The FOOD, INC. $11 Dinner for Four Challenge: Ground Rules and Day One Meal
I just had to open my big, fat mouth. Or, more accurately, wiggle my big, fat fingers. Immediately, three tweeters chimed in. "What a great challenge!" "Thanks! We look forward to it!" "Great idea! I will read that." It was the point of no return. If I didn't come through, shame would follow me forever.
Perhaps the most poignant vignette in FOOD, INC. shows a Latino family of four eating fast food, ostensibly because they cannot afford both the father's diabetes medication ($500 per month, according to the film's director, Robert Kenner) and decent food. The family is show shopping in a supermarket, rejecting purchases of fresh fruit because it's too expensive.
During a #foodinc Twitter chat, I asked Kenner how much the family spent on the fast food meal shown in the movie. (Aside: My recollection of the film was that they ate at Burger King. Other viewers/reviewers have stated McDonald's.) His answer: $11. That's when I stepped in it. I said, "I'll take it as my challenge is to come up with a healthier dinner for 4 with an $11 budget. Will blog when done."
Here's why I said what I said: I believe that FOOD, INC. presents a false alternative. That is, I don't believe that diabetes medication accompanied by fast food or better food but no diabetes medication are the only choices here. I believe that I can find a third way. And, if I push the envelope, I think I can find a third way that will reduce the damage caused by the father's diabetes.
Now that you understand how we got here, let's go over the ground rules:
1) I'll produce costed menus for dinner for four people with a budget of $11 per dinner. Total. Not per person.
2) I'll (attempt to) do this for seven days with no repeated mains. Repeated salads, starters, sides, beverages are allowed.
3) Because I assume that the family is living paycheck to paycheck, I'll not assume that I can go to the store with $77 in my pocket and buy for the week. It's actually much easier to do it that way. However, if money and/or products are leftover from a previous day (or days), I assume it/they will be available on later days.
4) I assume that the cupboards and refrigerator are bare at the beginning of the week. However, I assume that the usual kitchen appliances, pots and pans, dinnerware, utensils, cleaning supplies, etc. are available.
5) I'm shooting for a meal consistent with a diet of between 2,000 and 2,500 calories a day. My goals are about 800 calories for the meal; less than 25 total fat grams, 8 saturated fat grams and 800 mg of sodium; and at least 10 g of fiber for each meal. I'll shoot for as close to 0 grams of trans fat as humanly and budgetarily possible. All of these numbers are consistent with government guidelines for a 2,000 to 2,500 calorie diet assuming that the calories, fat, sodium and fiber are distributed more or less evenly over three meals during the day.
6) "Shopping" will be done in San Francisco. I'm not actually going to buy the ingredients and prepare the meals as I don't actually feed a family of four. However, I will actually go a store to price the ingredients for each meal. To the best of my knowledge, since I don't plan to buy hot foods, everything I buy will be exempt from California sales tax. If you see me buying anything you think is taxable, call me out on it.
7) I'll do my best to make the meals things I'd actually eat. However, I'll try to avoid buying things that I'd normally eat but that I think would be harmful to someone with diabetes. E.g., for the first meal (see below), I buy whole wheat pasta. I wouldn't normally eat whole wheat pasta but my sense is that it's better for someone with diabetes than regular pasta.
8) I assume that the family has a Safeway Club Card and equivalents from other markets. The Club Card is free and a money saver so I think that this is fair.
9) Sorry, kids, no soda. My parents didn't let me drink soda for dinner when I was a child. I had milk or (in the summer) iced tea at every meal. I lived. You will too.
10) My goal is to provide more nutritionally balanced and sound meals than are available from fast food. Buying local, organic and/or sustainable foods is NOT a goal. While FOOD, INC. addresses these issue, the problems of the Latino family are not cast in this context so I'm being consistent with resolving the dilemma as portrayed in the film.
