Built into the cost of our study abroad program here in Oxford is a bi-weekly food stipend of 90 pounds- which, thanks to a miserable exchange rate, means we’re given roughly 90 dollars a week to spend on food. When I heard that, my response was disbelief. I remember telling my mom how guilty I felt at the idea of spending 400 dollars a month on food for just one person. Surely it wouldn’t actually cost that much, I’d have money left over for other things, or to save, or whatever. And sure enough, it doesn’t cost that much. 45 pounds a week is enough to eat well, have a bit of alcohol, and do lunch out. Okay, I guess it depends on your definition of “eating well” and “a bit of alcohol”, so I’ll just give an example of my own ridiculous spending today.
Today we got paid, which is always nice. A group went in search of good sushi, and I tagged along. And we found some fantastic sushi! Lunch was miso soup (3.20) and a California roll (6.50). Add on a yummy concoction of fruit juices (2.50) and a bit of a tip, and lunch was 13 pounds. Definitely the splurge for this fortnight, but it was so good! And very filling, I should add.
Between lunch and the library, Sam and I stopped into some used bookstores (Rupke still evades me) and went by the Union to check email and get out of the drizzle. Half-pint of Coke with lime at the Union Bar: 50 pence.
After the library, the grocery store. I was feeling a bit lazy, and know that the next couple of days will mainly consist of me reading and writing in my house (if the weather changes I’ll venture out to the Botanical Gardens). When I’m lounging around the house I usually don’t feel like cooking, so I got easy stuff to satisfy the Italian craving I woke up with yesterday: pre-made veggie lasagna, stir-through pasta sauce, a frozen pizza, and some tomato-basil soup. To round it out, a mini-baguette, garlic bread, and a small loaf of wholewheat bread (because they had *just* pulled it out of the oven, it was still warm! at 55p, I couldn’t resist). Oh, and parmesan cheese, a bag of gala apples, and a pack of strawberries. Definitely not budget conscious shopping, my main concern was convenience. The whole thing ran me about 16 pounds. So between lunch and careless grocery shopping, I’ve spent two-thirds of this week’s food monies already! You may question my lack of fresh veggies, but they should really only be purchased at the farmer’s market on Gloucester Green Wednesday mornings, so I’ll live off the prepared stuff until then.
It should be fairly obvious that I’m not expending my energy on counting calories, and I certainly wouldn’t normally put this much thought into grocery budgets. But a few things have made me think about what I eat, how I eat, and how much I spend on food.
The first was the housing gamble for next year. Earlier this semester I threw the dice of my diet and let Mercer housing decide how it all played out. As a senior that wants to live on-campus, I had a few options. One of them was Mercer Hall. Mercer Hall is great and everything, and as a sophomore I would’ve been ecstatic (my sophomore year there weren’t apartments available to us. I’m so sick of the merry-go-round that is our Housing dept.). Anyway, as a senior who has spent a year abroad without any semblance of a cafeteria meal plan, the idea was ridiculous. I’ve been cooking/managing my own meals all year, and with that freedom came the chance to become a vegetarian with relatively little stress to the people around me or my schedule. Anyone who’s eaten in the FFC on a regular basis will know how difficult it would be to be a vegetarian and have the caf as your main meal source. I signed my housing application with the assumption that if I got stuck in Mercer Hall, I would be willing to give up being a veg. for awhile (my mother was greatly relieved). Now that enough time has elapsed since I got my tattoo, it would be a shame to not be able to give blood because I’m anemic again (something that sounds much worse than it actually is- for me, at least). It would be quite a challenge to eat most meals in the FFC and still eat healthily *anyway*, much less so if you were trying to do it without chicken, beef, or bacon.
Another food issue that has been floating around the program is that a few of the girls are doing the South Beach diet now. For various reasons, apparently. Plus our ongoing conversations about the merits of regional cuisine. By “regional cuisine” I mean grits, cornbread, sweet tea, biscuits and gravy, and the like. Mmm, Bear’s Den…how I miss you.
But none of this is enough to get me to bother to write about food, or think about how much I’m spending on food. Procrastination, on the other hand.. well, I happened across this post about the Food Stamp challenge, which is “a week in which everyone’s encouraged to try living on a food-stamp allotment’s worth of groceries. That comes to about a dollar a meal per person” in Texas. Follow some of the links, read some of the stories. It’s interesting, and troubling. Of course, it’s not isolated to Texas. Google “georgia food stamps” and it becomes obvious that this is a larger problem. In Georgia, it’s 1.07. I can’t imagine.
Read this pdf in its entirety, it isn’t very long. I’ve no idea whether or not there are any blaring biases in the report, I’m not familiar enough with the issues involved. Seems a very fair account, though I’m skeptical about Farm Bill recommendations made here, and in other places. Again, I haven’t done any research, and can’t really justify what little time I’ve already spent on this, but I’ve got a hunch that the Farm Bill is about a hell of a lot more than Food Stamp allowances, and some of its provisions might not be as urgently necessary, or clearly beneficial to both direct recipients and the economy as a whole. Aren’t there issues with subsidies and the fact that there’s corn syrup in damn near everything we eat? That reminds me I need to read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemna, which is what comes to mind when thinking about the Farm Bill. Specifically, the NYTimes review I read and NPR interview I heard about the book and the author’s approach to the subject. Ah yes, this sparked my interest:
In fact, the first quarter of the book is devoted to a shocking, page-turning exposé of the secret life of that most seemingly innocent and benign of American crops, corn.The species Zea mays, for all its connotations of heartland goodness and Rodgers and Hammerstein romance (“as high as an elephant’s eye”), has been turned into nothing less than an agent of evil, Pollan argues. … [H]e lays out the many ways in which government policy since the Nixon era — to grow as much corn as possible, subsidized with federal money — is totally out of whack with the needs of nature and the American public.
Or there’s this mention in a much more recent article, about the parents in Atlanta convicted of murder, involuntary manslaughter, and cruelty after their 6 week old infant died of starvation, the result of a vegan diet:
A vegan diet is equally dangerous for weaned babies and toddlers, who need plenty of protein and calcium. Too often, vegans turn to soy, which actually inhibits growth and reduces absorption of protein and minerals. That’s why health officials in Britain, Canada and other countries express caution about soy for babies. (Not here, though — perhaps because our farm policy is so soy-friendly.)
I take issue with the tone, and even some of the content of the article (despite that fact that I’m no nutritionist). She certainly seems to know what she’s talking about, some of the issues she raises are dietary concerns I’ve had as a vegetarian who doesn’t particularly like eggs, or seek out dairy products (Vitamin B12!). And the reference to farm policy, and most likely by extension the Farm Bill, rings true.
Long story short, here’s another cause about which I should be more informed, and another instance in which privilege has further reaching effects than one would think to acknowledge. And maybe taking a few years off before grad school to work for a non-profit or a lobbying firm would be rewarding, and a chance to change things for the better.
