Hannah Wallace

What we learned from the Organic #SNAPchallenge

Last Friday, April 26th, Bon Appetit published my post, which they entitled "Yes, You Can Feed a Family of 3 All Organic On a Food Stamp Budget."  I'm re-publishing it here in its entirety, even though some of it will be old hat to those of you who've been reading my installments here. 

It was exciting to write about this for a publication that doesn't often cover food justice issues and thus far, the feedback has been positive. I've gotten a few effusive letters from readers who have been on food stamps and also managed to feed their families a healthy, plant-based diet (if not all organic).  They were pleased to see such tips on Bon Appetit's site.

A small selection of the produce available at Portland's main farmers' market

Here's the post:

When I tell people that my fiancé, Don, and I did an all-organic food stamp challenge for Lent this year, they are incredulous.

"That must've been impossible, right?" they say. "Organic food is SO expensive!"

But these doubters were wrong. For six weeks—the entire Lenten period—Don and I shopped frugally, cooked at home, and went without luxuries like beer, ice cream, soda, bottled salad dressing, and (horror of horrors!) Stumptown Coffee. But we ate nourishing, fulfilling meals—some of them more inspired than what we regularly cook—and I'm proud to report that we stayed within our budget of $526 a month for a family of three, with a few dollars to spare.

A word about our budget. Unlike most people who take the food stamp challenge, we chose to limit ourselves to the maximum Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, i.e. food stamps) allowance for a family of three: $526. (Don's 8-year-old daughter, Madeleine—who eats a heck of a lot of organic Fuji apples—lives with us half the time.) Though this put us far ahead of most Americans who are on SNAP--nearly 60 percent of participating households receive less than the maximum and are expected to make up the difference with their own income. It also meant that we couldn't use any "extra" money for groceries. (The USDA expects SNAP recipients to spend 30 percent of their own resources on groceries. People who are poor enough to qualify for the maximum benefit spend proportionately less out of their own pockets on groceries.)

I won't go into all the ground rules here (you can read about them in my first blog post) except to say we allowed ourselves to use up whatever was already in our cupboard (or fridge) before the challenge began—organic or not. We already had olive oil, spices, sour cream, almond butter, and basic staples like flour, lentils, and rice. That said, we did the challenge for six weeks (most people, like Cory Booker, do it for a mere week) so we did end up replacing these items during Lent using our lower budget.

How did we manage to stay within our budget? Let me be the first to say that we have many privileges. We live in southeast Portland, OR, within walking distance of three full-service grocery stories (Safeway, Fred Meyer, and a New Seasons), one gourmet grocery (Pastaworks), and a farm stand/fishmonger's. Portland is a veritable food oasis—our micro-neighborhood especially so. Second, Don and I both know our way around the kitchen and love to cook. Third, I work from home, which makes it easy to roast vegetables, whip up a batch of pizza dough, or start a soup as I go about my work day. (Office workers may run errands on their lunch break; I start preparing dinner.)

That said, with some effort and planning, eating an entirely organic diet on this budget was not as difficult as you'd think. A few money-saving tips:

Buy in bulk!  Like practiced hippies, we go to the grocery store armed with old yogurt containers, which we use for dried beans, quinoa, nuts, pasta, etc. It's much cheaper than buying packaged staples—plus, you reduce waste.

Look for sales. We get a circular in the mail each week from New Seasons that trumpets weekly deals. Organic fuji apples: $1.49 a pound. Organic whole wheat bread: two loaves, $5. Build your meals around the sale items—and what's in season.

Shop at the farmers' market. Okay, so we have some of the country's best farmers' markets in Portland—with competitive prices. Stick to produce, and you'll be surprised by how much booty you'll walk away with for just $25. (Many farmers' markets nationwide accept food stamps; some even have matching programs that give food stamp shoppers up to $20 extra to spend at the market.)

Buy lower-case "o" organic. I don't want to cause a major kerfuffle here, but I'm of the opinion that if you can talk to the farmer and ask her or him whether or not they use herbicides or pesticides and they look you in the eye and say they don't, then their produce is just as good as certified organic. It's often cheaper, too.

Eat meat sparingly. We're a vegetarian household most days, but during the challenge we ate even less meat (including fish and seafood) than usual. Organic meat and poultry are a lot more expensive than conventional (as they should be), but for that reason, we avoided both. One night, Madeleine and I made an exception for New Seasons' grass-fed ground beef (from a ranch that does not use sub-therapeutic antibiotics); it was $6 a pound—how could we resist?

