9News Covers 'Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet'

From February 4-10 I went on the "Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet," during which I ate nutritiously for around $4 per day, after subtracting the estimated value of the leftover food. Tonight, after interviewing me on February 18, 9News (Denver's NBC station) broadcast a story about it.



It's a great story, and obviously I'm thrilled with it. I do want to expand on a couple of points, however.

In the text version of the story, Shawn Patrick, the reporter, makes the potentially confusing claim that "even Armstrong admits it was an extreme low-carbohydrate diet." The whole point of the diet was to be low-carb. I was trying to cut carbs. I estimate I was eating between 100 and 150 grams of carbs per day, whereas the USDA recommends around 300.

To counter the claim that those on a tight budget can only afford carbs, starch, and bad fat, I spent the week eating a diet totally free of grains, potatoes, hydrogenated fat, and vegetable oils. Obviously, a low-carb diet must make up calories through increased proteins or fats. Part of the argument behind (at least some) low-carb diets is that eating a little more fat is not a problem, health-wise. However, some argue that vegetable fats -- canola oil, especially hydrogenated fats, etc. -- aren't really that great for you. So I ate fat only from olive oil, meat, dairy, eggs, and nuts (and trace amounts in produce and chocolate). (Usually I also eat coconut fat.)

A diet higher in carbs is less expensive, if those carbs take the form of low-cost flour, rice, oats, and potatoes. Obviously things like soda, sugary cereal, and frozen pizzas can cost a lot more and dramatically increase carb loads. The primary reason my wife and I were able to spend a month in 2007 each eating for only $2.57 per day is that we ate a diet higher in carbs.

If I were on a true emergency budget, I'd pick a diet combining elements of the 2007 diet and the low-carb one. I'd buy healthy but low-cost fruits and vegetables, meat, dairy, eggs, and olive oil along with low-cost grains like brown rice and oats. I think that would be the best balance between good nutrition and low cost, and it's close to the diet I eat normally.

Nutritionist Dr. Carolyn Ross was somewhat complimentary of the diet, yet she worried that I wasn't meeting my calorie loads. But I estimated my daily calorie intake, and it was within USDA guidelines. Remember, I ate an entire turkey by myself in a week. I boiled the scraps to make soup stock. (Patrick suggested that I bought soup; I made soup from my purchased supplies.) I ate olive oil, which carries 130 calories per tablespoon. I drank whole milk and ate whipped cream on bananas. I ate grapefruit. I ate eggs. I added a few walnuts for the Omega 3 fats. Even though I cut carbs, I still got carbs especially in my fruit, and I made up calories in protein and fat. We can continue to debate the optimal calorie split, but, according to the low-carb assumptions, I did very well.

The broadcast story shows me dicing an onion. Perhaps viewers will be interested in what I made out of that. (This was on February 18, after my week's diet had ended.) I added olive oil, various diced vegetables, pureed peppers and spinach, diced chicken, quinoa (a grain known for its protein), and various spices, including curry. I made enough of it for several meals for both my wife and me, demonstrating that cooking need not consume a great deal of time per meal. The results were inexpensive, delicious, and healthy:

Westword Covers Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet

Westword's Joel Warner razzes me a bit for writing about food stamps when there are obviously bigger issues at play. In addition to the bailout, I noted to Warner that Social Security is a pending financial crisis.

If I could think of a week-long project to protest the bailouts, or Social Security, or the rapid expansion of federal power, a protest that the media would cover, I would do it. But there was an obvious way for me to disprove the claims that a food-stamp budget can only buy unhealthy food, so that's what I did.

Anybody who wants to read my voluminous writings against the bailout or Social security need merely search my page.

There is a broader point here: the bank bailouts operate on the same principle as food stamps: the needs of some impose a claim on the resources of others. I oppose the bank bailouts for the same reason I oppose food stamps: they violate individual rights. So there is a unity in my various campaigns.

Warner is a fun writer; here I'll merely highly a few of his comments.

He mentions my "dismally green turkey-stock soup;" ordinarily I add carrots, potatoes, brown rice, and beans to my soups. However, because of the artificial constraint of the seven-day timeline, I had to limit the number of products I could buy. However, even without the extras, the soup was pretty good.

What about the time it takes to prepare meals? I pointed two things out to Warner. First, I suspect that food-stamp recipients, on average, watch at least their share of television, so I don't feel too bad about asking them to divert a bit of that time to food-prep. Second, my usual routine is to cook a huge batch of something, which my wife and I eat over several days. So the per-meal food-prep time is minimal. I know busy people who cook on one day every week or two, then freeze portions to reheat later.