11) If you think that the rules are cheating or that I'm cheating on the rules, call me out on it. I may not agree but I will listen. My goal is to make this challenge as honest and realistic as possible.
Now, on to the first meal!
Day one's dinner menu is caesar salad and penne with tomato-basil sauce and Calabrese sausage. Children and adults drink milk. I'll try to migrate the adults to coffee later in the week but we can't afford it on the first day. No dessert. Again, can't afford it, at least on day one. For this meal, I "shopped" at the Safeway in San Francisco at 16th and Potrero on June 30, 2009.
For the penne, I've chosen Safeway's O Organics Whole Wheat Penne Rigate in a 16 oz. box. Personally, I'd use regular pasta, which is less expensive, but, as noted above, I believe that the whole wheat will be better for the diabetic father. I found the pasta on sale for $2.00, Club Card price.
The sauce I chose is Classico's Tomato-Basil Sauce at $2.50 for a 26 oz. bottle, Club Card price.
The packages claim that there are eight servings of penne and six servings of sauce but personal experience tells me that this is bull puckey. I'm using the whole package of pasta and the whole bottle of sauce.
I like a little meat in my pasta sauce so I stopped at the butcher counter for a link of New York Style Calabrese Sausage. The woman behind the counter told me that each link was about 4 oz. The sausage cost $3.99 per pound so I estimate that a single link is $1.00. I chose this particular sausage a) because I thought it would work fried, cut up and stirred into a pasta sauce and b) it was available loose so I could get a single link instead of buying a more expensive package. Normally, I'd like more than 1 oz. of meat per person but, on this budget, we can't afford it.
The next selection gives me some heartburn but I didn't see a better choice. For salad, I opted for a Fresh Express Caesar Salad Kit, $2.99, Club Card price. The kit serves three but we're going to have to stretch it to four. And it contains 3 grams of trans fat (total, not per serving). I hate trans fat. Trans fat is evil. The rest of the dinner is, at least nominally, trans fat free. As I said, this choice causes some heartburn.
For the beverage, I chose a half-gallon of Safeway Lucerne 1% Milk for $1.99. Yes, I know that non-fat would be a better dietary choice but I won't drink skim milk on grounds of taste so I won't make our family do it. Adults and kids alike get 8 oz. of milk to drink. As previously noted, this is not ideal for the adults but it's what we can afford today.
I'm cutting a couple of corners here for budgetary reasons — normally, I'd toss a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and some salt into my pasta water. We can't afford it. The pasta will still be OK.
The total food bill for this meal is $10.48. I'll have $0.52 and a quart of milk to carry forward into Day Two's dinner.
Per person, this meal delivers 732 calories, 22 g of total fat, 5.25 of saturated fat, 1145 mg of sodium and 15 g of fiber. Most of the nutritional information came from www.safeway.com. Neither Safeway nor the purveyor provided nutritional information regarding the sausage so I substituted information for a Johsonville Italian Sausage link of similar size. I figure it's got to be close. Nutritional information for the milk came from www.thedailyplate.com.
I'm at little light on calories and way heavy on sodium. I'm hitting my fat and fiber goals. I've got to work on the sodium in later meals but I don't think there's any doubt that this is a healthier, more nutritionally balanced meal than fast food burgers. Click here if you want to see a JPG of the spreadsheet used to calculate the per person nutritional content for the meal.
All in all, I feel pretty good about Day One. This is one of my favorite meals to prepare for myself, albeit with more sausage, regular instead of whole wheat pasta and iced tea or red wine instead of milk. Ideally, the salad would be freshly made but, let's be honest, I often take the packaged shortcut myself. It took some searching and a few compromises but I met the challenge within the budget.
