Re: Broke and hungry

On Dec 7, 12:11 pm, Sheldon <PENMAR...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
"Nancy Young" wrote:
"FarmI" wrote

The report says that the average American spends $7/day on food and that
surely can't be right as it's a miniscule amount of money. I did a
currency converson and that is about $7.97 in my currency and, if the two
of us were eating meat for an evening meal, I'd spend at least $10 in my
currency just on the meat component of the meal.

I wonder how they came up with that number. Do they add up
all grocery food sales/restaurant sales/roadside farm stand sales?
Factor in home grown food? Makes no sense. Having said that,
food in my house could be decent to very good for $14 a day, being
that there are 2 of us.

You can eat "decent" at $14 for two but certainly not much more than
bare essentials... there'd be little fresh produce, not much in way of
beverages except plain tap water, no snacks to speak, certainly no
alcoholic beverages, and you'd need to go real easy on the cheese,
even Velveeta ain't cheap, not much desserts (store brand jello?),
real skimpy on herbs and spices... I can go on. Sure, you can eat
inexpensive meat cuts but even then there wouldn't be much money left
over for accompaniments... and stews and soups every day get old fast,
especilaly if made low cost POW style (very juicy). Even a pound of
balogna costs like $5.... and then you need bread, mustard and maybe
some cheese and lettuce... where's the pickle, slaw, and beer. Yes,
you can subsist on $7 but portions will be small and uninteresting,
pretty much hospital/prison food.

The last I looked decent preground mystery meat from the stupidmarket
cost $4/lb, by the time the fat is cooked off all you'll have is two
servings.. and you still need to add about $4 more to make it a decent
meal... and that's only one meal, what about the rest of the day.

$14 a day feeds my six cats.

$14 a day is my average food bill for just me... Holiday meals are
probably the least expensive, turkey and ham is cheap. To be
perfectly honest I can easily fix a chef's salad for just me and it
will cost about $14... a measly can of decent sardines costs $3, and I
will usually use two (they're small).... but if I use one I add a can
of premium red salmon, costs $5... by the time I add all the produce,
a bunch of olives, a can of sliced beets, a couple sliced eggs, maybe
a fistful of walnuts, and some dressing I'm sure I got $14 on the
plate. I eat a lot of tinned fish, it's very healthful but definitely
not cheap... and I can't open just enough for me unless I want to try
to eat around six cat noses in my plate.

I spend a bit more than $100 a week on just food to feed just me,
purrrty close to another $100 a week to feed my six cats.
And I don't consider my usual diet very oppulent, it's mustly just
ordinary foods, but I don't skimp on the accompaniments just so I can
eat lobster and prime rib, in fact I probably haven't eaten lobster in
more than 10 years, shrimp neither, it's not something I crave, in
fact I think it's highly over rated, I'd much rather my sardines. But
me and my guys like our steak, so two small porterhouse ($14 worth) is
a dinner for us, and then there are veggies (cat's eat veggies too),
and my guys drink water but I drink a few 2nis. And I don't always
drink Crystal Palace... my booze bill is about $100 a week, and I
really don't drink a lot, maybe two drinks a day... mostly a tall
glass filled with ice, grapefruit juice, and a double shot of vodka...
the grapefruit juice costs as much if not more than the vodka but
juice is pasrt of the drink so itsprice counts, ice ain't free
either. But I'll also splurge on good scotch, Champagne, and my
favorite Ruffino dago red.

I've no idea how yoose eat for $7/day.... must be a lot of pasta with
two grape meata balles.

Oranges cost a buck a piece, I just ate two as an appetizer for
breakfast, supposed to eat "5 A Day", I eat more fresh produce than
what's considered a serving (btw, 5 a day is the minimum), apples cost
a buck a piece too, you're not gonna be eating much fresh produce on
$7/day, even a small crummy head of iceberg costs $2. Not sure what
else yet but I'm thinking my 1 quart bowl of raisin bran... need lots
of room for milk, yoose know why... my cats polish off a can of evap
first thing every morning. Dried cereal is expensive, milk ain't
cheap anymore, even one banana costs 30 cents. A lot of people feed
their pets crap foods, the cheapest brands they can find and no
variety... a high quality diet costs a whole lot less than vet bills.
Same with people too, eat cheap now pay big medical bills later.

Yesterday I picked up a plain cheese pie from the local pizzaria, just
happened to cost $13.95... $14 by my math. They make pizzas much
smaller than the 18" they used to years ago, and now they're very
stingy with the topping, this was 14", I finished it for lunch and
wasn't even full... years ago 3 slices and I was busting. A 14" pie
is actually about half the size of an 18" pie. When I was a kid the
corner pizzeria made 20" pies, so loaded with real mozz you could
barely handle a slice, and the entire pie cost 75 cents... then one
slice cost 10 cents and was enough for lunch. But today's food prices
are much different... back than an oversized hot corned beef on rye at
the kosher deli cost 35 cents... a full meal on real linen soup to
dessert with all the trimmings with impeccable service cost 35cents at
the Chinese.

I'm sorry, but unless you're in prison you can't eat a proper diet in
the US on $7/day, no way, no how, anyone claims they can doesn't have
the foggiest concept of a decent proper healthful diet, or they choose
not to remember what all they consume. And food costs in the US are
probably the lowest on the planet, but still, $7 barely buys a couple
ham n' cheese sammiches... a friggin' can of Spam, 4 slices of rye, a
few Kraft singles, mustard, pickle, slaw and a quart of milk costs
about ten bucks, and that's a do it yerself at home lunch for two, and
it sure ain't decent, more lurid. Anyone tells me on average they eat
decent on $7 an entire day I say is a pinnochio nosed fibber, or
weighs in at less than my six cats... but then your idea of decent
ain't mine.

Sheldon

I'm always amazed when you report the quantities that you eat,
Sheldon.
My breakfast is 1 ounce of cheerios, 8 ounces of milk, and a banana or
about 3 ounces of defrosted frozen raspberries.

Today, lunch was one flour tortilla (about 12" in diameter) with a
couple
of ounces of cheese melted onto it, a couple of tablespoons of salsa,
a tablespoon or so of sour cream, and 1 or 1.5 cups of shredded
iceberg lettuce (I'm out of romaine).

I'm not sure what dinner will be tonight, but last night it was two
cups of
torn romaine, a sliced carrot, six grape tomatoes, about an inch of
cucumber, dressed with 1/2 tsp balsamic vinegar in 1/2 tbsp olive oil;
about four ounces of skinless, boneless chicken breast dusted with
flour and sauteed in butter, with a pan sauce of beef broth and
lemon juice; and half a cup of rice.

I rarely eat dessert, and drink about one beer per month.

Often, one piece of pizza is sufficient if I've had salad (which
almost
always do). I probably eat for $7 per day quite frequently. But I
probably
weigh more than you and all your cats put together.

Yesterday, though, I spent $27 on lunch at an Asian-fusion restaurant.
It was delicious, but I couldn't afford that very often.

Cindy Hamilton
.

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