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Food. Food. Food.

Years ago I had a situation where I had no money, no job, my rent was only paid up for three months and I had nothing in the fridge except a box of baking soda and some ketchup. I wound up eating every ther day to try and stretch whatever I had or could scrounge. It was ugly. And, like many people who have had an unhappy experience, I swore I’d never be in that position again.

There is a very special calmness/peace/serenity to knowing that you arent going to starve. It must be some sort of lizard-brain primitive instinct. I open the cabinets in the kitchen, see the boxes/cans of food, and I feel secure. This is a good thing.

From a practical standpoint, it really doesnt take much to keep from starving. Drop into any village in Honduras or VietNam and you’d be amazed at 1) what you can eat when youre hungry and 2) how little food you actually need to keep from dying. Sure, I’d love a life of pizza, ice cream, pop, cheeseburgers, bread and potato chips…but I know I can live on alot less.

Some meat, some rice, a few vegetables, some spices and something to drink. Simple enough.

It is not my job to take care of my fellow man…esp. when my fellow man is just as capable as I am of getting his own meal. However, I do find myself feeling bad for the hungry. The homeless? Not really. The jobless? Nah. But the hungry I feel for. And, really, in this country, its almost impossible to believe you can go hungry. Hell man, walk into any CostCo and you can eat free samples till you burst. Its amazing how cheaply you could actually feed someone. Some rice, some beef, a dollar or two worth of vegetables.

I have a buddy who, to me, spends his money in the stupidest manner possible. He’ll head to the supermarket and buy a pre-cooked roast beef and a tub of already-cooked mashed potatoes. This is prepared food, and its priced as such. For the same money, he could get the same meal at probably half the price if he’d be willing to cook it himself. Having been hungry once, I notice these things. And I’ve also gotten wierd about leftovers..remember grandma telling you about how it was a sin to waste food? I’ve seen people throw away food that was more than some meals I’ve had. If I have leftovers, they go in the fridge..1/3 of a plate of chicken and mashed potatoes left? It gets a sheet of saran wrap over it and then a trip to the fridge. Eat it tomorrow.

Hungry people are dangerous people. When someone gets hungry they shed their civility real fast. You can see it in Africa, you can see it Arkansas after a tornado…lines at the supermarkets, people getting beaten for taking more than their share, etc, etc. Its worth the sacrifice of storage space and a few luxuries for me to not have to worry about being in that situation.

Theres also a control angle….face it, when you have to rely on someone with a government ID card to feed you, clothe you, house you or treat you, you’ve become, basically, a pet. Your options have become limited, your future uncertain, your freedom curtailed.

So, tonight, I’ll go home. I’ll re-arrange space in my basement for more shelving. I’ll start listing food to buy. When I buy the food I’ll mark the date on it, stack it away, rotate it as I use it, and be extraordinarily content with myself. Next time you feel the urge to spend $14.99 on a pizza, you might want to think about what $14.99 would mean to you someday down the line when your hungry and the supermarket is unreachable or closed.
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An example. This is what I eat alot of when I dont wanna spend alot of money. This makes a huge amount of food and normally lasts for two or three days. If I have any cheese, I’ll melt it over the top. About five bucks and gets me through two days of lunch and dinner. Three days of just one big meal per day.

1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes in sauce [$1.19]
1# regular ground beef [$1.99] (from ‘remaindered’ meat bin)
1 onion, chopped [$0.20]
1-3~ clove garlic [$0.10~]
1 green pepper, julienned [$1.00]
2 cups uncooked white rice [$0.30]
Tobasco, Worcestershire, salt, cumin, to taste [$0.25~]

Brown ground beef and drain. Return to pan with chopped onion, garlic and pepper. Add liquid spices. Fry until onion is translucent. Add crushed tomatoes and sauce. Simmer uncovered. Add dry spices. Simmer until reduced a bit. Mix with cooked rice. Melted cheese, optional.

21 thoughts on “”

  1. Food thrift

    We made the mistake of going to our neighborhood Wal-Mart (the “ghetto Wal-Mart”) on December 1. As always, it boggled my mind at what people who shop with food stamps — oh, wait, where is the dignity, I’m sorry, Electronic Benefit Transfer cards — buy. Brand name everything, pre-cooked everything, soda, chips and snack cakes out the wazoo, not just frozen pizza but frozen individual pizzas, for maximum packaging waste and expense….the woman in front of me had two carts brimming with premium junk food. About twenty Lunchables (least nutritious school lunch known to man; stuff your kids with sodium and preservatives, brain food be damned!).

    I was buying Great Value brand everything — oatmeal, cereal, veggies, sandwich stuff, a few pounds of chicken and hamburger for the carnivore and some mac and cheese boxes just ‘cos I’ve been craving them. A sixty-cent splurge. That’s how you spend when you work for your money.

  2. Re: Food thrift

    “Eat everything on your plate! Dont you know theres people trying to live on teachers salaries?!”

    I’ve always been fascinated by what the welfare/foodstamp recipients buy when theyre at the market. Now, I would think that if I had to basically beg for food money I would spend the money on the most nutritional and versatile food for the money. Makes sense, right? I’d buy rice, pasta, meat, milk, vegetables, fruit, eggs, cheese, etc, etc. But more often than not I see people buying frozen pizza, ice cream, fruit rollups, frozen burritos, potato chips and the like. Idiots. And have you noticed that these people usually tend to be overweight? I suppose you could argue that the lack of brainpower, motivation, self-esteem, etc. that keeps them on welfare probably also keeps them from knowing how to eat reasonably healthy. You know that there are certain products you cannot buy with food stamps, right? They should expand those restrictions…no pop, no candy, no ice cream, etc, etc.