Are critics of food stamps a**holes? (I've committed myself to avoiding profanity on this page, though Westword's use of it obviously doesn't bother me.) Warner recorded my answer:

"I oppose the welfare state across the board. With a position like that, people are going to call me an a**hole in general. This will give them one more excuse to do that," he replies. "But what I think being an a**hole is, is locking someone in a cage if they don't want to give to the charity you think is acceptable. That is the root of the welfare state."

Does this need clarification? Let's say that you wanted to divert all your food-stamp spending to the local food bank. Can you do that? No; it's illegal. If you write a letter to the IRS saying, "This year I've reduced my tax payments to account for my diversion of resources to the local food bank," the IRS won't let you get away with that, and the ultimate penalty is that you go to jail.

I was unfortunately unclear in the online comments I left about payroll taxes. I wrote, "I wish Joel would have included a point that I mentioned to him: the payroll taxes, which lop off a combined 15.3 percent of one's pay check, create a terrible hardship for the poor and middle class. I favor repealing all payroll taxes (at least) for the poor." However, Warner did note my complaint about "the government's policy of lopping off a huge percentage of working-class paychecks to pay for unreasonable programs, many of which only benefit the wealthy."

I'm glad that Westword is around. It publishes some great investigative journalism. I do wish the paper would expand its scope a bit; it tends to cover sex, drugs, and rock and roll at the expense of other important issues. The paper does a fantastic job covering regional media. Given that it is largely an entertainment paper, perhaps we should consider ourselves fortunate that it devotes as much space as it does to important news.

Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet a Success

MEDIA RELEASE

LOW-CARB FOOD STAMP DIET A SUCCESS
Week's Diet Proves Good Nutrition Possible on Low Budget

Ari Armstrong ate nutritious food February 4-10 for less than food stamps provide. For the week, he ate only meat, dairy, eggs, olive oil, vegetables, fruit, walnuts, chocolate, tea, and spices. He did not eat any grains, vegetable oils, hydrogenated fat, potatoes, or processed sugar.

For compete details about the diet, including receipts and photographs of select meals, see http://tinyurl.com/a9l7z3.

Armstrong spent $33.07 for the week, or $4.72 per day. (He added 78 cents of bananas to preliminary figures.) However, he had around $5.30 worth of food left at the end of the week, bringing the daily total to around $4. Food stamps provide $5.68 per day to a single individual -- see http://www.fns.usda.gov/FSP/faqs.htm.

Armstrong said, "With this diet, I wanted to prove again that eating well on a low budget is possible. I also wanted to protest increases in the food-stamp budget. People should not be forced to fund the unhealthy food-stamp program. Instead, I favor voluntarily funded food banks, which are better able to offer nutritious food to those in need."

Ari and his wife Jennifer spend a month in 2007 eating a higher-carb -- but still nutritious -- diet for $2.57 per day each.

* * *

My meals for the week obviously consisted of various combinations of the ingredients I purchased at the outset. It would be a little tedious, I think, to reproduce my meal-by-meal log here. A typical breakfast consisted of half a grapefruit, a cup of milk, and scrambled eggs with onion, garlic, tomato, and turkey. A typical lunch was soup. A typical dinner was a salad with red leaf lettuce, cabbage, olive oil, turkey, and a dash of pepper. My desserts were bananas with chocolate and cream.

My appetite was a little bigger on Saturday, as Jennifer and I sawed up and moved some large tree logs to the back yard.



On Saturday we also went into King Soopers to pick up stuff for Jennifer; the store was offering free samples of various foods, which I couldn't accept due to my self-imposed restrictions. Obviously, those on a true emergency budget would accept free food.

Last night I had a conversation with Diana Hsieh about carbs. She has researched diets a lot more than I have, and she largely inspired the low-carb approach for my week's diet. She claims that sprouted wheat is better for you than regular wheat flour. It's obvious to me that there's a huge difference between whole grains and, say, corn chips. But, within the category of whole grains, it's not at all obvious to me whether some carbs are better than others. Anyway, my approach will continue to be to eat a nutritious diet fairly low in carbs but still with some grains and a bit of cane sugar. I'll refine this as I learn more details.

At the end of the week, I had around $5.30 worth of food left.



