Making food dollars stretch

Food. We all need it. Some of us struggle more than others to afford it. Some people talk about whether  or not they can afford to eat organic food, while other people are just trying to eat.

Here are some tips about how to make your food money go a little bit further.

Cook your own food.
Ingredients for making your own meals are less expensive than buying pre-made meals from the store or restaurant.  For those of us who may only have a couple of dollars to try to feed ourselves, or even a family, every penny counts. For example, a box of plain spaghetti costs less than a box of noodles with a sauce packet in it.  Plus, those boxes usually need other foods to be prepared - mac & cheese needs milk and butter.  It's cheaper - and often tastier - to make your own plain noodles with a sauce you make yourself out of butter, milk, flour, and a couple of seasonings.

Buy ingredients you can use for many different meals.
Rice, pasta, potatoes, and bread are all inexpensive, filling options that can be used for all sorts of different meals.  They also stay good for a long time, so this week you might buy some rice, next week some noodles - check to see what's on sale and use that as a way to stock up on some of these staples. Some cheese, butter, veggies, and a little imagination go a long way to making these staples tasty.

Buy from the bulk food areas.
Most grocery stores have bulk food areas where you can buy foods from a bin instead of already packaged foods. Foods such as oatmeal and rice taste just as good from those bins as they do from more expensive packaged options.

Know how much you can spend, and stick to it.
For some people, the best way to make sure they stick to a budget is to shop with cash. For some people, the best way is to shop with a calculator. Whatever it might be that works for you, know how much you can spend at the store.
Allow yourself something fun once in a while - your budget will determine how often that can be. You're more likely to stick with your budget if you have a small amount set aside for treats such as chocolate or ice cream. You'll know how much you can get, how long it needs to last, and you'll be less likely to accidentally spend more than you want.

Don't let your food go to waste.
For most people, produce and leftovers are the most likely foods to go to waste in the fridge. Keep track of what you have in your cupboard and fridge, and make sure those foods get used instead of going into the trash because of being forgotten.
When you buy produce, try to wash it and if appropriate, chop it, right when you get home with it. That makes it much easier to use when you're tired and hungry.

Involve the family.
Making food as a family is a good way to spend time together as well as teach your children how to cook. Even fussy eaters are more likely to enjoy food they've had a hand in preparing.

Raise your own food when you can.
The Gardening Matters initiative on the East Side of St Paul exists to help East Siders move away from being a food desert. Advice and supplies are available to help residents grow their own produce. Raise food you will eat, and consider freezing extra produce so that you have your veggies into the winter months.

Visit the ESPC website for more details, or do some Internet research on urban gardening and container gardening.

Please share in the comments below your own advice and experiences with making the most of your food dollars.

Revitalizing St. Paul Neighborhoods with your Voice

Photo courtesy of Minneapolis/St. Paul tour

This weekend I went to the St. Paul home tour (mainly the houses on the East Side and in the Dayton Bluff’s area) and noticed how nice these St. Paul neighborhoods are becoming. As I was going through these houses and neighborhoods, I was thinking about the individual(s) who saw the potential for these neighborhoods. I was thinking about what actions they took to get these neighborhoods back to flourishing as it has before. 

As I reflect on the tour, I thought about the East SideProsperity Campaign (ESPC) and the East Side neighborhood in general. I thought about the people who live in the community and how important it is for them to be active in the community in which they live. The ESPC is all about getting the East Side to thrive again as it once has.

It is very important that the people living on the East Side participate in this change in progress; as they are the people who will be living in the community. It is so important that they speak up and have their voices heard because it is their community and what they have to say will contribute to the success of the East Side. The East Side will become what the community wants it to be. 

Join the ESPC in their meetings and speak up. Share your ideas, your values and what you want to see in the East Side Community. Help the ESPC in making the East Side thrive once again.

A Bright Future for the East Side.

A couple months ago I went to an event hosted by Gardening Matters, where I met Kayla. Kayla is a community member of the Dayton’s Bluff area and she is a community gardener for St. Paul Park. At the event, Kayla mentioned that the East Side Prosperity Campaign (ESPC) is starting a health and wellness hub. That got my interest so I decided to look into this hub further.

Starting this spring, ESPC will be launching their health and wellness hub for the East Side; they’re teaming up with Gardening Matters. The hub will potentially provide low cost plants and seeds for members and will be focused on recruiting community members with food access barriers. Eventually the health and wellness hub will possibly provide classes on gardening, farming and cooking.

