Food

One of the challenges of LVC is struggling to stay within the $100/month individual food budget. We are expected to pool our money and cook together to make it last. Many have expressed doubt or worry that I would be able to eat well enough on this amount. However, so far, the Emmaus House has pulled it off beautifully. Here are a few of our tricks:

- No processed or packaged foods. This means no granola bars, no individually wrapped snack goods, no desserts and no junk food. Luckily, this hasn't yet meant having to go without any of these items! Anything you can buy in a box you can make yourself, and we've already had great success baking our own bread and cookies. Adriana is now famous for her "Best Ever" Emmaus House Banana Bread. And of course, it's made us be healthier and easier on the environment.

- Little fresh produce. Sadly, this does mean that we are eating less fruit and vegetables in general. But most vegetables do come frozen and if you don't overcook them, the USDA states that they are just as healthy as the regular kind. Broccoli, green beans, carrots, corn and cauliflower are frequent dinner ingredients, and frozen berries make their way into . Don't worry, we have already had plenty of money for enough fruit for us each to have a piece daily, the occasional bag of spinach, and as much garlic as we could ever need.

- No meat. With the exception of lunch meat, we very rarely have any with meals and often find ourselves making vegan meals. It's a good experiment in finding other forms of protein.

- Leftovers. In addition to the full spice shelf we were greeted with when we moved in, we also found plenty flour, sugar, rice, beans and other canned goods in the cupboard. We have yet to run out of most of these items, and when we do, they are easily and cheaply replaced. Leftovers also refers not only cooked dinner left uneaten, but any items that went unused for cooking. For example, Nicole bought a green pepper and bag of baby carrots for her dinner and now we have crunchy veggie snacks to last the rest of the week.

- Staples. We tend to spend a big chunk of our money on bread, milk, cheese, eggs, and cereal. For lunches and on the weekends when no one is assigned to cook (the five of us take turns Sundays through Thursdays), it's quite easy to make a meal out of these items or any leftovers.

- No boys. Last year's Emmaus House included three men out of the five residents, and they went through significantly more food than our four women and lone man do this year.

- Free food. During our LVC year, we are not supposed to accept funds from friends or family or take additional paid jobs as the point is to live a simplified lifestyle. However, there's no rule about accepting extra food! We all often get free lunch or snacks at work or told to take home leftovers at parties or other events. I, of course, am lucky that my family lives close by and are good for the occasional dinner out or bag of apples. While I am trying not to abuse this and stick to the spirit of LVC, we definitely benefit from the generosity of people outside of our community.

So far, we typically spend between $90 and $100 each week, allowing an extra $15 for house necessities like dish soap or a mid-week milk run. To give you an idea of the types of dinners we've been cooking, I've made broccoli pesto with pasta, Ecuadorian locro soup, African groundnut stew (thanks to Mom), salad with strawberry vinaigrette, and New Orleans red beans and rice (although I'll have to try it again - them just didn't have that ReNew feel). And tonight Adriana and I made a delicious pizza since no one was assigned to cook.

Sorry I've been so lazy about updating this blog! I hope to make it more regular. I'd love to hear from any of you who read this.