Here are my estimates of the left-over values, in cents:

* Garlic: 30
* Salt: 45
* Pepper: 90
* 2 Eggs: 25
* 2 Pints Soup: 50
* Chocolate: 20
* Tea: 45
* Olive Oil: 180
* Cabbage: 10
* Onion: 20
* Lettuce: 25

I consumed almost an entire turkey during the week. So I think I'll lay off the turkey for a while. Today I'm going to make spaghetti squash with tomato sauce, hamburger, and various vegetables and spices. The squash cost me 49 cents per pound; the tomato sauce was on sale for 29 cents for 15 ounces. The hamburger is "all natural" beef on mark-down (I don't recall the exact price), so it was more expensive than regular hamburger but considerably less than the usual cost for "all natural" meat.

The upshot is that the diet was a complete success. I imagine it will be, oh, five or six minutes before somebody else is whining that it's just not possible to eat nutritiously on a food-stamp budget. My readers, at least, will know better.

Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet: $4.72 Per Day

The big news is that I decided to buy some more bananas, so I added 78 cents to my weekly total, bringing me to $33.07 for the week, or $4.72 per day, or 17 percent less than the $5.68 that food stamps allow for a single individual. (See the collected links.)

I had been 89 cents under budget, so I figured I might as well pick up some more sugary fruit for desserts. Again, the point of this diet was not to minimize expenses, but to eat the best, low-carb diet I could within the self-imposed budget.

Following are some general notes, in no particular order, followed by new photos and descriptions of the diet.

Double Ad Day

I didn't realize until after I went on my main shopping spree that both Sprouts and Suflower have "double ad day" on Wednesday. That means that the ads for two weeks' sales are honored. My wife told me about this. (I had actually benefitted from the policy without realizing it.) So, if you live near one of those stores, Wednesday is definitely the day to go.

Taxes

I can think of nothing more stupid than charging poor people taxes on their basic groceries. (Okay, taxing poor people 15.3 percent of their income through payroll taxes is more stupid.) Combined, I payed $1.34 in sales taxes on my food purchases, or 4 percent of my weekly budget. That may not seem like much, but it could have added (for example) more than a half-pound of bananas to my diet per day. Or a loaf of bread, if my diet had allowed it. (I'm grain free for the week.) Or two to four pounds of vegetables.

Stress

In retrospect, I have a much better appreciation of the elevated stress levels during my 2007 diet, during which my wife and I each ate for $2.57 per day for a month. This time, the diet contributed more hours of work to my already-busy schedule, gave me a lot more details to contemplate, and subjected my every bite to public review. As a result, I didn't sleep very well Tuesday or Wednesday nights (though I started to catch up last night).

It occurred to me that this begins to simulate the stress that comes with a real low-budget diet, such as if one gets laid off and has nothing in savings. Obviously I realize those stress levels can be much higher and longer lasting. Stress interferes with sound sleep, suppresses appetite, and interferes with digestion. Thus, stress over food can actually make eating more of a problem.

Usually I don't calculate my food spending or monitor my eating habits; I just buy good food on sale and eat it. On Tuesday, suddenly worried about my week's calorie load, I spent some time estimating my daily calories, which are fine. Real money problems require more planning, again contributing to stress.

So those who suddenly find themselves in a financial bind will probably experience more stress, and it's important to think about how to deal with it. I'm notoriously bad at dealing with stress, yet I've found a number of things that seem to work reasonably well: yoga stretching, breath control, exercise, sunshine, sex, massage (my wife and I purchased a used table so we can work on each other easier), and good novels and movies. (We watched Secret Life of Bees last night, which I quite enjoyed.)

Carbohydrates

In my last diet, I learned a lot about fat, as initially that's what I cut too much. For this diet, I'm learning more about carbs, which I have intentionally limited. (Again, I'm not offering dietary advice here; please read my disclaimer.)

I am not trying offer a model food-stamp diet here. With the 2007 diet, I was intentionally trying to get expenses as low as I could and still maintain a basically healthy diet. This week, my goal is to eat a nutritious, minimally processed, low-carb diet within a set budget. If I were actually on an emergency food budget, I'd combine the two diets, mixing healthy fats, protein, and produce with reasonable amounts of inexpensive, high-carb foods such as rice and flour. I think that would offer the best balance of cost and nutrition.

Wiki suggests that a "paleo" diet could contain as many as 200 grams of carbs per day. I'm between 100 and 200 per day this week. So I could actually boost my carb load and still be "low-carb" by this standard. (That's one reason I bought more bananas.)