My self-imposed rule that I had to go day-by-day (with cash and product carryforwards, if available) really hurt today. Because I couldn't find bottles small enough, I couldn't buy olive oil (my first choice because of nutrition and versatility), canola oil or salad dressing and stay within my budget. That drove me to the packaged salad. Safeway had some nice honeydews for $4.00, buy one, get one free for Club Card holders, that I had to skip because they wouldn't fit into the budget. They would have provided a nice, fresh fruit dessert for two days at $0.50 a serving. Today was the last day of the special pricing so I can't save and buy later in the week. Bummer.
It's still early but I think I'm going to be able to show that the Latino family featured in FOOD, INC. can afford both good food and diabetes medication, contrary to what the movie claims.
Perhaps the most poignant vignette in FOOD, INC. shows a Latino family of four eating fast food, ostensibly because they cannot afford both the father's diabetes medication ($500 per month, according to the film's director, Robert Kenner) and decent food. The family is show shopping in a supermarket, rejecting purchases of fresh fruit because it's too expensive.
During a #foodinc Twitter chat, I asked Kenner how much the family spent on the fast food meal shown in the movie. (Aside: My recollection of the film was that they ate at Burger King. Other viewers/reviewers have stated McDonald's.) His answer: $11. That's when I stepped in it. I said, "I'll take it as my challenge is to come up with a healthier dinner for 4 with an $11 budget. Will blog when done."
Here's why I said what I said: I believe that FOOD, INC. presents a false alternative. That is, I don't believe that diabetes medication accompanied by fast food or better food but no diabetes medication are the only choices here. I believe that I can find a third way. And, if I push the envelope, I think I can find a third way that will reduce the damage caused by the father's diabetes.
Now that you understand how we got here, let's go over the ground rules:
1) I'll produce costed menus for dinner for four people with a budget of $11 per dinner. Total. Not per person.
2) I'll (attempt to) do this for seven days with no repeated mains. Repeated salads, starters, sides, beverages are allowed.
3) Because I assume that the family is living paycheck to paycheck, I'll not assume that I can go to the store with $77 in my pocket and buy for the week. It's actually much easier to do it that way. However, if money and/or products are leftover from a previous day (or days), I assume it/they will be available on later days.
4) I assume that the cupboards and refrigerator are bare at the beginning of the week. However, I assume that the usual kitchen appliances, pots and pans, dinnerware, utensils, cleaning supplies, etc. are available.
5) I'm shooting for a meal consistent with a diet of between 2,000 and 2,500 calories a day. My goals are about 800 calories for the meal; less than 25 total fat grams, 8 saturated fat grams and 800 mg of sodium; and at least 10 g of fiber for each meal. I'll shoot for as close to 0 grams of trans fat as humanly and budgetarily possible. All of these numbers are consistent with government guidelines for a 2,000 to 2,500 calorie diet assuming that the calories, fat, sodium and fiber are distributed more or less evenly over three meals during the day.
6) "Shopping" will be done in San Francisco. I'm not actually going to buy the ingredients and prepare the meals as I don't actually feed a family of four. However, I will actually go a store to price the ingredients for each meal. To the best of my knowledge, since I don't plan to buy hot foods, everything I buy will be exempt from California sales tax. If you see me buying anything you think is taxable, call me out on it.
7) I'll do my best to make the meals things I'd actually eat. However, I'll try to avoid buying things that I'd normally eat but that I think would be harmful to someone with diabetes. E.g., for the first meal (see below), I buy whole wheat pasta. I wouldn't normally eat whole wheat pasta but my sense is that it's better for someone with diabetes than regular pasta.
8) I assume that the family has a Safeway Club Card and equivalents from other markets. The Club Card is free and a money saver so I think that this is fair.
9) Sorry, kids, no soda. My parents didn't let me drink soda for dinner when I was a child. I had milk or (in the summer) iced tea at every meal. I lived. You will too.
10) My goal is to provide more nutritionally balanced and sound meals than are available from fast food. Buying local, organic and/or sustainable foods is NOT a goal. While FOOD, INC. addresses these issue, the problems of the Latino family are not cast in this context so I'm being consistent with resolving the dilemma as portrayed in the film.