  3. Re: Food thrift

    I’d take it a step further and say they should issue staples, kind of like they did with cheese — milk, bread, eggs, ground beef, flour, sugar, corn flakes, etc….

    Actually, wait. I forgot — I’m a Libertarian. I don’t think the government should issue anything. I think private charities should be responsible for helping the needy.

    But my first idea would be a step in the right direction, as would yours.

  4. Re: Food thrift

    People are essentially lazy, whether they’re on food stamps or not. You just described the purchases of the average individual at just about any grocery store.

  5. Ugh, I hope not!

    Not mine, nor John’s, nor most of my friends’…and I looked back only a few enties in your lj and you don’t look to be the Ring Ding type, either.

    ‘Course, if you have the money and that’s how you choose to eat, no problem. It just seems that stretching the food dollar would (or should) be a concern of someone on welfare…if they’re ever hoping to get off welfare.

    But maybe I just answered my own query right there.

  6. I second the comments about food stamp recipients ignorant buying habits.

    And I’d like to add something to your list to replace/supplement rice. Dried beans have lots of protein and are cheap in bulk. Replace the rice in your dish with beans (one kind or a mixture) that you’ve soaked overnight and cooked up (in broth if you have it). Beans really help stretch a dish and provide better nutrition than plain rice. Even brown rice is much better than plain rice. ALthough I confess I like fragrant white rice from time to time 😉

    Some years ago, a guy was teaching me to make a pair of leather sandals I’d designed. I had dinner at his place, and after dinner his wife said that all the ingredients had come from the dumpster behind the local Safeway. Misshapen veggies, for the most part. Nothing rotten or spoiled – just good stuff that was tossed because it didn’t look good enough. Just goes to show that you have resources most people never think about. Besides Costco samples, that is 😉

  7. Y’know, beans are the ultimate in long term food..especially when combined with other food to make a complete protein. Drawback is that Ive never really liked them. Sucks, because beans and rice is a staple diet thats almost perfect for my needs.

  8. You don’t like any beans? At all? That’s really a shame.

    I thought I didn’t like beans because as a kid I was only exposed to “boston baked beans”, which is revolting. Then when I was 25 or so I was introduced to the little navy beans and black beans and mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmBEANS! I’m particular, though — Goya canned beans are the best.

  10. Re: Ugh, I hope not!

    sometimes wierd things help cut your grocery bill, for example, since i was diagnosed with the non shot needed diabeties, i’ve cut my groceries bill from $45 a week to $20 a week or less, just by NOT buying crap like candy, chips, little debbie snack cakes, shoot, i hardly even buy soda anymore and also by using coupons & matching prices

  11. Commander Zero, since i’ve started reading your LJ i’ve been giving myself a good hearty boot in the ass for NOT buying that 50 lbs sack of pinto beans for $15 at C&C liquidators when i had the chance

  12. Do you do any sort of dehydrating? I’ve been reading a lot of camping cookbooks lately and they reccomend dehydrating most anything.

  13. Sure. Headed to WalMart and bought a good food dehydrator for about $40. Its the slickest thing in the world for making your own ‘instant’ soups…some dried onions, carrots, corn, peas, some instant rice and boullion cube and *presto* – soup. Great for when I go hunting dump it all into my Aladin thermos with a couple cups of boiling water and by lunchtime its perfect. (A small tuna-can sized tin of chicken meat can get dumped in to make it into a chicken gumbo/soup.) I like apples and pears so I dry them and theyre great for snacking. If I dry them really, really dry so theyre brittle I then run them through the Cuisinart to make a ‘flour’ out of them that I can use for smoothees or mix into bread/muffin mix for flavoring.

    Most beef jerky is way to oversaturated with liquid smoke and all that crap..IMHO…I take sliced meat, soak it overnight in some water and a couple tablespoons of Montreal Steak Seasonings and then dry it. Gives it a nice delicate dill flavor. Whatever I dont use gets run through the vacuum sealer for a shelf life measured in years.

    Dried strawberries are great, by the way. I arrange them on the trays, dust them with a little confectioners sugar and dry. Apples get a dusting of cinnamon and/or sugar. Great stuff. If you dont have one, buy yourself a dehydrator for Christmas.

  15. Saving Money With a Thermos Bottle

    Have you seen this? I think you’d like it. The author has another page that talks about his time on food stamps when he was disabled. He says he lived like a king.

  16. Re: Saving Money With a Thermos Bottle

    Yeah, Ive read most all of Saxon’s stuff. If you ever see pictures of him, notice that he’s missing a few fingers…the legacy of his books on homemade explosives. Cooking is alot safer. Anyway…

    After reading that articlea couple years ago, I purchased the Aladin Stanley thermos and tried out a few of his ideas. Like alot of his works and plans, they sounded reasonable but in practice….eh… maybe I was doing things wrong. I really need to experiment a bit more. However, things look promising…the homemade ‘instant’ soup/gumbo/stew creations show alot of promise and I’ll be directing my efforts along those lines…something that allows me to take advantage of my dehydrated and other long-term stuff.

    Thanks for posting the link, though..I hadnt added it to my bookmarks yet.

  20. If it was, that makes it a waste of time rather than if it was somewhere else even though the contents and quantities are exactly the same? So, its not the large quantity of food that makes me paranoid but rather where I store it? That seems a little silly. But, since it seems to disturb you so much, I’d recommend that you not follow my lead…I’ll choose to take responsibility for my well-being and you do whatever it is that you’ve been doing.

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