Xavier: Eating on only $3 a day

The poor are fat in America — and this includes most college students. A study found that receiving food stamps long-term (24 months or more) was associated with a 50 percent increased obesity rate among female adults. Poor people are overfed and undernourished. How can this be? Poor people buy cheap food that has a lot of calories, but delivers little or no nutrients. This leaves a person hungry and craving more food. A person will crave more until their body gets the proper nutrients it needs. There is even an acronym — SAD. SAD stands for the Standard American Diet. The Standard American diet is energy-dense (too many calories) but nutrient-poor (not enough vitamins and minerals).

I took on the $3 a day meal challenge or the SAD diet to see if it is possible to eat a vitamin- and nutrient-rich diet. This was a challenging experiment. I say challenging because I live in the dorm and all-you-can-eat buffet is a part of my meal plan. I normally eat at the cafeteria and there are lots of healthy and unhealthy options. I usually opt for the healthy options. I’m lucky, but for many the $3 a day for meals budget is a reality.

It took five days to draw conclusions about this challenge. The first challenge was to find a grocery store in the area. There’s a Kroger not too far away — about two minutes by car — but since I’m on a $3 a day budget I didn’t want to spend any of my budget on gas, so I decided to walk to better simulate that I only had $3 a day. Walking to the store took me about 20 minutes.

Once I got to the store, I reminded myself that I only have $15.00 to spend on food to live on for 5 days. As I walked through the aisles of Kroger calculating costs, I decided to get the healthiest, cheapest food that was available. At a loss on where to start, I called my mom for advice on what to get. She gave me a quick list of inexpensive things which stretched my meal and plans: beans, rice, eggs, milk, cheese, peanut butter, jelly and bread. This was harder to do than I thought. I normally go straight to the meat counter, the fresh fruits, veggies and international food, health and nutrient section of the grocery store and I’m not usually limited with a budget of only $15.00 for the week, so this was challenging.

As I went through the store I got rice, a block of cheese that was on sale, eggs, a bag of chicken tenderloin, peanut butter, jelly, bread and a bag of dried beans. I got to the checkout counter and was over budget by $7.49. I had to put back the chicken and jelly. My change was 49 cents. I left the store thinking, OK, this was challenging but wasn’t so hard. The best part was that I had 49 cents in my pocket and my groceries for this week’s challenge.

Monday through Friday I ate:

Breakfast — two boiled eggs, a slice of cheese and water for breakfast. Note: Still hungry.

Lunch — one peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a cup of milk and a glass of water.

Dinner — 1 cup of rice with beans and water. Note: Still hungry.

I followed the above menu for the week and by the third day I was on the brink of crazy and starvation. I couldn’t think, I had low energy and I was tempted to go to the cafeteria buffet. I had such low energy that I was unable to work sometimes. I didn’t want to walk to the grocery store so far away. I slept a lot through the challenge, especially when I felt hungry. By Friday, I lost 5 pounds and was miserable, depressed, had low energy and starved. The $3 a day challenge was harder to complete than I thought.

My experience is over and I have made a glutton out of myself at the cafeteria buffet, back to the question of: why are students fat and to what extent is it possible to live on and purchase nutritional food on $3 a day?

Of course you can survive on $3 a day, but to what extent? People end up buying food that contains very little nutrition and that contains high empty calories. People need nutrients and vitamins like magnesium and potassium among others. These vitamins are necessary in controlling inflammation and blood sugar levels.

Living on the $3-a-day challenge, I purchased inexpensive food and I tried to purchase healthy items, but it was difficult. I could not afford fruits, veggies or proteins. On the $3 a day challenge, I always felt hungry.

According to the Institute of Natural Healing, Americans are overfed and undernourished. Yes, people are eating too many empty calories and not enough vitamins and minerals.

Why do people choose cheap, processed food? Many people, especially students, live on fixed incomes. People are starving themselves with food lacking a balanced nutrients, so their body feels hungry and keep asking for more food until it gets the nutrients that it needs.

Visiting the gym is one of the ways to keep fit, but the diet does not provide enough energy to work out the body. I learned that the cause to obesity in school is lack of awareness to what we eat and also not taking into consideration the idea of keeping fit. I felt it was urgent for a medical student to conduct a campaign on eating healthy in order to keep students aware of the dangers of obesity and malnutrition.

Scientifically, obesity has been linked to malnutrition and the universities and colleges should develop a system of educating students and all Americans on the dangers of malnutrition and benefits of eating healthy and exercising as a way to fight obesity all across the nation.

Xtarjiv Xavier is a second-year pharmacy student.