Rep Jackie Speir to Live on Food Stamps for a Week

[LeviF]

A weeks worth of lettuce isn't sustainable nutrition. He said you could eat well on $30 a week. I'd like to see that shopping list.

Someone hasn't been in college for a long time. On average, I spend about $35 per week on food (gotta save money for booze). I eat pretty well; I don't seem to be malnourished.

 

Box of cereal $2.99

Gallon of Milk $3.99

Bag of rice $4.00

Box of pasta $2.00

Frozen Veggies (3 bags) $7.50

2 whole chickens $5.50

2 lbs of pork roast $6.00

 

I'm a couple of dollars over but this was just a quick search. But then they'd have to actually learn how to cook.

Forget the cereal, get a tub of Quaker old-fashioned oats and have a filling breakfast every day for weeks for only $3.99.

[Chef Jim]

BTW any word on if Rep. Speir succumbed from her week of starvation?

[Jauronimo]

Good luck feeding yourself well on $30 a week.

Thanks. I've been pretty much doing just that for the past 3 years, so no luck needed. I'll go out once or twice a week which drives the spending beyond $30, but my grocery bill basically come down to that per week.

 

When you know how to cook its not that hard to operate off that budget. I'll slow cook a pork butt, grill some chicken thighs, make massive amounts of soup or chili. Last week it was sweet potato and squash soup. Ingredients, excluding spices and oil which I had on hand, cost $12 and produced enough to last the week. Onion, celery and sweet potato are cheap. The only meaningful expense was stock. If I weren't a lazy bum I'd start making my own and have tons of cheap stock which doesn't taste like salt lick. The week before was pulled pork. 10 lbs of pork at $1.49 per/lb, throw it on bread with some coleslaw and BBQ sauce made from pantry staples, and I ate pork carolina for 2 weeks.

 

I don't always adhere to that budget, but I'm typically not far off. And what I described above is me eating the things that I actually want to eat as opposed to utility mode where I could easily turn rice, beans, potatoes, lentils and the cheapest cuts of meat available into something decent for under $30.

[Jim in Anchorage]

Thanks. I've been pretty much doing just that for the past 3 years, so no luck needed. I'll go out once or twice a week which drives the spending beyond $30, but my grocery bill basically come down to that per week.

 

When you know how to cook its not that hard to operate off that budget. I'll slow cook a pork butt, grill some chicken thighs, make massive amounts of soup or chili. Last week it was sweet potato and squash soup. Ingredients, excluding spices and oil which I had on hand, cost $12 and produced enough to last the week. Onion, celery and sweet potato are cheap. The only meaningful expense was stock. If I weren't a lazy bum I'd start making my own and have tons of cheap stock which doesn't taste like salt lick. The week before was pulled pork. 10 lbs of pork at $1.49 per/lb, throw it on bread with some coleslaw and BBQ sauce made from pantry staples, and I ate pork carolina for 2 weeks.

 

I don't always adhere to that budget, but I'm typically not far off. And what I described above is me eating the things that I actually want to eat as opposed to utility mode where I could easily turn rice, beans, potatoes, lentils and the cheapest cuts of meat available into something decent for under $30.

When the hell do you live ? Mississippi? Pork $1.49 a pound? I wish I could buy ANYTHING for $1.49 a pound.

[Rob's House]

I love the presumption that goes with this, which is that people should be able to rely on food stamps and other forms of welfare for an indefinitely sustained comfortable lifestyle on the backs of others.

 

A rarely discussed reality is that usually the people that qualify for one form of assistance qualify for them all. So if you don't do **** but lay around on you useless ass getting pumped full of dick, popping out one future parasite after another, you can get subsidized housing, food stamps, Medicaid, pell grants, etc., while your working counterparts live week to week with both parents working full time having to send their kids to a !@#$ing baby sitter so you can sit on your fat kitty with no appreciation for any of it.

 

And now this self-righteous !@#$ wants to show how she feels the pain of the injustice of these people not getting more of the production the rest of us trade our time and energy for.

