifestyle.
This is the life of many poor families in America today, including me. I have faced this struggle every month while attempting to find a strategy to make sure my child and I have nutritional meals to last throughout the month. I along with many poor Americans, desperately depend on the beginning of the next month to have something to eat.
How often does one think about when his/her next meal will be? If you are the average American, the answer will most likely be “in a couple of hours”; however, there is a good chance that you might also be one of the fifty million Americans that would most likely answer “I don’t know… whenever I can afford it, I guess.” Roughly every one in six Americans would have some sort of response like the one presented because that is how many are considered food insecure. This is obviously one of the most important social problems afflicting America in modern times, but what can be done about it? A Place at the Table displays three scenarios: Barbie, a struggling mother of two; Rosie, a fifth grader living meal
Low incomes can contribute to families not being able to meet their nutritional needs — impacting the quality and the quantity of food available for parents and children (First Call, 2015). First call goes on to explain that, often parents will forgo their own nutritional requirements in an effort to ensure their children have enough food. Additionally, researchers in the United Kingdom found that low income, as well as, family dynamics have a profound influence on what a family eats. Therefore, developing strategies that involve the family with meal choice, budgeting, and preparation has many benefits (Mackereth,
I performed mainly behind the scenes tasks such as making boxes and packing food. While I did not deal with feeding the hungry directly, I still learned and observed many lessons that were reflected in class. One thing I observed that we discussed in Reconciling All Things is people ignoring and crossing divides to help those in need. The people at the food bank did not care what the person’s socioeconomic status was, they still served and helped them. A lesson that became more solidified through this project was the fact that everyone’s job at the food bank, no matter how big or small, is important to getting to overall mission completed. Whether it was someone like me making boxes or someone serving food in the kitchen, we all played a role to end hunger. Another thing that I noticed through this project was that some problems are easier, maybe not by much but still nonetheless, to solve than we make them out to be. Hunger is probably the easiest social problem that can be solved in America due to the excessive amount of food wasted every year. I thoroughly enjoyed this project and watched things that were discussed in class come to
However, given that the meals are delivered and prepackaged may not teach a participant the proper way to cook or shop for food. The fear, of course is that once the prepackaged meals and snacks are not available. The dieter will no longer be able to determine what is best to meet their nutritional and ongoing dietary needs.
Since we have been learning about nutrition in class, our task was to record a food log. Nutrition requires a well-balanced diet containing nutrient and vitamins like amino acids and fatty acids. Over the past seven days I have been recording and have been looking very carefully at my intake of nutrients, minerals, vitamins, and fats. In our task, the objective was to record the basic foods we ate during the period of seven, but it did not require recording every single detail or our intake of food. Doing this food log was a pain and it was disturbing because I never wrote about what I ate like breakfast, lunch, dinner, or additional meals. I found this food log useful because it helped me learn what I can change in my intake of foods to make my diet healthy and to see what about my diet is affecting me from being healthy because I could affect me in the future.
Further, students also now have time to run other urgent errands. Now that students have the luxury of eating on campus students can now use their excess time to run errands. It is common for students to have multiple things to do, in situations like that students sacrifice a meal in order to complete urgent errands. This won 't be a factor if DSU allows private food vendors on campus.
The first thing that parents look at when they buy lunches for their children is how much lunches cost. One thing that most parents have noticed, is that school lunches are not as cheap as lunches that you would bring from home. School lunches can be expensive, not only because of the food, but because the companies have to pay the cook, the server, the cleaners, and all of those people who work for the company. Asking children to pack their own lunches can save a family up to more than $50 a month. This is one advantage that home lunches have on your family...
Every morning when I wake up the first thought in my mind is usually: FOOD! I often lie in bed for a few extra minutes, planning out what I am going to eat for breakfast. Seldom as I go through this routine do I stop to think about those who are less fortunate than me. I often take for granted that everyone wakes up and eats breakfast. But this is far from true, not everyone shares the luxuries that we have in the United States. Some people wake up and wonder if they will eat at all that day, let alone eat breakfast. Why? Because food, like many other things, is unequally distributed throughout the world.
There are so many food choices that can be made throughout each day. Lack of time due to homework, sports participation, and social lives can hurt healthful eating. This is not necessary though. So many foods are available to us.
Besides time, cost saving gives fast food an edge over the meal prepared in the kitchen. If one lives alone, then it is cheaper to buy a meal at the supermarket instead of cooking it at home. Also c...
While I was tracking my eating for these three days, I began to learn about the benefits of the food that I am eating and the nourishment that they provide for my body. I had never realized how big of a role that the food that I eat plays in my everyday life. Eating has never been something that I really think about it is just something that I do. After I looking at the data of what I eat on Choose My Plate, I realized that my eating habits are far from balanced and that I needed to work on bringing my eating habits to a better balance. While there are a lot of things that I have been doing right, there are also many things that I can work on.