The USDA recommends 300 grams of carbs per day. Hard-core low-carb diets recommend 20 to 60 grams of carbs per day. Frankly, I'm skeptical of arguments for either extreme. The USDA's recommendations have helped create a nation of fat, diabetic people with heart problems. On the other hand, 20 carbs per day seems quite low. Among my concerns is that modern man has more body mass and a bigger brain than our paleo ancestors; might not this require more carbs? I certainly don't claim to be an expert on the matter, but as an initial stance it strikes me that in this case moderation may be the best policy. My guess is that my normal carb load over the last few months has been somewhere in the range of 200 per day, and I don't plan to change my regular diet.

There's obviously a huge difference between whole-grain bread or cereal and potato chips or soda. Not all carbs are created equal. Following is a list of common carb-loaded foods, with their carb loads:

Banana, Medium: 27 grams
Apple, Medium: 25 grams
Oatmeal, 1 Cup Cooked: 32 grams
Bread, Slice: 12 grams (half the weight of the bread)
Rice, Brown, 1 Cooked Cup: 45 grams
Orange Juice, 1 Cup: 25 grams
Soda, 12 Ounce: 29 grams
McDonald's French Fries, Medium: 46 grams
Cake, Chocolate, Slice: 35 grams

Obviously, sugary fruits and whole grains have a lot better general nutritional value than soda and such.

It's not hard to see how somebody could easily rocket past 300 carbs in a day with a diet heavy in grains and sugar. (Sugar cane is actually the world's number one crop.) But it's also not hard to see how somebody could keep carbs down to a reasonable level without much difficulty. You can still eat six or seven modest portions of carb-loaded food and still come in considerably below USDA guidelines.

Diet Updates

Here's the receipt for the bananas:


On Wednesday, I didn't have any meat till the evening, when I could roast the turkey. Thus, I ate vegetables and olive oil throughout the day.


I cooked the eggplant with onion and garlic according to directions I found through a search.


By evening I was fully carnivorous again. I started with a frozen turkey and cooked it according to these directions. Having cooked a turkey thawed and frozen, I definitely prefer starting with a frozen bird.



The turkey meat filled a 9 by 13 inch glass dish.


Then I boiled the remaining pieces for a couple hours to make stock.


Breakfast for Thursday was light.


I had an earl lunch, therefore, of soup made with the stock, turkey, cabbage, an onion, and garlic.


I had over a gallon of soup left for the rest of the week.


I also ate more of the eggplant dish on Thursday with another cup of milk. For dessert, a sliced banana with chocolate sauce and cream. Normally, I'll add a few blueberries or strawberries to the mix. The chocolate sauce is just chocolate powder and water, cooked on the stovetop for a spell. You can also add sugar if you like.


Here are the new bananas:


Thursday night I had a deluxe salad with tomato, turkey, walnuts, and olive oil.


This morning (Friday) I had a larger breakfast of eggs and tomato, half a grapefruit, and milk.


Also today I finished the eggplant dish with turkey, drank another cup of milk, ate a couple bananas, and had a cup of tea. I'm getting ready to eat another big salad with turkey.

I probably won't take any more photos for the week, as they'd just be duplicates. Part of the constraint of the diet is that I have to buy and eat all my groceries within a seven-day period, resulting in less diversity. Normally a shopper can look ahead several weeks, buy things on sale, put certain foods in the freezer, and eat a more varied diet. I will, however, track my daily meals. I can basically coast through Tuesday with minimal effort.

Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet: Disclaimer

I need to finish up a project today, so I won't write extensively about my "Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet" until tomorrow.

For now, I want to offer a disclaimer: While I recommend that people buy healthy food at modest prices if they're on a tight budget, I am not advising readers on what foods they should eat or in what quantities. I am not a doctor or a dietician. I urge readers who are considering dietary changes to consult a recognized expert, as some dietary changes may result in negative health consequences.

I also need to clear up a possible misconception, based on a comment I got yesterday. I am not offering my diet as a model food stamp or low-budget diet. Rather, the purpose of my week's diet is to refute the claim that a low-budget diet implies a diet high in carbohydrates, starches, and hydrogenated fats. I do think a diet should eliminate hydrogenated fat and even vegetable oils, but I don't have a problem with modest carb and starch consumption. My usual diet includes whole grains, occasional potatoes, some sugary fruits, and limited cane sugar. I'll have more to say about this tomorrow.

