Learning large, living small: Poverty budget sets food limit

If you had only $12 to spend on food for a weekend, could you plan, shop, and cook enough eats to avoid starvation? Fourteen first-year students found out when they nickeled and dimed their way through a "Poverty Weekend" assigned by anthropology Professor Kenji Tierney. Their main goal?  To taste firsthand the impact of poverty in America.

Jordan Talamon '13, in the grocery store

And also to earn 10 percent of their final grade in Tierney's class "Food, Self, and Society," which examines what we eat and why, and how food shapes our tastes and ourselves. Tierney's interdisciplinary Scribner Seminar pulls together information and methodologies from sociology, psychology, history, literature, and mass media to examine such issues as hunger and obesity, fast food versus healthy eats, the ethics of eating animals, globalization and genetically modified foods, and more. 

To prepare for the challenge, students read a chapter from Barbara Ehrenreich's  Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, a gritty report on the difficulty of making ends meet on minimum wage. The students also kept food diaries, jotting down what they ate and guessing how much it cost.  "They really underpriced," laughed peer mentor Alyssa Blaker '11, an experienced cook who tackled the project side by side with her advisees. 

For Poverty Weekend, Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 10 and 11, the students were divided into three "families" (the Squashes, the Apples, and the Tomatoes). Each person was allowed about $12, which was what the 13 percent percent of Americans (and 19 percent of American children) living at the poverty level would spend—a realization so sobering that Professor Tierney suggested a new name for the project: "Bonding on a Budget."  It well suited Tierney's goals for the weekend:  Try to share new dishes from different cultures, avoid foods "that would make a nutritionist cry," and, of course, bond with your family. 

With "family" members ranging from big eaters to dainty grazers, and including vegans and athletes, planning was important. The students sat down together with sale flyers from a local supermarket, compared and negotiated their dietary needs, wrote shopping lists, pooled their funds, and on Friday before the weekend, boarded a Saratoga Springs bus bound for a downtown supermarket. They roamed the aisles, filling their carts, ticking off items and pouncing on bargains. One group bought two giant boxes of Cheerios, "because they're 'buy-one-get-one-free'," and cereal works for breakfast and snacks.  "How much is Fluff?" asked a big guy, urging his family "Get it, get it, get it!"  One group put back a small jar of natural peanut butter in favor of a giant jar of store brand; another smart shopper picked store brand pasta sauce over Ragu; everyone agonized over whether to splurge on an onion or a bag of salad, buy bananas or Hot Pockets and donuts.

At the checkout, there was plenty of peanut butter, pasta, bread, and ramen noodles. And for the next two days, the "families" gathered for each meal in one of the College's two test kitchens or in Blaker's Scribner Village apartment, where they cooked up a storm and bonded over table, kitchen sink, and stove. (One family even held hands and said grace.)

Food's been prepared; dinner gets two thumbs up.

No one really expected to starve, but there were some surprises when the students met in class the following Wednesday. With more than a little pride and exhilaration, all three families reported that everyone had more than enough to eat, and a lot of it was really good: peanut-butter-and-sliced-banana sandwiches, yogurt parfaits, pasta salad with stir-fried veggies, a rice-and-beans dinner, and even a home-baked cake (made from a mix, with store-bought chocolate frosting). They did it on a bare-bones budget, and "we learned we didn't have to spend a lot of money to not be hungry," one Squash family member marveled. 

The down side of their budget? No second helpings if the cooks screwed up. When a group undernuked one frozen pizza and overcooked the other, "We had no choice but to eat them both," they reported glumly. Cheap microwaved meals flopped because lengthy heating times left families hungry and grumpy—just like in real life. Worst of all, "we always went for the lowest price, so our meals were not so healthy," lamented one student. Like many Americans coping with a poverty-level budget, they overloaded on starch and carbs—too much mac-and-cheese, pasta, and pizza, not enough fruits and veggies. "Next time, I would buy less food, but more nutritious food," a student vowed. "This wasn't a sustainable diet." 

But that's a valuable lesson to learn, noted peer mentor Blaker:  "You can't have a clue about hunger unless you have this kind of experience," she points out—and that's a learning experience to take along for life. 

Tags: and society, kenji tierney, food, food, self