NOMalicious » Challenges

Hunger Challenge Day 5 + Recap

admin — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 13:46:25 +0000

Woops. I kind of forgot to update my blog about day 5! So Friday was the last day of the challenge and here’s how I did:

$0.50 – popcorn
$0.18 – can of soda
$2.75 – bubble tea
$2.00 – homemade korean curry and side dishes
$0.20 – fruits and corn syrup glazed potato

$5.63 – total

$32.36 – 5 day total

I finished strong with a dollar or so to spare.what made this challenge possible for me is being able to buy food at bulk prices and sharing meals with people. What I fail to do in this process is to eat 3 meals a day. I used the same habit as I usually do with food and ate when I’m hungry. As you can tell from the list of food, it’s very college-student like. But food stamps don’t only affect people with families. College students are considered one of the poorest adults in the category and not everyone gets spending money from their parents either.

There’s a lot of controversey as well to college students receiving food stamps. Granted, if your household income is very low, your grants and federal loans are very high and that money usually can cover your food budget. However, not everyone is able to get federal loans and grants. Some people may fall in the gap between being ‘too rich’ for food stamps and not rich enough to actually being able to pay for food.

Another problem that I’ve heard of is college students abusing the food stamps. They declare themselves as independents, file their own taxes and since they make very little money working at part time jobs, they fall in the category of food stamps. That is also a big problem since they most likely have the support of their parents and they are taking food money away from others in need.

I feel like it was important to me to eat the way I usually would and personate the role of a college student on budget. What I ate may not always be healthy, but it was filling and definitely had enough nutrient values for college students. To conclude, it was a great way to figure out a approximately how much I eat on a daily basis and to save money.

Hunger Challenge Day 3-4: So close!

admin — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 01:39:35 +0000

So I almosted f-ed up the whole challenge. My housemates decided to make roti canai!!! It was so delicious.. but I had already make pork kebabs.

So I did go over my daily limit yesterday:

$0.50 | 1 popcorn | midnight snack

$0.63 | 3 chocolate | breakfast
$0.20 | 1/3 of M&ms
$0.18 | 1 can of soda

$2.88 | shrimp | lunch

$2.55 | porkkebabs |dinner
$2.4 | roti canai

$9.26 | total

As you can see, my healthy-o-meter was destroyed and I broke all protocols. HOWEVER, I made it up by not ’spending’ as much today:

$4.48 | total

In combination with Wednesday, it was a total of $13.74. So technically I’m still in the game!

It was pretty hard yesterday though when you are surrounded by food. But I realize that Asian style cooking is really cheap. You can make things really tasty and healthy for no additional cost. The curry for roti canai was great and I used it for my breakfast/lunch the next day. It had chicken and potato and I ate it on whole wheat bread. Fried Rice is also an example of another healthy dish. You get all your veggie and protein in for half the price and all the taste! Plus, we made extra so there was enough for lunch tomorrow and feed an extra person (which is exactly what we did).

Hunger Challenge Day 2: $6.43

admin — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:45:36 +0000

$1.18 = $0.67 + $0.11 + $0.20 + $0.20 | ramen + egg + peas + seaweed
$2.8 =$1.50 + $0.10 + $0.20 + $0.20 + $0.20 + $0.20 + $0.20 + $0.20 | porkchop with soy sauce, oyster sauce, garlic, onion powder, chili powder, cumin, peas, bread crumbs, oil
$1.95 = $1.75 + $0.20 | crabs (3) + ginger
$0.50 | popcorn
$6.43 | total

My friend and I was craving for crabs so I decided to stop by the local chinese supermarket. I was able to get a dozen small/medium size ones for 6.99. That was a nice deal and it had plenty o’ eggs inside. Yum Yum. I went a little overboard with the spices in the porkchop because I competely forgot I was doing the challnge. However, even with overestimating how much each spice would cost, I still came up short. As I said before, most of this stuff was bought in bulk or on clearance so the price is definitely cheaper. But it made me realize I seriously have A LOT of food in the house and should stop buying so much at one time.

I’m thinking of promoting this idea to my chapter sorority and setup a small challenge between sisters at first. Then as we work out the qinks, we spread it nationwide to the rest of the sorority and maybe to other greek organizations. It is a ‘free’ event where you don’t have to pay to participate since people usually spend more money on food than $7 a day. Also, people should get sponsers to support them throughout the week (or month if we’re adventurous!) or donate the money that they allotted to food usually and have the money donated to the local food bank or soup kitchen.

It is definitely an unique idea since most organizations sponser a disease or another non-profit foundation. Why not have the money go where it is needed most with next to nothing overhead fees?

Hunger Challenge Day 1

admin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:17:04 +0000

So yesterday was crazy. I wanted to order so many things like Roti Canai, chinese food, cheese ragoon…but I managed to control myself. While my friends were eating Noodle Gourmet (popular chinese food delivery place), I was eating homemade spring rolls and pasta.

Breakfast:

$0.50 – homemade soup

Lunch/Snack:

$0.61 – 2 slices of bacon + 1 egg

$1.00 – handful of cheese nips

Dinner:

$0.36 – 2 cans of coke

$1.00 – 2 spring rolls

$2.59 – $5.18 for 2 – pasta with sauce, 1# of ground beef, and peas

$.50 – handful of grapes

Total: 6.56

It isn’t so bad.. but I have a feeling my costs would be higher if I didn’t buy in bulk or if I had actually follow the rules of the challenge and bought new food. I think when I move in June, I will restart this challenge but make it a little harder.. maybe 10 dollars a day for two people :)

Hunger Challenge

admin — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 02:52:09 +0000

So a lot of food bloggers are partaking in the Hunger Challenge where you spend the same amount of money you can get from food stamps per day. If it was just you, it would be $7 a day, a couple would be $12 a day and so on.

I don’t know if I’m going to participate in it since I spent a LOT on food this past few weeks. So instead, I may do a modified version of the Hunger Challenge. One of the rules of the challenge is to not use any of the food you’ve already bought. So instead, I’m going to go be going through my old receipts and adding up what I ate and not surpass $7 a day. Unfortunately since I’m cooking for two (the bf), it may not be very accurate. I may ask him to join me to make it more ‘authentic’.

To start off, I’m going to do a little pregame and see how much I eat a day usually. So today I had:

$1.00 – 2 x 100 calorie popcorn

$0.50 – k-cup coffee at work (free but I’ll add that in)

$6.25 – sushi (free from mommy)

$3.13 = $6.26/2 = $2.00 + $1.33 + $1.67 + $0.80 + $0.46 – hamburger helper+ 1# of beef + peas + corn (bf and I so technically $3.13 for me)

$0.18 – can of coke

$11.06 – total

That’s how much I ’spent’ today and if I did without the sushi, I definitely can fall under the $7 a day.

Another blogger was even able to live off $1 a day for a whole month. He (or maybe she) donated what he usually spent on food (over 270 dollars) to a local food bank. I probably can do that.. if all I bought was pasta and sauce. lol.