Welfare Food Challenge: The Shopping Trip
I waited until just before closing time to head to the grocery store by my house. My hope was that there would be discounted bread and maybe some about-to-expire meat that I could afford. No such luck. Even at 40% off, there was no room for meat in my $19 budget. My heart sank and an all too familiar panic set in: this is not enough money; I won’t have enough food; I don’t want to be hungry.
While no longer a BC resident, I decided to participate in the Welfare Food Challenge this year because the issue is near and dear to me and, while the Raise the Rates campaign is BC-based, the issue needs to be discussed across Canada. The $19 I have to spend on groceries this week replicates a similar budget that I had when I was a teenager living in poverty. Back then, I had $18 each week for food. Of course, that was 15 years ago. But it feels fitting to return to that budget all these later because social assistance rates have not kept up with living costs in Canada. And, it turns out, $19 buys a whole lot less now than it did back then.
But there is an added challenge for me this year, and it also informed my decision to participate in the the WFC. Like 3 in 5 Canadians, I live with chronic illness. I am the 1 in 10 who lives with 2+ chronic illnesses. Life with chronic illness is tricky. A big part of my illness management is dietary. This year, when I was diagnosed with kidney disease, the dietary management component became even more important. The thing is that dietary management of illness is that it is a privilege that many Canadians can’t afford — particularly those on social assistance. While the notion of prescribing fresh produce is catching on with progressive physicians and organizations across North America, these trials are small and their funding is often temporary. Despite recognition that poor diet is a risk factor for developing chronic illness, there is extraordinary inaction on the part of provincial and federal leaders to dig deep and address the poverty that keeps healthy food out of reach for so many in Canada.
So there I was, dietary restrictions and all, standing in a grocery store at 8:40 pm trying to perform food alchemy, turning $19 into meals for 7 days.
$19 works out to 90 cents per meal. What that meant was that ingredients were generally out of reach (even the soon-to-expire meat) and I was relying on cheap prepared meals. After touring the store, it became apparent that the most affordable way forward was to load up on frozen dinners — on sale for 99 cents. But even these would only give me 300 calories, while providing a generous 21% of my sodium for the day.
I settled on a 900 gram bag of pasta to help meet my caloric intake requirements for the week. I swapped out a pack of english muffins for a pack of wheat tortillas as they were more versatile and would provide me with 10 meals. The only fruits and vegetables that I could afford on my budget were 4 bananas, one can of salt free tomatoes, and — my old standby from my years of $18 grocery trips — a bag of frozen broccoli.
All in, the trip cost just under $15. The remaining $4 cover the carton of eggs that were already in my fridge ($2) and a tub of “I can’t believe it’s not butter” that was on sale at a different grocery store for $1. I am saving my final dollar for an emergency.
Part of chronic disease management for me is tracking my meals to make sure that I am getting my vitamins, minerals, and proteins without exceeding my daily sodium targets. I am very interested (if not a little terrified) to track my meals this week to see where my levels end up.
