The economics

As food prices continually rise, and the dollar is stretched even further to provide for families, there will be an increase in amount of people needing this critical government assistance in SNAP. This year in particular, will probably show a marked increase in the number of people in both applying for and receiving aid because of the jobs lost. If the government does not increase the budget for this program, the 30 billion dollars they spent will have to be split up and divided amongst another million plus people. This is something that we cannot afford to happen because the amount and quality of food people live on currently is taxing to their bodies and shows in their performance at work and school. To have even less food can be dangerous. Many hypothetical situations like workers start falling asleep on the job at factories and get their fingers chopped off which lead to union strikes unagainst hazardous conditions, or more drivers starting to fall asleep at the wheel leads to unsafe roads, or even something as simple as people are being malnourished in America, the most prosperous country of all.
There is no doubt that the cost of this program is immense. 30 billion dollars is no small amount. But the aid it provides is integral to the healthiness and prosperity of the people of America. Increasing the budget for a program like SNAP would directly affect all those receiving its aid. The benefits in this case are more meals, maybe even better quality ones that can lead to happier, healthier lives.

And since happiness is contagious, the life quality of those not directly receiving aid will increase because they will be happier. Soon the whole world, because of globalization, will be happy and we can then work on world peace because you can't be resentful when you are happy! So the economics of something as simple as feeding people stretches much further than what you may see!

The Problem Readressed

Like I found out, food that is cheap and available is rarely nutritious. Many times, it's fatty, greasy, fast food that contains a high amount of saturated fat with zero of the vitamins a body is recommended to have on the daily basis. Many of the vitamins and minerals you need are found in fruits and vegetables, but these are typically more expensive products. A huge problem exists in SNAP where people are unable to buy vitamins and supplements they need to possibly stay healthy. This is hard to address because some say vitamins are necessity because of the diet, while others say they aren't. But by living on a budget, you already limit yourself to what you can buy. You also need a certain amount of calories in your diet, and vegetables don't satisfy that. So now, you are forced to choose between a healthy option or a satisfying one. It's a choice between short term and long term gains.

The Experiment

Day 1: No breakfast. No lunch. Very tired.
through the morning without trouble and as the afternoon rolled around I felt the need to eat. Brushing this aside I continued with my normal activities. Class became hard to stay awake in (I fell asleep in two classes) and by the time I got home I was considerably more tired than normal. Hunger turned into weakness and I ended up crashing on the couch for an hour. Dinner time came and in aFrom previous experiences, I've learned that I have trouble sleeping when my stomach is making noise. And seeing how sleep is integral to survival, I figure the most important meal for me is dinner. Its normally my biggest meal too. But seeing as my appetite is rather large and I wanted to have a good dinner, I had to spend my money wisely throughout the day. I gotccordance to my plan I had to keep myself on that 4 dollar budget including beverages. Dinner was McDonald's. Yum. Trans fats. The 2 Mcdoubles and a chicken sandwich was sufficient, but it was hard to fight off the itis(definition). I struggled through homework and fell asleep earlier than normal.


Looking back, day one was not very successful. I imagined it would be easy to get through without food because I have done it so often, but skipping even a small lunch is costly. In addition to that, I took into account beverages as food cost, so the Monster I drink in the morning, which itself has enough caffeine to last through the day and some calories to go with it, would cost me 2 dollars that I was not willing to spend. Mrs. Ko, the PE teacher would have killed me for my diet. Not only did I skip the "most important meal", breakfast, but I had McDonald's as my one and only meal. And though I probably picked up all the necessary calories in that meal, I'm guessing that saturated fats and trans fats are not the most efficient form to use them in. Economically though, I have succeeded in keeping myself on a budget, and I go to sleep on a full stomach.

Day 2:Small changes.
Mrs. Ko would still kill me for not eating a healthy and nutritious breakfast, but I was in a hurry and on a budget so I forgave myself. Unlike Day 1, I thought about it and reasoned that a lunch no matter how small would provide me with the calories that I needed to get through the school day. So I again went for the highest caloric intake for the cheapest price, McDonald's again! I had a McDouble because this kept my cost for this meal at $1.04. I struggled less during the school day to stay awake. Admitting, I did doze off in Econ today, but I wouldn't have put it past me even if I had eaten properly. But again, when I got home, I fell asleep on the couch. I saved up enough money to have a decent meal for dinner. It ended up as Costco Pizza. I limited myself to two slices since I wasn't exactly sure about the cost but estimated to be around $1.50 each. This wasn't a bad deal. Again I slept fine.

This was not the best day economically. I may have gone slightly over budget, but technically I was under budget the day before. I reasoned this okay because I was still slightly hungry at the end of the day. The fact that I felt better about the school day was good. It shows that food plays a big role in the amount energy a student has. Even a small difference like a cheap cheeseburger in the middle of the day helped me sustain enough energy to get through. I've realized that cheap food is not healthy food. Imagine if I had to eat organic on a budget. I could probably eat a banana or two all day. Living on a budget and eating healthy will be a challenge, so really the deficit is not in the amount of food on a budget, but the quality of it. Pizza and burgers can only get me so far.

Day 3:Healthy attempt?