I am considering buying three more bananas for the week to pad my carbs. I still have 89 cents left on my self-imposed budget. So my daily total may increase a bit by week's end.

Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet: $4.61 Per Day

Today is the first day of my "Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet," and this morning I purchased groceries for the entire week. The total cost was $32.29, or $4.61 per day. Following is the media release, then documentation of my shopping trips.

[February 6 Update: I purchased another 78 cents worth of bananas, bringing my daily total up to $4.72. Read the details.]

MEDIA RELEASE: February 4, 2009

LOW-CARB FOOD STAMP DIET COSTS $4.61 PER DAY
Diet Proves Great Nutrition Possible on Small Budget

Today Ari Armstrong purchased a week's worth of highly nutritious groceries for $32.29, or $4.61 per day. That's 19 percent less than the $5.68 that food stamps allow for a single individual -- see http://www.fns.usda.gov/FSP/faqs.htm.

Armstrong will eat his "Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet" from February 4-10, and he will document his receipts, purchases, and meals online -- see http://tinyurl.com/a9l7z3.

"My grocery purchases today explode the myth that food-stamp recipients can only afford unhealthy foods," Armstrong said.

A recent CNN report -- see http://tinyurl.com/d2lb5g -- quotes several individuals who falsely claim a low budget means a bad diet.

Armstrong purchased meat, dairy, eggs, olive oil, vegetables, fruit, walnuts, chocolate, tea, and spices. He did not purchase any products with grains, vegetable oils, hydrogenated fat, potatoes, or processed sugar. The diet roughly follows the advice of such writers as Gary Taubes and is similar to "paleo" or "cave-man" diets.

Receipts and Photos











Narrative

The key to eating well on a budget is simply to eat what's on sale.

A week's budget isn't a true test of this, as true budget shopping looks ahead several weeks. For example, a couple months ago I bought a dozen or so assorted squash for 49 cents per pound. Some of this squash is now in my freezer, pureed, awaiting its place in some dish or other, ala Jessica Seinfeld. Squash hold up very well over time, so I still have three spaghetti squash awaiting the oven. To take another example, last week King Soopers sold strawberries for a dollar per pound, so I bough extra and froze some.

Today I shopped at three grocery stores, Sprouts, Target, and King Soopers. I chose Sprouts by reading store ads online; that store is having particularly good vegetable sales this week. (Last week King Soopers had a sale for red-leaf lettuce, but that didn't help me today; grocery sales run from Wednesday through Tuesday.)

I had never been into Sprouts before, and I like it. It has on open, light feel, and it has some great prices. The speculate, I think the business model is something like, "Lure in the yuppies with loss-leaders and a hip environment, then the yuppies will spend all the money they saved on higher-priced specialty goods." This is great for people shopping on a budget. As the photos illustrate, I cleaned up on produce for a mere $6.80. I got a large eggplant for 50 cents. Cabbage, tomatoes, and onions for 33 cents per pound. Grapefruit three for a dollar -- each weighs over a pound. Red-leaf lettuce for 69 cents each; I bought two head. And I got some Walnuts to give me some Omega 3. (Normally I take fish oil for the DHA Omega 3, but I'll skip those for the week. I buy a large, inexpensive bottle of capsules at Costco, so they can definitely be part of a low-budget diet.) I'll definitely be going back to Sprouts.

Next up was Target. The produce at Target sucks. The quality isn't too bad, but the quality-cost combo isn't great. But the store has great deals on things like chocolate, tomato sauce (which I skipped this week), and, as you can see, turkey. Milk costs the same at Target and King Soopers, so I grabbed a gallon at Target. I was surprised to find that Newman's olive oil was the least expensive of any I saw.

Finally I swung by King Soopers, a.k.a. the Store of Markdowns. I left a $2 gallon of milk sitting in the cooler; the short dates of dairy mark-downs don't allow for a week's keep. I did buy a bunch of marked-down bananas for 35 cents per pound. I plan to eat these for desert with chocolate sauce and cream -- yum. As you can tell, I got hundreds of times as much salt as I need for the week, as, believe it or not, that was the cheapest way I found to buy it. Tea wasn't on my list, but I knew I was under budget, so I splurged and spent 89 cents on a box of 16 bags. Two cloves of garlic -- 49 cents. A cup of cream. Pepper. And that completed my week's purchases.

The two most expensive purchases on my list were the turkey, at $7.77 for an 11.26 pound bird, and the olive oil, at $4.48.

