Someone Else's Food Cart

We've all heard the adage that you don't know how someone else feels until you walk in their shoes. That can be a hard fit when applied to food costs. While we are all anticipating Christmas: the turkey dinner with family, the beverages, the gifts, the holidays, the decorations, we are not thinking about those who are barely surviving every day life. A neighbour of mine facing an increase in her housing fee, must reduce the only place on her meagre budget that will allow it: her food allotment. Let's not joke about dog food. It isn't cheap either, nor is tuna fish. Already a tiny woman, close to sixty and therefore severely limited in her job choices, she is asking herself how she can live with a budget of one hundred dollars a month for food. It's a must do, not a choice if she wants to keep her modest condo with a mortgage. She drives a scooter.  I know some of you on lesser means will say, well, she's a lucky sort to have a home at all. That's true and she knows it, but she does it all by working hard at a job that you and I would not enjoy. Her job, steady grave yard shift, is an assembly line cutting dead chickens.  Get out your notepad and see what you can do with 100 dollars for groceries. I did. What I came up with did not include toothpaste, shampoo, laundry soap, or treats. I juggled with this problem and found that I'd have to rely on food sales, growing herbs, baking breads and using lots of rice and pasta. Freshness, if available, for nutrition was key. The idea of farm markets sounds good, but the prices at these organic operations are usually higher than the super markets and thus a luxury. Foraging isn't a bad idea if you know a place where the dandelions and berries at roadside are not poisoned with sprays. Growing garlic chives in pots is easy and makes for flavorful dishes. Small tomatoes grown on a deck in the sun yield a few at a time and are delicious. Meats from bulk farm outlets where you get bags of wings or bacon ends or stewing meat can ease the task when you divide them and freeze. Sacks of rice especially the brown variety offer good value. The same with flour, sugar or salt bought in bulk. It may mean an original outlay but in the end is worth it. Baking breads can work into pastas, pancakes, pies that along with some gleaned fruit (people with apple trees in their yards can be generous), are wonderful.  Dairy products are a challenge. Fresh milk can be fortified with powdered milk. Olive oil is a boon brushed on bread for toast and used dozens of other ways you might use butter. Olive oil is easier on the body, too.  A one hundred dollar a month food budget allows for nothing unhealthful such as chips, candy unless you make your own occasionally, or chocolate. And alcohol beverages are out. I guess that makes it healthy, therefore, all is not gloom.