[LeviF]

When the hell do you live ? Mississippi? Pork $1.49 a pound? I wish I could buy ANYTHING for $1.49 a pound.

Not all of us live in places where pigs can't survive the cold

[Jim in Anchorage]

Not all of us live in places where pigs can't survive the cold

Well not sure. Some of the woman I see...

[Jauronimo]

When the hell do you live ? Mississippi? Pork $1.49 a pound? I wish I could buy ANYTHING for $1.49 a pound.

Rochester, NY. Pork shoulder is cheap. It's a big fatty piece of meat and you have to cook it a while, but small price to turn out a few pounds of carnitas or pulled pork. Whole chicken is even cheaper if your willing to take the thing apart yourself. Price per lb quadruples for that boneless skinless stuff. Considering it takes an average bum like me only a few minutes to separate the breast from the carcass, pull the skin off, and break down the legs into wings, drums and thighs I'd imagine just about anyone could do it and save buck.

[Jim in Anchorage]

Rochester, NY. Pork shoulder is cheap. It's a big fatty piece of meat and you have to cook it a while, but small price to turn out a few pounds of carnitas or pulled pork. Whole chicken is even cheaper if your willing to take the thing apart yourself. Price per lb quadruples for that boneless skinless stuff. Considering it takes an average bum like me only a few minutes to separate the breast from the carcass, pull the skin off, and break down the legs into wings, drums and thighs I'd imagine just about anyone could do it and save buck.

Family pack regular chicken is cheap, but tasteless. The free range organic chicken is more expensive but vastly superior in taste. The boneless skinless breasts are expensive and worthless. BTW why do you skin them? Skin on is a juicer, taster bird.

Edited November 8, 2011 by Jim in Anchorage

[BiggieScooby]

"I pray God has mercy on all previous posters." Tim Tebow

[Jauronimo]

Family pack regular chicken is cheap, but tasteless. The free range organic chicken is more expensive but vastly superior in taste. The boneless skinless breasts are expensive and worthless. BTW why do you skin them? Skin on is a juicer, taster bird.

Depends on the dish. Kebabs, curries, stews, the skin comes off. Grilling, roasting or frying the skin stays on. The organic and local stuff is much better, but at 4x the price, I opt for my performance enhanced roided up bird. I feel good knowing that if my chicken wasn't sitting on the smoker with a beer can up its ass, it could probably hit 60 home runs.

[Koko78]

Rochester, NY. Pork shoulder is cheap. It's a big fatty piece of meat and you have to cook it a while, but small price to turn out a few pounds of carnitas or pulled pork. Whole chicken is even cheaper if your willing to take the thing apart yourself. Price per lb quadruples for that boneless skinless stuff. Considering it takes an average bum like me only a few minutes to separate the breast from the carcass, pull the skin off, and break down the legs into wings, drums and thighs I'd imagine just about anyone could do it and save buck.

 

Do you really think people on welfare are going to break down and butcher their own chicken?

 

C'mon man, they're too busy sitting on their lazy rear ends watching the Oprah Winfrey Network on their 50 inch plasma TV's while gabbing on their gubment-paid cell phone complaining how they don't have any money left over from their welfare check to pay the heat bill.

[Jim in Anchorage]

Depends on the dish. Kebabs, curries, stews, the skin comes off. Grilling, roasting or frying the skin stays on. The organic and local stuff is much better, but at 4x the price, I opt for my performance enhanced roided up bird. I feel good knowing that if my chicken wasn't sitting on the smoker with a beer can up its ass, it could probably hit 60 home runs.

[DC Tom]

C'mon man, they're too busy sitting on their lazy rear ends watching the Oprah Winfrey Network on their 50 inch plasma TV's while gabbing on their gubment-paid cell phone complaining how they don't have any money left over from their welfare check to pay the heat bill.

 

My niece...four kids, each with a cell phone. Two wide-screen LCD TVs.

 

And she calls to complain she can't pay the electric bill, and asks us to spot her money. Last time she did that I told her "Sell the TVs...they'll be useless without electricity anyway."