The SNAP Challenge - Day Four

This is my meal plan for today:

• Breakfast: Oatmeal with strawberries and two hard boiled eggs.
• Snack: Applesauce
• Lunch: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich, salad.
• Snack: Baby carrots. Oatmeal.
• Dinner: Bread, egg and tomato concoction. Rice. Canned carrots.

Day four was a tough one.  I was a little hungry and a lot grumpy.  The lack of choices of food to eat, the seemingly constant struggle to turn down offered food, and having to repeat the argument (quite a few times) on why I can't accept food from others began to get to me.  If you have ever dieted or tried to eat more healthily have you noticed how there are always people trying to get you to cheat?  "One donut won't hurt you" or "you don't need to lose weight" are refrains I have heard fairly frequently on my endeavors.  This is similar to my experience on the SNAP Challenge, people I work with are, for the most part, supportive (major shout out to Teresa!) even if they are not participating, but I have people who have argued with me almost everyday, about accepting the food they are offering, after all they have been on food stamps they know what it's like.  I have to constantly come back to the point that this challenge is for five days and if I accepted food it wouldn't be a challenge at all, I can go without it for five days.  I want to point out these people never seem to actually offer me food, just want to argue with me about it. I can tell I am getting pretty negative here, but that's how Thursday felt. Negative and fuzzy headed.

It did get me thinking about people on SNAP and the challenge of accepting food, I am sure there would be plenty of times that they would and could, but they may not have the abundant amount of opportunities I seemed to have this week (on Thursday a volunteer group offered us leftover pasta, bread and dessert that smelled delicious).  But there are still many people outside of their situation who have opinions on what they should eat and criticize those needing support that end up stigmatizing SNAP recipients.  This challenge is definitely making me ready to double my efforts and speak out more when I hear people make uninformed and insensitive comments about people (our neighbors, friends, families, and coworkers) who are hungry and live in a circumstance that qualifies them for a program that helps them get food to eat.

To finish my day:

I worked out after work and it was a tough one and it felt good.  I ate an extra oatmeal packet before I left work so I wouldn't get too lightheaded.

For dinner I decided to get a little creative and I flattened out two pieces of bread and put them in a ramekin and filled it with an egg and leftover diced tomato from Tuesday's salad.

Two slices of bread with egg and diced tomatoes.

I baked it at 350 degrees and it took over 45 minutes, which was longer than I expected it to cook.  I was hungry after my workout so I also made some more rice and mixed it with the remainder of the tomatoes and ate half a can of sliced carrots.  I ate each item as it was ready instead of plating them all at once.

Daily Totals - 

Cost: $3.29

Calories: 1,685