Last year for the San Francisco Food Bank's Hunger Challenge I devised a variety of interesting and hopefully nutritious breakfasts -- spinach and scrambled eggs, whole wheat waffles with peanut butter and jam and even pancakes with caramelized apples.
This year, I'm aiming to keep the amount of cooking lower in my "menus" and the breakfasts reflect how I truly eat.
For 14 breakfasts (seven days for two people), I will be spending a total of $8.17, leaving me a total of $47.83 for the other 28 meals (seven days of lunch and dinner for two).
That $8.17 covers the cost of a high fiber cereal ($2.99 for 10 one-cup servings), four servings of oatmeal (at about $.15 per serving that would be $.60), a quart worth of milk (half of the half gallon or about a dollar's worth) and seven bananas ($1.40 at about 20 cents each), figuring a half a banana per day per person. I also added in a half cup each daily of frozen, reconstituted, calcium enriched orange juice (about $1.18 worth of the juice). This is closer to what I would regularly eat and I imagine would be realistic in most households most mornings.
These items were purchased at Safeway and Trader Joe's.
If you would like to see the breakfasts we ate last time with recipes, shopping tips, etc., please click here. Last year's challenge only allowed us $1 a person per meal a day -- $3 instead of $4, which is a temporary increase. I can't begin to tell you what a difference that extra $1 a day a person made to my menu planning.
Hunger Challenge participants can also this year draw on a "typical" pantry contribution of vegetables, staples and more. I've decided to make those meal add ons and/or alternatives and you'll see them marked as such. To see other posts on our participation in the 2009 Hunger Challenge, click here.
More on the Hunger Challenge and How You Can Help
Be sure to check out the San Francisco Food Bank's Hunger Challenge official blog for info on what other food bloggers, media personnel and others are doing as they participate in the Hunger Challenge.
Also last year, Tyson donated five truckloads of food to Bay Area food banks as a result of comments made on its blog in support of the Hunger Challenge. This year, by blogging and tweeting facts about hunger in America they will donate food to the agencies. It's 100 pounds for each tweet and 500 pounds for each blog post. To pass on the word and help get the food, check out this post on the Tyson Hunger Relief blog.
Below are just a few of the facts from the Tyson post about hunger in America. Please go to the post to see more.
More than 35 million people in the U.S. are on food stamps--up 3 million since Jan
For every $1 donated the San Francisco Food Bank can distribute $9 worth of groceries
5.3 million Californians are living below the federal poverty line ($21,834 for a family of 4)
If you are not a Bay area resident, I encourage you to go to the Feeding America site to find a link for a food bank in your area and learn how you can help in your community.
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