The day starts with a breakfast, though it's not much it's a banana.
Bananas are incredibly good at supplying energy. Athletes and nutritionists agree, they are one of the best foods to eat because of the relatively high amount of carbohydrates they pack per unit. They also have essential vitamins like B6 and A, and potassium. Banana nutrition facts. Unfortunately for me, a banana can run up to 70-80 cents per banana. This is 20% of my budget in the meal that I have been skipping. And also, though very nutritious, bananas aren't very filling. So still with a hungry stomach(even hungrier than normal because of its stimulus), I had to go through the routine of going to school. As it was a Friday, I didn't feel like it was crucial for me to eat a lunch because I normally do something after school and then eat with friends. Lunch is probably the most overrated meal anyway and since I didnt have afternoon classes, I didn't need to stay awake for anything. After school was as usual except for the meal. Working with little more than $3, I couldn't really order anything off the Zippy's menu. I sat there salivating while my friends enjoyed their meals. And after they were done, I ate what was left over. This was a single piece of katsu, half a slice of spam, and a bite of rice. Even though I was grateful for this, it was insufficient and not worth skipping my measly lunch for. I started regretting eating that banana. I went home and ate a left over slice of pizza and ghetto salad I prepared for myself. I went to sleep right after because I was tired from the week and still hungry(sort of), which would only get worse the longer I stayed up.

Day 3 started with a healthy option, a banana. But it quickly turned into a hard day because of skipping lunch, which I have come to realize is very important to me. A small lunch is worth whatever price I end up paying because my body needs to maintain a certain level of blood sugar and mine just drops off after 1 o'clock. There has to be something that I convert into sugar or my body will literally shut off in the afternoon. As for scavenging food off of my friends, I see this as the equivalent to digging in trashcans for food, just slightly more sanitary. This costs me no money and I don't count it towards my costs for food because I'm sure for someone, this is a legitimate way of getting a free meal. Healthy foods are overrated when you are hungry. There is no way a salad or banana will fill your stomach unless you are willing to spend a lot of money eating a lot of lettuce or bananas. Calories aside, there is some gap between the nutrition of the food and its cost. It seems, the healthier you get(not necessarily quality), the more expensive it becomes. A banana which costs 80 cents will give me the vitamins and potassium I need for the day, but will only produce 70 calories worth of energy. As opposed to a McDonald's double cheeseburger, which packs 490 calories, 234 of which are from fat. double cheeseburger nutrition. This high sodium, high saturated fat food is 140% the cost of a banana but has 7 times as many calories, which is what you really need to survive.

Week prior

As the official start of my econ project, I tested myself to see how much I would normally consume.
Like any other school day, I skipped breakfast. Instantly I saved myself some money. As 12:30 on an A day rolled around, I got hungry. I went to the snack bar and picked up a sandwich that costs me around $2.00. I found this reasonably priced, but was still hungry. I ignored my stomach and waited until I got home. There I found a bunch of Ritz crackers and some cheese. I ate some of that and ended up finishing off a stack of crackers. I have no clue how much either the crackers or cheese cost, so I'm going to ignore that and say it costs X dollars, an questionable amount that is substantial. A few hours later, dinner rolled around and I was again hungry. I had some Costco rotisserie chicken, rice and a salad. The Costco chicken is around $5.00 and I ate maybe 1/3 of it. So $1.67 is what I will say was my cost for that. Judging by school prices of rice, of which ate 2ish scoops of, another 70 cents is appropriate. A small salad is probably another $1.00 because tomatoes are expensive and I had quite a few of them in mine. Thus dinner cost me around $3.37. This kept me filled until my midnight snack, which normally consists of picking on leftovers or microwaveable foods, e.g. hot pockets, pot pies. Tonight happened to be a Hot Pocket, another $1.50. So though my food costs at school were kept to a minimum, I had a good $6.87+X worth of food. This my goals of eating on 4 dollars a day seemed out of reach.

The Problem

Oh SNAP!
SNAP = Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. This is the nation's food stamp program and provides 28 million people nationwide the help they need to buy one of the basic necessities of living, food. The coupons that the program gives out can be used like cash at most grocery stores. SNAP "represents the pledge that hunger will not be tolerated in America." And though they do a valuable service for those in need of help, they can only do so much as a federally sponsored service. Last year the average person received $145.55 per month. This may seem like a lot compared to your monthly bill for the food you buy at school. Mine is normally about $40. But keep in mind this is for all three meals, 7 days a week. Even though I seemingly eat very little, this monthly school bill does not factor in any of my dinners, snacks, and weekends, where I normally gorge myself. That $145.55 per month, over the course of a 30 day month, comes out to merely $4.85 per day. (This number is in Hawaii, where we are given a lot more than the national average because of high food costs). And though many companies are trying their best to help consumers stretch their dollars further nowadays, it is still very hard to accomplish living on a food budget this small.
The households who receive SNAP are also limited to the products they can buy with these coupons. Alcohol, tobacco, lunch counter items, vitamins, other medicines, pet foods, and any non-food items are all on the ban list. Agreeably, some of these items should not be allowed, but as we have learned from other research projects done, our normal diet does not contain nearly enough of the essential vitamins that the human body needs to stay healthy for the long term. Items like vitamins and medication are also very expensive and there is no way to stay under budget if you are paying for such things.
The federal government spends nearly 30 billion dollars annually to solve this hunger issue. They aid 27 million people nationwide. In Hawaii, there are nearly 50,000 households and 94,000 individuals, roughly the amount of people that can fit into the University of Texas football stadium, depending on this program for assistance.
But, there are many who still need additional help. There is a surplus of people who are continually going without the proper nutrition needed. Thats where food banks and generous donations by those more fortunate have to come in. Still, many suffer. They continue to go hungry and perform poorly at school and work because of this. My project will consist of living in these unfortunate circumstances and limiting my food consumption to less than the average $4.85 alloted.


For more info on how much help it is determined go here:
http://hawaii.gov/dhs/self-sufficiency/benefit/FNS#MaxAllot