11) If you think that the rules are cheating or that I'm cheating on the rules, call me out on it. I may not agree but I will listen. My goal is to make this challenge as honest and realistic as possible.
Now, on to the first meal!
Day one's dinner menu is caesar salad and penne with tomato-basil sauce and Calabrese sausage. Children and adults drink milk. I'll try to migrate the adults to coffee later in the week but we can't afford it on the first day. No dessert. Again, can't afford it, at least on day one. For this meal, I "shopped" at the Safeway in San Francisco at 16th and Potrero on June 30, 2009.
For the penne, I've chosen Safeway's O Organics Whole Wheat Penne Rigate in a 16 oz. box. Personally, I'd use regular pasta, which is less expensive, but, as noted above, I believe that the whole wheat will be better for the diabetic father. I found the pasta on sale for $2.00, Club Card price.
The sauce I chose is Classico's Tomato-Basil Sauce at $2.50 for a 26 oz. bottle, Club Card price.
The packages claim that there are eight servings of penne and six servings of sauce but personal experience tells me that this is bull puckey. I'm using the whole package of pasta and the whole bottle of sauce.
I like a little meat in my pasta sauce so I stopped at the butcher counter for a link of New York Style Calabrese Sausage. The woman behind the counter told me that each link was about 4 oz. The sausage cost $3.99 per pound so I estimate that a single link is $1.00. I chose this particular sausage a) because I thought it would work fried, cut up and stirred into a pasta sauce and b) it was available loose so I could get a single link instead of buying a more expensive package. Normally, I'd like more than 1 oz. of meat per person but, on this budget, we can't afford it.
The next selection gives me some heartburn but I didn't see a better choice. For salad, I opted for a Fresh Express Caesar Salad Kit, $2.99, Club Card price. The kit serves three but we're going to have to stretch it to four. And it contains 3 grams of trans fat (total, not per serving). I hate trans fat. Trans fat is evil. The rest of the dinner is, at least nominally, trans fat free. As I said, this choice causes some heartburn.
For the beverage, I chose a half-gallon of Safeway Lucerne 1% Milk for $1.99. Yes, I know that non-fat would be a better dietary choice but I won't drink skim milk on grounds of taste so I won't make our family do it. Adults and kids alike get 8 oz. of milk to drink. As previously noted, this is not ideal for the adults but it's what we can afford today.
I'm cutting a couple of corners here for budgetary reasons — normally, I'd toss a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and some salt into my pasta water. We can't afford it. The pasta will still be OK.
The total food bill for this meal is $10.48. I'll have $0.52 and a quart of milk to carry forward into Day Two's dinner.
Per person, this meal delivers 732 calories, 22 g of total fat, 5.25 of saturated fat, 1145 mg of sodium and 15 g of fiber. Most of the nutritional information came from www.safeway.com. Neither Safeway nor the purveyor provided nutritional information regarding the sausage so I substituted information for a Johsonville Italian Sausage link of similar size. I figure it's got to be close. Nutritional information for the milk came from www.thedailyplate.com.
I'm at little light on calories and way heavy on sodium. I'm hitting my fat and fiber goals. I've got to work on the sodium in later meals but I don't think there's any doubt that this is a healthier, more nutritionally balanced meal than fast food burgers. Click here if you want to see a JPG of the spreadsheet used to calculate the per person nutritional content for the meal.
All in all, I feel pretty good about Day One. This is one of my favorite meals to prepare for myself, albeit with more sausage, regular instead of whole wheat pasta and iced tea or red wine instead of milk. Ideally, the salad would be freshly made but, let's be honest, I often take the packaged shortcut myself. It took some searching and a few compromises but I met the challenge within the budget.
