I had originally planned to lessen my food intake over the week to adjust to the amount of food I was able to buy, but Sunday proved difficult.

In the morning I felt overly full with two packets of oatmeal and yogurt, but I knew I would be doing most of my homework Sunday- so I decided to give myself a bigger breakfast while lessening the amount of food I ate over the day. By lunch I was craving meat, so I substituted the peanut butter on bread with turkey on bread. Although it gave me energy to keep working, I felt overly tired by 3:00 pm. I took a nap from about 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm and went back to doing homework at 6:00 pm.

Part of my vocal homework was to memorize a song and practice several pieces for Wednesday. I’ve been avoiding the gym and any activities that might further drain my energy, but I didn’t realize how the overly starchy foods I bought wold affect my diaphragm. It was difficult to get the breath I needed to sing properly, which resulted in a lower performance quality. After an hour I finally warmed up enough to sing as usual, which is 50 minutes more than usual. However, using my diaphragm remained difficult.

For dinner I was hungrier than I thought I would be, and I decided to eat two toaster pastries. I was probably hungrier because I had practiced singing for a couple of hours across campus and also went to the library to get work done.

Here it is! Groceries for a week.

And here is my plan for the week. Hopefully I can stick to it!

Saturday:

Breakfast: -2 pieces of Wonderbread -4 slices of turkey -2 eggs Lunch: -1 can of red beans and rice Dinner: -1 bowl of Ramen -2 chocolate fudge toaster pastries

Sunday:

Breakfast: -2 packs of oatmeal -1 yogurt Lunch: -2 eggs -a slice of bread with peanut butter Dinner: -1 cup of macaroni and cheese

Monday:

Breakfast: -2 eggs Lunch: -1 peanut butter sandwich Dinner: -1 can of seasoned blackeye peas

Tuesday:

Breakfast: -2 packets of oatmeal Lunch: -1 cup of macaroni and cheese -1 toaster pastry Dinner: -1 turkey sandwich -1 toaster pastry

Wednesday:

Breakfast: -1 egg -1 packet of oatmeal Lunch: -1 peanut butter sandwich Dinner: -1 can of honey carrots -2 toaster pastries

Thursday:

Breakfast: -2 packets of oatmeal Lunch: -1 cup of macaroni and cheese Dinner: -1 bowl of Ramen

Friday: Breakfast: -1 cup of yogurt -2 packets of oatmeal Lunch: -1 peanut butter sandwich Dinner: -4 eggs -2 toaster pastries

I’m a big believer/lover of soups, stews, and chili, so the plan for the week I’m doing this is basically the recipes listed below, with some tweaks. Any of these can be made heartier by adding a poached egg, and they are not very labor intensive:

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/lively-up-yourself-lentil-soup-recipe.html

- No saffron yogurt

- sub coconut oil for olive oil

- frozen greens

http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-easy-turkey-chili-with-kale-recipes-from-the-kitchn-75630

- sub coconut oil for olive oil

- frozen greens

- sub whatever meat is on sale

- no tomato paste

I ate 1 chicken finger, the last half cup of beans, and the rest of the protein shake for breakfast. For lunch I had 2 chicken fingers and the last 2 bananas for lunch at 3:30 pm. For dinner I had the last chicken finger and the last handful of sunflower seeds.

Long ago (as in, the late 1930s), the Food Stamp Program (FSP) was first introduce by many different people, each hoping to address the issue of poverty in the United States. We started originally with the idea made by Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace, and the first administrator of the program, Milo Perkins. Their plan was for people on “relief” (that is, currently unemployed for the time being) could purchase orange food stamps that would total up to what they would usually purchase in food. For every $1 of orange stamps purchased, they would receive $0.50 of blue food stamps, which could be used to buy anything that was determined to be a surplus.

Seems like a good idea, right? People just buy food stamps, the government gives then an extra half of what they purchased, and they can buy anything that there’s a surplus of. Big mistake though, this was easy to exploit, and eventually after four years, there were over 20 million different people that had participated at any point, and even had up to 4 million at one time, which costed a total of $262 million. So eventually the program had ended “Since the conditions that brought the program into being – unmarketable food surpluses and widespread unemployment – no longer existed” (A Short History of SNAP, Paragraph 2)

But yet we still have food stamps today, so what happened? Well about 18 years passed, where people had been studying poverty and had been attempting to develop solutions for fixing this issue that’s been looming around for years. Finally Senators had authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to operate a food stamp system that would last from September 21st, 1959, to January 31st, 1962, however, this didn’t actually come into effect until Kennedy’s first executive order came around, which not only expanded food distribution, but on February 2nd, 1961, he announced that the food stamp pilot program would begin. This new program still followed people having to purchase stamps, but it eliminated the concept of stamps for surplus food. This new program hoped to focus people into increasing the consumption of perishables. In three years, the pilot program was in 22 states, but with only around 380 thousand participants.

So as time went on, the pilot program had been released into a full program, which had constantly been fluctuating in availability, usefulness, and how easy it was to abuse the program. Eventually we reached where we are today when it comes to SNAP benefits, where it follows a need-based system that aids households in what could be seen as large amounts. Today’s system stars by taking a base value that varies based around the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Thrifty Food Plan, which estimates the cost to prepare nutritious, low-cost meals for a household, and is changed every year in order to follow food prices. After figuring out this maximum amount, you then take the gross monthly income of the household, and after taking out a standard deduction, you then proceed to list expenses that relate to necessities that the household has (shelter costs, child care, etc.), and you can deduct that from your monthly income too, and for every $100 remaining in your income, you take $30 off of the maximum benefit, this then creates the total for your monthly SNAP benefits. But who exactly can get SNAP benefits? Taking a look at the USDA Food and Nutrition Website, it says that a person is eligible to get snap benefits if a person is: Working for low wages or working part-time; unemployed; receiving welfare or other public assistance payments; elderly or disabled with low-income; or homeless. But that doesn’t truly define what “low-income” means, it’s been found that based off of household size, the maximum gross monthly income is around $1,300, and this number is increased by $451 for each additional member of the family, any household that earns above this amount is not eligible for SNAP benefits. Making it easily possible for anybody on minimum wage to earn SNAP benefits. 

Bibliography Andrews, Margaret, and David Smallwood. "What's Behind the Rise in SNAP Participation?" USDA ERS. USDA, 1 Mar. 2012. Web. 06 Oct. 2015. (This is the required peer reviewed journal)

"Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)." A Short History of SNAP. USDA Food and Nutrition Services, 20 Nov. 2014. Web. 06 Oct. 2015.

"Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)." Feeding America. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2015.