Still, I consider the experiment a success. I gathered a lot of data, and I have a few conclusions:
- $1.00 is not enough money to buy a nutritious daily volume of food for my body-type.
- It could buy enough calories (in sugar) or enough vitamins and minerals (in a supplement), but not both.
- My personal experience indicates that I can survive approximately one week on 1,046 daily calories without adverse health side-effects. It is unclear whether that threshold is physical, mental, or emotional.
- In my opinion, the current domestic agricultural system is inadequate to ensure nutritious food to Americans in poverty.
The photo on the left was taken on Day 1, and the photo on the right was taken on Day 10. Five pounds is not a significant change (about 3%), but the fact that most of it happened in 48 hours is startling. I also do not know the composition of my weight-loss, i.e. fat, water, or muscle.
8 comments:
This is very interesting (I just noticed it on Facebook (I=Aaron Coe)). I'm still a little unclear on the rationale behind doing it in the first place, but in any case it's always refreshing to see someone practicing restraint in this culture of excess we've created. If you do something similar in the future, you might find nutritiondata.com useful; it lets you track consumption of more than what you were listing (including vitamins, minerals, etc), and has a bunch of analytical and informational tools too.
Also, I'm wondering about your conclusion #4, above--what do you mean by that?
Thanks for the resource. I'll check it out. I began the project to see if I can do it. I know others have. In the end, though, I found that the US ag system (whose focus is corn, beef, and dairy) is inadequate for the healthful feeding of the poor.
Hmm? I thought you found that American retail prices make it impractical from a nutritional standpoint to consume only $1 worth of calories every day. That's not exactly the same thing...
Kudos to you for listening to your body. If you decide to do this again in the future I'd recommend starting with dry beans rather than canned. And, if I were doing the experiment, I'd use coupons and loss leaders ... or would you consider that cheating?
For instance, Muir Glen had an online coupon out for several months last year of $1 off/product. Our local WalMart sold their Fire Roasted Tomatoes for $1.14. Final price: $0.14. The same goes for pasta. Several times a year I can get a box/bag of pasta for free just by using a coupon, We also have grocers that regularly sell veggies at $0.20/lb or fruit for 5/$1.00 just to get people in the door. Learning to make your own bread, tortillas, crackers, or muffins goes a long way towards stretching a dollar.
There are lots of places online where you can find free coupon to print. Plus, if your libraries are like ours, they get copies of the Sunday paper. The coupons are free to whoever wants them.
Feel better soon.
Thatoneguy: I realize that the final retail price of goods is dependent on many factors, but it is derived from initial cost. The fact is that the cost of corn and other subsidized crops is artificially depressed. I don't agree with agricultural subsidization as a matter of politics, but the system could be improved by encouraging the cultivation of more healthful crops.
Kathryn: Yes, I was using dried beans. Very cheap (incidentally, did you know that beans warmed in a Crock Pot are deadly toxic to humans!) Coupons and promos are important to the budget shopper. Great tips.
Would you be interested if I posted my shopping spreadsheet?
It would be interesting to see your shopping spreadsheet, Skyler.
Check out the site below. She did a month long chanllenge based on Food Stamp funding in her state. She also worked to use organic/fresh food.
http://www.rebeccablood.net/thriftyo/2007/04/the_organic_thrifty_food_plan_1.html
Sara, cool resource! Thanks! And Kathryn, I'm having trouble posting an Excel sheet. Lemme work on int.
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