My friend Irene, a hardworking single mother who also cuts my hair, is an absolute inspiration to me and I’m sure many others fortunate enough to cross her path.
Moms like Irene silence all the naysayers like Dr. Oz who claim that it isn’t possible to eat healthy on a very tight budget or that those who eat organic are elitist.
You see, Irene is on food stamps.
Irene’s situation is not at all rare anymore. Â The number of Americans on food stamps, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as it is now called, has increased by 260% since 2000. Â In a more sobering statistic, the actual number of people relying on food stamps to eat has increased from 17.1 million in 2000 to over 44 million in 2011.
Despite Irene’s challenging budget which includes food stamps, she manages to buy nearly everything local and/or organic to prepare the healthy, homemade meals she prepares.
How?
By refusing to settle for anything less than the best for herself and her son and by using creativity and street smarts to carefully plan and implement her food stamps budget strategy.
When you demand the best and refuse to settle, as Irene does, the world frequently seems to open up to you with opportunities and people necessary to fulfill your goal suddenly coming across your path.
Irene also gets competent alternative medical care by shrewdly trading hairdresser services for routine chiropractic care which has prevented her family from requiring any conventional medical treatment or antibiotics or other drugs for quite some time.
How does Irene do it? Â How does she manage to source only the most nutrient-dense foods for her family including more expensive, gourmet items like grass-fed raw milk and butter while on food stamps?
The brilliance of Irene’s food stamps budget plan is in its incredible simplicity.
- Irene has learned which farmer’s markets around town accept food stamps and so she buys much of her produce at these venues. Â She also buys fresh, locally made, artisanal bread at the farmer’s market. Â Yes, it’s true! Â You can use food stamps at many farmer’s markets if you just ask around!
- Irene buys her grass-fed meats and bones to make stock at Whole Foods. Â Did you know Whole Foods takes food stamps? Â Another option would be for Irene to split a cow sourced at a local grass-based farm with one or two friends. Â This may present itself as an option for Irene in the future, but for now, Whole Foods is the best stand-in source for her meats given her limited time and storage space.
- Irene has figured out which health food stores carry what organic brands at the best prices. Â She uses her food stamps to buy foods like freshly ground almond butter, raw honey, cheese, and other staple items this way.
- Irene uses the food funds she is able to contribute herself for raw dairy which is not covered by food stamps (although I do know of one other friend in town who is able to buy raw goat milk with food stamps because she is allergic to cow milk).
- If Irene finds that she must buy something at the supermarket, she makes sure that it is a low spray item like asparagus or a GMO-free item based on an analysis of the ingredients label.
Hat’s off to Irene for showing us all how to eat healthy during hard economic times. Â Her refusal to accept anything less than the best, nutrient dense fare for herself and her family is the line in the sand that opens the door to solutions.
Well done Irene!
Are you on a food stamps budget too? Â What are your tricks for eating healthy, local, and/or organic despite this challenge? Â Please share to inspire those who may be facing a similar situation.
What is a CSA? I live in BC Canada. I am a single mom who works part time and am supplemented by income assistance. I also live in a small town, we don’t have food stamps here. We are fortunate to be able to grow a lot of our own meat. (Goat, lamb, chicken, turkeys and rabbit.) And plant gardens.
CSA is community supported agriculture. It can be a single farm or a co-op of farmers (mine is a co-op). I pay up front for the season. It works out to about $25 a week for a ton of organic veggies (more than my family of 4 can use in a week, and much fresher and less expensive than is what is in the store).
it is “community supported” because we, the CSA members, are the community which helps support the farmers. It is a win-win. The farmer is paid up front so it helps with their cash flow and also risks of crop failure. The community shares in the abundance OR the crop failure (so there is a risk, but with a co-op the risk is fairly small) and thus the farmer stays in business, which benefits the farmer AND the community.
It reminds me of a senator here in Brazil who said that for poor people to eat at all they have to accept GMO and chemicals on their food. Disgusting!
Love the blog!
Luciana
My family of four lives on a very limited food budget. Although we don’t receive food stamps, we probably come close to qualifying. For us, the Amish community has been a tremendous resource. We are able to get 3 gallons of raw milk and a pound of butter every week for only $62/month! We also purchased from them a quarter of an organic, grassfed cow for $2.65/lb. We also shop at two extremely reasonably priced Amish stores which carry local and organic bulk foods. We have to drive an hour every week to the area where our Amish friends live, but it is so incredibly worth it. They have been such a blessing.
This is a nice story of eating healthy, but a terrible story of business.
Sarah you state “By refusing to settle for anything less than the best for herself” that your haridresser eats well and “Her refusal to accept anything less than the best, nutrient dense fare for herself and her family is the line in the sand that opens the door to solutions.” Then she shouldn’t be on food stamps in the first place. By your own account of this persons brains and determination they should be able to run a profitable business so that she could make enough to sustain a living.
If she doesn’t make enough right now then she needs to either provide more service or charge more for what she is providing. She obviously believes herself worthy of healthy food (a wonderful belief everyone should have), then she should believe she is worthy of a fair price for her service. The same quotes above that you state she used for eating healthy also apply to her business. This is the basic of what America was founded on. Not only have the large bailouts and subsidized businesses lost their way but so have the small business providers.
I wish her well and hope you take this comment as a friendly reminder of what made the US great.
I think you are assuming too much, the details about this woman, the area she lives, her specific situation or capabilities, that people wouldn’t leave her establishment if she charged more, that she’s not already working a lot of hours, etc. Stop vilifying food stamps; that’s not what this post is about.
Wow Alex you read what you wanted from my post. I am not vilifying food stamps. I am not a tea party person who doesn’t believe in any government support, or any government at all which it seems some are wanting now. I am neither a liberal nor a conservative, I am vehimently independent. I believe that in some circumstances food stamps are not only a good short term idea but a necessary one.
I know of 2 single women who support their family by being a hairstylist and 1 women is the main bread winner as her husband gets part time or seasonal work and none of them live on government assistance.
If some of her customers leave because her prices go up then she can’t help that, but most if not all will stay and new ones will come. If some people can’t afford the higher prices then deals can be made for services (just like she does with the chiropractor).
Providing more service does not mean working more hours. The boy who used to deliver groceries and “invented” a method of having the customers do their own shopping to help stop the mistakes and make it faster. He became an entrepreneur and opened up a new store. This didn’t require more work hours. Henry Ford didn’t ask his workers to work more hours, and in fact he didn’t even require them to work that much faster or harder, he invented a system just was able to co-ordinate them into working together at a reasonable pace Woolworths five and dime was created by someone who thought about selling inventory that wasn’t moving at a reduced price instead of throwing it away. This creative thinking/invention didn’t require more hours of work.
Your right I don’t know all her details. I don’t know if her husband just died and she is having a tough time dealing with it. I don’t know if she is dissabled. I don’t know if her shop just burnt down, but I do know what the article states and that is expressly shown in my statement. This women showed that she is smart enough (creative/inventive) and determined enough to make eating healthy on food stamps work when everyone said that it was not possible and that when she focused her mind then the doors just opened up. My whole point is that she can bring the same attituted to her entrepreneurial endeavors and the same will happen; her mind will focus, doors will open and she will be successful.
Oh, another “just be smarter/faster/better/more entrepreneurial/harder working, then you will be just fine!”
I hate this attitude, because it assumes that if one isn’t doing well, it’s because they must be inferior in some way, or just not working hard/smart enough.
I wish this were true, but it’s ridiculous.
Really, that is all that you think of my comment.
Does it really take that much intelligence to figure out that you are running your own business and that this will be the income you will be living off of? Does it take that much intelligence to know that it takes charging X amount of dollars in order to survive and make a living wage and that if you don’t charge enough you won’t be able to survive? I guess I overestimated the effort and intelligence it takes to take food stamps and make it stretch out to a healthy way of eating.
Why is it OK to support her in her great effort in life on eating healthy, but when it comes to cheering her on to keep up the great attitude and effort and transfer it over to her business then you vilify?
Just make sure that you take whatever you want out of my comments and make some kind of excuse and keep people down and dependent on someone (or the government) in order to survive. It feels much better being dependent on someone or an organization than doing it on your own.
I wondered myself how long the food lasts that she gets, then? Because raw milk, butter, etc are very expensive.
What made this country great was 400 years of free labor on the backs of slaves, not demanding a fair price for the services one offers. That allowed this nation to generate wealth and establish itself as a superpower. The ability to have the freedom to create businesses and wealth now are indirectly tied to that uncomfortable truth.
The idea of what this nation is founded on and can be versus the reality of it was and is and should be are vastly different. Here’s to hoping we can truly live up to our ideals.
Agree with Dave. But unlike Dave, I’m not going to be tactful. A person savvy enough to eat organic on a SNAP budget should be savvy enough to figure out how to increase her income and get off SNAP. But maybe Irene is content to live on other people’s money. Yes, Irene is spending my money and your money to buy her groceries. If SNAP is a permanent way of life for Irene, rather than a temporary safety net, as was the program’s original intent, then the taxpayers supporting Irene are being duped. It appears that cutting hair is a hobby of Irene’s rather than a vocation and without SNAP (and maybe rent subsidy as well) Irene would have to get training and acquire a skill with a higher market value. Providing a service or product that people need and will pay for is what makes an economy strong and a community vibrant. So, Irene, use your street smarts and get off the dole.
I’m a small vendor at a farmer’s market in the midwest. Since I usually only have a few vegetables to sell and my main thing is flowers, I actually wish people would try to bargain with me. It seems that customers aren’t used to going to me for veggies and look at the bigger vendors. I hate to go home with produce and end up throwing some away if I can’t give it to the food pantry. So strike up a conversation with the farmer’s market vendors. Flattery will get you a good deal! Ask if the vendor will mark it down if you come back at the end.
Also, I’ve been volunteering at the food pantry this Xmas season. During the summer, a group has a community garden that sends their food to the food pantry. I think it’s great but there’s not much fresh in the winter. Walmart now donates their day-old bakery items along with a couple other small stores and that really bothers me. Are empty calories better than none? How hard is it to resist cakes, white bread & pies if it’s given to you for free?
Out of curiousity, how much does she get per month in food stamps? It varies from state to state, county to county…
dr oz–pfft what a joke–wonder which big chem company bought him off
It all comes to priorities… If your priority is to provide health to your family then you will find ways..most choose convenience and come up with excuses to justify their choice…don’t tell me that head of cabbage, bag of onions and soup bones are cheaper then junk you buy and you could make so many great, filling meals out of that!!
Dr Oz is just a mirage, he pretends to support healthy ways but if you are a critical thinker very fast you would know he is not all that..
I think something to remember is that not all Farmers at the Farmer’s Market sell organic. I live in NYC and I only recently found that the Farmer’s Market I was shopping at only had ONE organic stall. This was a big shock to me. That is when I researched and found a CSA which accepted food stamps.