My self-imposed rule that I had to go day-by-day (with cash and product carryforwards, if available) really hurt today. Because I couldn't find bottles small enough, I couldn't buy olive oil (my first choice because of nutrition and versatility), canola oil or salad dressing and stay within my budget. That drove me to the packaged salad. Safeway had some nice honeydews for $4.00, buy one, get one free for Club Card holders, that I had to skip because they wouldn't fit into the budget. They would have provided a nice, fresh fruit dessert for two days at $0.50 a serving. Today was the last day of the special pricing so I can't save and buy later in the week. Bummer.
It's still early but I think I'm going to be able to show that the Latino family featured in FOOD, INC. can afford both good food and diabetes medication, contrary to what the movie claims.
This family is Latino, right? I bet you could price food's that are part of their culture from either Safeway or some little bodega on a side road & make meals which are a bit cheaper. How about a dinner of Fritata? Dozen eggs, potatoes, cheese & some veg. W/ Milk & fruit. Or Tortillas filled w/ cheese, some canned beans, onions, canned toms, bell pepper, salad & fruit. One chicken will feed a family of 4 for three meals, if carefully prepared--prorate it out over the 3 days. Very economical. This is a great exercise, and I look forward to seeing what else you come up with.
Of course, as well, this example assumes that people out there living like the Latino family, know how to cook...
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Podchef, thanks for the great suggestions. I'd been thinking about eggs as a cheap protein but wasn't sure what to do with them. Frittata = perfect.
I'll try to save a little money over the first few days to see if I can buy a chicken mid-week. That way I structured this I don't have the money to do it at the beginning of the week. If I'd said I had $77 to shop for the whole week, this would be much easier.
And, you're right, assuming that people know how to cook is a BIG assumption. My first meal was heating more than cooking. Even I can do that! The frittata might be a little more challenging.
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Wow! Interesting challenge. I'll be curious to hear how the rest of the week goes. We should all give this a try, I bet we'd learn a lot.
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I bet you're right! Thanks for reading and commenting.
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In Food, Inc., one issue they brought up was time. The family left early in the morning and returned home late in the evening. Many poor people work more than one job to make ends meet, so time (and the convenience of fast food) are important issues. So, while I totally agree that you can feed your family a more healthy meal at an equal or lesser price than fast food, you might also include the time it takes to cook your meals in your report. I would guess that your day one meal was prepared in 15 minutes or so, which is great. I think time is worth mentioning, because no matter what menu you come up with, there will be people who say, "Well, sure, but who has the time to cook?"
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Heather, I didn't remember that time was mentioned as an issue in FOOD, INC. I saw it more than a month ago at a pre-release screening. Much has happened since I saw it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Can't possibly have anything to do with my 50 year old memory failing, can it?
Seriously, you're right, time and energy can be an issue, especially when people have to work more than one job to cover the bills. OTOH, every time I actually cook for myself (not often, mind you) I'm amazed at how quickly I can whip out a meal. More importantly, I believe that parents have an obligation to find the time and energy to feed their kids properly, even if they are working more than one job.
Good suggestion to add the prep time for each meal. I'll do it. It will be an estimate because, as I note in the groud rules, I'm not actually cooking these meals because I don't have a family of four to feed.
For this meal, I think you're a little light on the prep time. The pasta instructions say to boil for eight to 10 minutes. However, it will take at least double that amount of time when you consider that you must bring a pot of water to a boil. Call it 30 minutes to be on the safe side.
The "shopping" actually took me longer. (I didn't actually buy the groceries but I went to Safeway so I could be sure that the prices were accurate and current.) All in, it took me about an hour, although I was very inefficient for a number of reasons (e.g., the layout of the store changed since my last visit) not directly related to this challenge. If I factor out the inefficiency, I think I could have done it in half the time. Still, theshopping time involved is more than you might think because, to hit the budget, you have to really look hard at the menu and prices.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
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Kudos to you for taking this on. I like Podchef's suggestion of using a frittata and I'm quite familiar from my college days of making it on rice and beans. Also, I just recently purchased 1/16th of a local steer for $3 a pound (I shared a 1/4 with 3 friends). Can't beat bulk buying.