Oh, the final picture is my breakfast: two eggs and a diced tomato scrambled in olive oil, a cup of milk, and a mug of black tea.

The main thing I learned from my 2007 diet was the importance of fat. At the time, I was eating from a "fat is bad" mentality. Now I understand that good fat is a cornerstone of a healthy diet. Of course there's a big difference between monounsaturated fats and Omega 3 oils versus "partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil." My usual diet includes butter and coconut oil in addition to olive oil, but I couldn't get all three for a single week.

Recently I read in a book about thrift -- I forget the title -- claiming that you should never buy off-list at a grocery store. That's terrible advice for saving money. All the time I find fantastic sales that I wasn't expecting. To take another example, recently I purchased around 20 peppers for 20 cents each. I ate some and pureed and froze the rest to add to dishes. I would have been nuts to skip the peppers just because they weren't on my list.

So, to summarize my advice:

1. Buy real food, not processed junk. That means you're really only shopping about 20 percent of the typical grocery store.

2. Buy food at the lowest prices you can find.

3. When you come across great deals, buy as much as you can reasonably eat or fit in your freezer.

This is pretty much common sense. So nobody better tell me the only thing they can afford is junk macaroni and cheese with hydrogenated fat. As I've said before, what is lacking is not access to good, modestly priced food, but the will to eat it.

Low-Carb Diet, Food Stamp Budget

See links to updates below.

MEDIA RELEASE

ACTIVIST PLANS LOW-CARB DIET ON FOOD STAMP BUDGET
New Diet Protests Food Stamp Increases

A healthy diet is achievable on a food stamp budget, and Ari Armstrong plans to prove it, again. Armstrong, who previously spent a month eating for $2.57 per day -- see http://tinyurl.com/c35e8q -- will spend February 4-10 eating a highly nutritious, low-carb diet for less than food stamps provide.

Armstrong said, "Not only has Congress increased the food stamp budget since my $2.57 per day diet, but the so-called 'stimulus' package calls for additional food-stamp funds. Enough is enough. I oppose any increases to the food stamp budget, and call for the program to be replaced with voluntarily funded food banks, which offer more nutritious food at lower cost."

Armstrong's new diet, unlike his previous one, will be low-carb, roughly following the advice of such writers as Gary Taubes and similar to "paleo" or "cave-man" diets. The diet will consist of meat, dairy, eggs, vegetables, fruit, nuts, olive oil, chocolate, and spices. It will not contain any grains, vegetable oils, hydrogenated fat, potatoes, or processed sugar.

Armstrong will limit his daily budget to $4.74 per day, less than food stamps provide to a single individual. The Department of Agriculture -- see http://www.fns.usda.gov/FSP/faqs.htm -- offers a family of four $588 per month, or $4.74 per person per day. (The food stamp allotment is reduced for those deemed able to fund some of their own food.) Armstrong will not accept any free food, and he will shop only at nearby regular grocery stores. He will track all his purchases and receipts at FreeColorado.com.

"With the previous diet, my goal was to minimize daily expenses. With the new diet my goal is to show that a very healthy diet is possible on a limited budget. The cost of my diet will actually be inflated, not only because I'll be eating no free food, but because a week's diet is not able to take advantage of bulk purchases of sales items," Armstrong pointed out. "I've been known to purchase 40 pounds of bananas, a dozen squash, or twenty pounds of meat when they're on sale; obviously that's not possible for a single week."

Part of the motivation to track the new diet was a recent CNN report -- see http://tinyurl.com/d2lb5g -- in which a woman on food stamps complains, "We get like the mac and cheese, which is dehydrated cheese -- basically food that's no good for you health wise... Everything is high in sodium and trans fats... and that's all we basically can afford. There's not enough assistance to eat healthy and maintain a healthy weight."

Armstrong replied, "That's nonsense, and I'm prepared to prove it. I'm frankly irritated that some food stamp recipients waste our tax dollars on overpriced junk food, then complain about their grocery budget. I'll make the following offer. For anybody on food stamps who complains that they can't afford good food, I'll be more than happy to evaluate your entire monthly budget, including your grocery budget, and recommend judicious cuts, limited to the first five people who reply."

* * *

February 4: Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet: $4.61 Per Day

February 5: Disclaimer

February 6: $4.72 Per Day

February 11: Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet a Success

Westword Covers Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet

February 19: Boulder Weekly Op-Ed, "Eating Well on Food Stamps"

9News Covers 'Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet'