Less than $2 a meal; Nourishing your body on that amount takes careful planning, shopping and cooking

FOOD STAMP CHALLENGE | One week, four people and a tight budget

Can you eat for $5.54 a day?

Stop off for just one fancy latte on your way to work or grab a burger and fries for lunch and you’re likely to blow through that amount, the maximum food stamp benefit for a single person, and go hungry for the rest of the day.

I’ve never been on food stamps, so I don’t really know what it’s like to be hungry. Nor do assorted members of Congress and governors, so hunger relief advocates across the country are challenging us to step up to the plate. They want us to feel, if just for a week, what it’s like to be hungry.

When Harvesters, Kansas City’s local food network, asked me to take its Food Stamp Challenge, I was immediately intrigued. But I wasn’t sure I could stay on budget. Even worse, what if my kids really did go hungry?

But the goal of the challenge was actually to get us beyond the growling in the pit of our stomachs. It’s the hidden emotional and social stresses of a bare pantry that can take a toll.

Loath to be a short order cook, I quickly decided that if I was going to be the menu planner, shopper and cook for an entire week (a duty I typically share with my husband), I needed the whole family to sign on for the challenge.

André, 13, was my first ally. He likes social studies and politics, so this was just the kind of social experiment I figured I could get him interested in. He didn’t take much convincing, although his idea for staying on budget was to eat off the dollar menu at a fast-food restaurant.

This was, of course, not only not allowable on food stamps but also not the way I want him to eat. Besides, food stamp recipients do not have the same convenience foods available to them. When you’re on food stamps you are not allowed to buy prepared items: no fast food, deli sandwiches -- not even a rotisserie chicken. Accepting food stamps forces you to cook.

Daniela, 8, took a bit more convincing. She was willing to join in the challenge only if she could continue to buy school lunch. She loves school lunch. I’m not sure what that says about my cooking.

As a family, my husband, Otavio, and I talked with the kids over several dinners about the changes that would be necessary in our diet: No more hormone-free local milk in a glass bottle. No more artisan breads at nearly $3 a loaf. No lunches out. No pizza Friday night. And, for the adults, no more wine with dinner.

Shopping strategies

A refrigerator cook most nights of the week, I tend to open the door, look inside and begin to put together a meal from what we have on hand. But with a budget of $129.50 per week -- the maximum amount a family of four can receive on food stamps -- I knew I would need to sit down and carefully plan out every meal.

A few nights before starting the challenge and André was at trumpet lessons, Daniela and I sat in a nearby pizza parlor and went through the stack of recipes that Harvesters dietitian Stephanie Ziebert had shared with me after a class I attended with real-life food stamp recipients. As I called out dishes, Daniela gave me a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. There were more yucks than yums, but by the end of the hour we had agreed on a week’s worth of meals.

With the menu planned, I divided the yellow legal paper into the sections of the store and made a list of ingredients I would need for the week. Practically speaking, I wanted to shop close to my home, but I also wanted to shop at stores that were typical of the average food stamp recipient.

The vast majority of Harvesters clients shop at supermarkets, grocery stores or discount stores (90 percent), not convenience stores (2.8 percent) as some obesity experts had led me to believe. Price clubs like Costco were out because of the fee required to join.

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