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Becky (aka @ChefReinvented for those on Twitter), you're right, can't beat bulk buying. An artifact of the way I structured the ground rules is that I can't do it, at least in the beginning of the week. Maybe later in the week, if I can save some money to carry forward. Even thought it makes the challenge more difficult, I deliberately did it this way so no one could accuse me of cheating by the way I structured the rules.
If I really need to save one day, I'll look at rice and beans. Cheap and good fiber in those beans. Not the tastiest things in the world though, unless you give 'em some good spice!
If I bought a share of a steer, I'd get in so much trouble with the rest of the crew it wouldn't be funny. I'd demand the rib-eyes, filets and hanger steak and let the other fight over was was left!
Thanks for reading and commenting.
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Oops! I'm one of those who tweeted you back saying it was a great idea. And well you delivered. Beans and other grains like garbanzos and lentils would be a good/inexpensive option and they can be tasty if seasoned well. Maybe with brown rice to make it healthier?
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Oh, so YOU'RE the one who hoisted me with my own petard!!! After I move to Florida, vengence is mine!!! Hmmm....maybe seek out the worst resto in Miami and send a glowing review of it just to you!
Good idea for beans and brown rice! I'm thinkin' that adding some chorizo or other protein that can be stretched by mixing it with the carbs would make for a good, cheap meal. Personally, I'm a huge red beans and rice fan if some andouille and/or ham hocks are added to the mix. Chorizo would be more culturally appropriate and, as you point out, brown rice is healthier (in this context, has a lower glycemic index) than white rice.
Anyone have a beans and rice recipe they'd like to recommend?
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I was going to suggest beans but I see that Paula beat me to it. I love this challenge and best of luck, I have to agree on the time issue - I think someone working all day would be hard pressed to be motivated to cook dinner, don't know if preparing something in a slowcooker counts as cheating. Also the bodegas and corner markets are great and the fruits and veggies, at least at the stores I frequent are substantially less than Safeway.
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I still think that I'll be able to "feed" this family but it's proving to be harder than I thought. And, yes, time is the issue, shopping time more than cooking time. Part of the time problem is that I'm really inefficient -- I don't shop for groceries that often so I don't know the story layouts -- but part of it is that, as I realize some combination is too expensive, I have to run back and forth to check prices on substitutes.
Frankly, one of the reasons I've "shopped" at Safeway is that they have parking. Parking is a real issue in SF and I don't want to waste time looking for it. However, I may wander into the Mission this weekend to see if some of the corner markets offer lower prices. I'll report.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
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The other issue to consider is access. I haven't seen Food, Inc. but even in San Francisco getting whole wheat pasta and a salad kit can be a bit of a production. People living at Sunnydale are nearly two miles from the Outer Mission Safeway. No car? That's a big trip. Your closer options are fast food and corner markets (old school, liquor-heavy ones) and one greengrocer on Leland.
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For this particular challenge, access isn't an issue. FOOD, INC. shows our family going to a fast food drive-thru in their car.
In general, you are, of course, correct. It's tough if you don't have a car. Thank six decades of urban planning. Schlepping groceries on a crowded Muni bus (if it goes where you need it to go and if it runs when it's supposed to run) must be a royal pain in the arse. Taxis are expensive. As you point out, stores in poor neighborhoods tend to be liquor-heavy and fresh food light, not to mention surprisingly expensive.
At the end of the challenge, I'm going to look at Internet ordering/grocery delivery as a way to overcome the access issue. This introduces a whole new list of assumptions (must have checking account with debit card, computer and Internet access (if not at home, perhaps at school or library) and know how to use computer/Internet (parents may not but kids probably do and can help)). Stay tuned.
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This is good stuff. Thanks for taking this challenge.
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