I think it’s very cool that the East Side will be getting a health and wellness hub. It is so important, in achieving prosperity, to educate community members so that they can provide food not only for themselves but possibly for their neighbors. Extra food that is grown in your very own back yard can be donated to the food shelf, if you end up with too much produce. This produce can help other families in need and as a community we are here to help and support each other in achieving prosperity. 

 

For more information on the health and wellness hub on the East side, please click here. 

 Photo: East Side Prosperity Campaign

East Side Saint Paul Needs Fresh Food Choices!

Have you ever heard of a food desert?

I hadn't, though it turns out I've lived in one lots of different times.  And if you're living in the East Side, you're probably living in one now.

In a nutshell, a neighborhood is a food desert if the neighborhood is shown (by US census data) to be low income as well as not having easy access to healthy, nutritious food. Often this means there is no major grocery store around, or as the USDA defines it, within 1 mile of a grocery store.

To break it down a little bit differently, this can mean a few different things:

• There might be a corner store, but because there is no real competition in the area, the food is not affordably priced; 
• There might be fast food restaurants, but as we know, they a) are not grocery stores, b) tend to lack nutritious food, and c) get expensive fast when used as a major source of food for a family; and/or
• Much of the food available in these instances is very unhealthy - think foods with a lot of processed wheat, corn, soy, sugar, fats... and very little fresh, wholesome fruits and veggies.

Many people who live in low-income neighborhoods also have limitations on reliable transportation, making those sources of food difficult to get to - and even more difficult to get home from carrying groceries. 

One experience I had was after I had my first baby. I had no car, so I would put the baby in a stroller, walk to the grocery store, fill the pocket underneath with groceries (I could only fit two bags in there at a time, so I had to do this frequently), and walk home. That was all fine 'til I got home to my apartment building and I couldn't lift a stroller filled with a baby and heavy groceries all the way up the stairs... So I had to carry my baby upstairs, get her settled somewhere safely inside, and come back down to my food, hoping that no one stole it while I was away. This of course was only an option when it was nice out. As we all know, in Minnesota, those months when the weather allows for walking are uncommon.

This is only one story in the life of one person (well, two - can't forget the baby!). There are thousands of people in the East Side of Saint Paul with their own versions of this story. Some of you are even further from the store. Some of you are working two or three jobs and don't have time to walk to the store. Some of you use Metro Transit and know how difficult it is to try to get groceries home on the bus...then into a blizzard for the rest of the walk. Or 90+ degree weather and your food is melted by the time you get home. The list goes on. 

East Side Prosperity Campaign, along with many community partners, is working to making the East Side food desert into a thing of the past. One of the coolest things being worked on is help with community-level gardening. Imagine if you could walk to your community garden (or to one you've learned to make and plant yourself) and pick your own food - that you've chosen to plant, that you've used to teach your children about healthy food choices, and that you can be proud of! Or there's also the project for getting a farmer's market on the East Side - it doesn't get much fresher than that. Plus, many vendors at farmer's markets are able to accept WIC vouchers and/or SNAP benefits. 

Plus, if you join up with the ESPC and learn about how to grow your own veggies, you get to watch this:

grow into this:

But you don't HAVE to grow eggplant. You can grow whatever you want.

Join up with the ESPC and learn more about how to get involved with making your community, as they say, "An engaged, powerful, and equitable East Side."

Inexpensive and Environmentally-friendly Transportation Solution in East St Paul!

Coming from Northeast Minneapolis, it took me over an hour to bus to my college Metropolitan State University in St Paul. Because I only still use the Metro Transit bus and lightrail, I understand the importance of it for work, my college, and to see live entertainment. I look up its routes usually just from its website's trip planner or Google Maps.

Taking this type of public transportation is far less expensive and takes less energy than driving, but can take about an hour just to go to 10 miles in many cases. Prices are generally only $1.75 (and $2.25 during rush hour) a ride that can transfer 2 1/2 hours, or passes that include $59/month for rides that require a regular fare, $85/month for rush hour, or less than $200/semester for college students depending on which school they go to. With these prices, the warmth and relaxation it provides, it usually being safer than driving in snow and ice especially, and the fact that it does not ruin our environment nearly as much as other vehicles do, it should be the choice for getting from place to place for many more people. For those making the decisions on Metro Transit, I also propose that more routes be established for faster rides and less waiting and walking.

One great solution to this is to expand the lightrail all the way to East St Paul. Personally the lightrail train makes me getting to my new job at the Mall of America so much easier, but not everyone in Minnesota is so lucky right now to both live and work near lightrail stations. However the Gateway Corridor should provide the same in East St Paul, and with enough support, aka voices that matter, the lightrail will go where it is also needed to the Eastside of the twin cities!