Only 65% of Montanans eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are taking advantage of SNAP services. Many people don't want the government intrusion, some are "too proud" and some simply don't understand the program. Here's my latest report on the Montana $NAPshot Challenge - Dennis@KPAX Video - Length: 1:35
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Living on a SNAP budget
02/15/2012 01:47 PM by Dennis Bragg (KPAX News)
MISSOULA- When you can only spend $4 a day on food, and even simple staples like peanut butter or ground beef cost far more than that, planning your meals with nutrition and variety can be a major challenge.
That's what more than 130,000 Montanans are facing every day as they try to make do with a combination of donated food from community pantries and what they can purchase through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Reporter Dennis Bragg is spending this week living entirely on a SNAP budget, and he's finding it takes a lot of inventing in the kitchen to get through a week.
One of the temptations of the SNAP program might be to just rush through the store and buy a bunch of pre-packaged foods. That's not very healthy and it's also not going to stretch your budget very far.
Dennis took some of the produce he bought, an onion, carrots, trusty potatoes and a dwindling package of ground beef to make a hearty stew.
Dennis' little stash of groceries seemed very, very small for a big guy with a pretty fair appetite at the beginning of the week and by the second day, he's already been finding that some of those choices made on Monday can be a real problem later in the week.
For example, Dennis' "gamble" to spend his last dollar on three Cup O' Noodles was about as worthless as feared, providing a lunch that helped for less than an hour. He says he'd have been better off to eat the styrofoam cup.
He'd been warned variety and stretching my supply going in to the challenge.
"The foods that you're used to buying you're probably not going to be able to buy any more. You're going to have to pay attention to if it's a brand name or a store name and notice the difference in price," Montana Food Bank Network Policy Officer Kate Devino explained.
"You're going to have to be comparing a bag of apples to a bag of potato chips unfortunately. And looking at the calories, how many calories in order to get enough food that you're not going to feel hungry and I think it will be a struggle to eat nutritious food," she added.
Dennis aimed for redemption on the second night, using carrots, spuds and hamburger for a stew that not only gave him the most satisfying meal all week, but also one created enough leftovers for later in the week.
However, it also emphasizes the problem for SNAP recipients of finding variety in a limited diet. But that's a problem Dennis will worry about later in the week. He said for now, he's just happy to not be hungry.
