Today I was in Hilo, so I went to the Hilo Farmer’s Market, which takes EBT. Finally, I can shop at a farmer’s market for local food! Unfortunately, I live 1 1/2 hours from Hilo. Not a trip I would make just to go food shopping. I mistakenly said in the video that the Hilo Farmer’s Market was the only market on the island that took EBT, but S.P.A.C.E. Farmer’s Market also takes EBT. Anyone know of any other’s on Hawaii Island?
And on the other side of the spectrum…Minute Stop and other convenience stores are making it really easy for people to use EBT there. The problem is that it is all total junk food–candy, chips, gum and sugar drinks. Check out this great article Fast Food Outlets Want a Piece of the Food Stamp Pie.
The Breadfruit Festival (ironically!) and a subsequent trip to Oahu were the reasons for my temporary fall from grace. On Thursday, I decamped from my home base in Hawi to stay at the Keauhou Beach Resort. Traveling away from home and trying to eat on a food stamp budget was difficult, but I did the best I could. I could not cook and there was only so much food that I could take with me. I did fairly well most of the day on Thursday with my homemade ‘ulu-broccoli soup and smoothie, but had to purchase a prepared salad at Island Naturals to make it through the day. (Actually, my friend purchased it for me so I didn’t have to spend the money–but there is only so much freeloading one can do!) Thankfully, the Keauhou Beach Resort was a sponsor of the Breadfruit Festival and they were featuring ‘Ulu with Tomato-Ogo Relish at the restaurant. For dinner, I paired the ‘ulu special with some local poke and beer, and life was good–but expensive! We shared all of this at the table, but is was about $30, and obviously could not be purchased with food stamps. When I have done local foods experiments in the past, eating out at restaurants was fair game, which made being on the road fairly easy. Friday morning I ate the local fruit on the breakfast buffet at the Keauhou Beach Resort. Friday was our big preparation and meeting day, and I didn’t have anything with me for lunch. Sadly, that was when I succumbed to the bag of potato chips that was being passed around. That night David Fuertes served a delicious locally procured and prepared meal–beef hekka, smoked pork, ‘ulu salad, sweet potato salad, taro in coconut milk.
Saturday, the day of the Breadfruit Festival, was fairly easy! I did start the day with some banana bread (another minor fall from grace). The Breadfruit Cooking Contest was incredible–we had about 30 entries, all original recipes. Chef Olelo pa’a Ogawa and Chef Scott Lutey did cooking demonstrations and made incredible gourmet dishes with breadfruit. I was too busy to actually eat the luncheon, but by all reports Chef Betty Saiki and the students from the West Hawai‘i Community College Culinary Arts Program served a fabulous ‘ulu inspired lunch. That night it was dinner at the Ke‘ei Cafe–a local greens salad with Ahi and some brie (ooops). Again, local but expensive.
The real challenge was when I traveled to Oahu on Sunday – Tuesday. A tight travel schedule and staying in a hotel made it pretty difficult to stay all local, and impossible to stay within any kind of budget. So… now that I am back from Oahu, I need to pick up the ball and finish out the week! I do have some data that I need to report with regards to prices of local vs. non-local–coming soon!
To date I have spent $255.29 out of my $314 food stamp budget. That means I have only $58 left to eat for 12 more days. That is $5/day. This does not sound good, but may actually be doable since I do have plenty of meat and breadfruit in the freezer, and food in the fridge. I really blew it yesterday when I spent $44 at the health food store on sweet treats. If I hadn’t done that, my food budget would be in much better shape.
Other than trying to stick to a budget, my biggest challenges thus far have been:
1. Lack of Variety: Since I can only shop at places that take EBT I can’t shop at my local farmers market or buy direct from local farms. I have been limited primarily to Takata’s food store in Hawi, KTA and Foodland in Waimea. This past weekend I was in Keauhou, so I shopped at the KTA in Keauhou (which had more variety) and Island Naturals (which was a bad move, due to my own lack of restraint.) This has been my basic palate: eggs (too many!), smoothies with milk, banana and strawberry, chard, lettuce, papaya, ahi poke (maybe too expensive?), fish, grass fed beef, sweet potato, pumpkin, taro, breadfruit. There is plenty of variety available if you can buy local at farmers markets, but being limited to all local at the food store does not offer enough choices for a interesting diet. Survivable, Yes. Interesting, No. If my experiment was not so extreme, and I was just increasing the amount of local food in my diet, that would be different.
2. Lack of Time! I’m always extremely busy, but as the Co-Director of the Breadfruit Festival that is taking place on Saturday, September 24, 2011 (by the way!), I am busier than usual. Preparing local foods takes a good deal of time and preparation. If I am going to the office for the day–and a long day at that–I need to have enough food with me to last the day. I can’t just go downstairs to the coffee shop at lunch and grab a salad or a sandwich. This means getting up extra early to prepare and pack food–something that I have not been that good about the last week. As a result, I had many days when I was very hungry. Again, if this was not an extreme 100% local experiment, I could have supplemented with other foods.
The good news is that I am still alive and kicking–while learning how difficult it would be to try to eat a predominantly local diet on food stamps–unless you were growing your own food, hunting, fishing or gleaning. There is a lot of free local food out there–but again–you need to time to gather, and you need to know how.
I ate heartily-without spending money from my budget. I spent Day 10 at Community Harvest Hawaii, a community gleaning project that harvests excess fruit and veggies in the community and processes them into a big community meal together. One of the goals of the project is to increase access to locally grown foods for the community. Everyone ate and took home local food, and we distributed 20 boxes through the Food Basket and Senior Nutrition Program.
We all know that 85% of the food that we eat is imported to Hawaii, but the point is really driven home for me when I walk the isles of the supermarket. Even a supermarket that is agressivley “local” like KTA Superstores is filled primarily with processed, imported foods.