Love your leftovers. Knowing we had no extra money to spare, we made a special effort not to waste anything. Leftover beans went on top of a salad or into a garlicky hummus. Cauliflower macaroni and cheese was re-heated for the next day's lunch. Remnants of last night's salmon went into a hearty mushroom-and-cheese omelette. Multi-grain waffles (made Saturday morning) are frozen and re-heated for breakfast throughout the week. Delicious all!

The most universally popular meal I made during the challenge was also the easiest and the cheapest. (Let that be a lesson to us all.) No, not rice and beans. A baked potato bar! I got the idea from Jenny Rosenstrach and Andy Ward, who write Bon Appetit's The Providers.

Here's the non-recipe recipe:

Baked Potato Bar

Ingredients

1 russet potato for each person
Toppings: grated cheddar cheese, sour cream, an onion, black beans, cooked broccoli, sauteed spinach, and anything else you have in your fridge that might be good on a potato

Preparation

In a 450-degree oven, bake the potatoes, placing them directly on the oven rack. (No need to wrap them in foil.) Let bake for 50 minutes or until tender. Meanwhile, cut the onion into thin slices and cook slowly in about 1/4 cup olive oil in a large skillet over low heat. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir occasionally so onions don't burn. It'll take 20-30 minutes, but the results are astonishing: a sweet, golden brown, deliciously goopy mass of onion.

When the potatoes are done, slice each one horizontally and butter both halves. Serve with toppings.

The results surprised me. Don kept saying, "This is so delicious!" And even picky eater Madeleine "mmmed" as she ate her potato (most of it, anyway). I agree with Rosenstrach and Ward: The secret is letting the kids put their own toppings on. Giving them agency makes them more excited to eat the result. I also served a side of frozen edamame from Whole Foods.

Total cost of meal: less than $6: $2.50 for 3 organic potatoes at our local farmstand, $3 worth of toppings, and about 50 cents' worth of edamame.

Vampire Slayer's Soup
From Rebecca Katz's The Longevity Kitchen

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients

4 heads garlic ($3.83)
2 tablespoons + 4 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil (about 20 cents)
1 cup diced yellow onion ($1.10)
2 teaspoons minced garlic (included in above price)
1 cup peeled and finely diced Yukon gold potatoes ($1.62)
1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme (we went without this)
1/3 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 1/4 cups veggie broth (roughly $2 worth of broth)

Preparation
Cut the tops off of the heads of garlic and discard. Drizzle each head of garlic with 1 teaspoon of the olive oil, then sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Wrap the garlic in parchment paper in one bundle and then wrap in aluminum foil. Bake in a 400-degree oven for 45-50 minutes; the aroma will tell you when it's ready. The flesh should be soft and golden brown. Remove from the oven to cool.

Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and a pinch of salt and sauté until translucent, about 4 minutes. Add the minced garlic, potatoes, thyme, pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt and sauté for 5 minutes. Pour in 3/4 cup of the broth to deglaze the skillet, stirring to loosen any bits stuck to the pan. Simmer until potatoes are tender and the liquid has mostly evaporated. Remove from heat.

When the garlic is cool enough to handle, squeeze the flesh into a bowl and mash with the back of a spoon to form a paste.

Pour the remaining 2 1/2 cups of broth into the blender. Add the roasted garlic and the onion-potato mixture and blend until smooth. Transfer to a soup pot over low heat and stir in 1/4 teaspoon salt. Cook just until heated through. You may want to add a spritz of lemon juice, a pinch of salt, and a drizzle of chive oil.

Lucky for me, everyone--even Don--loved the garlic soup, which cost $8.75 total to make. Don made a big green salad ($2 worth of lettuce) with a variety of raw veggies shaved or sliced on top (50 cents), and we toasted some homemade bread.

Total cost of meal: less than $12

Charred Brussels Sprouts
From Ned Ludd chef Jason French

Makes 6 servings

Ingredients
1 pound Brussels sprouts
1 tablespoon olive oil, plus more for finishing
Pinch of coarse sea salt
1/2 teaspoon red chile flakes
Juice from 1/2 lemon

Preparation
Preheat broiler to high. Place cast-iron skillet on the middle rack of the oven to preheat.
Remove the loose outer leaves of the sprouts and trim the stems. Cut sprouts in half. In a large bowl, toss the sprouts with olive oil, salt, and chile flakes. When the skillet begins smoking, add the sprouts and broil, stirring once or twice, until charred and soft but not burnt, about 10 to 12 minutes. The amount of time will depend on the sprouts themselves, as they change throughout the season. Toss cooked sprouts in a bowl with lemon juice, more olive oil, and a pinch of sea salt. Serve immediately.

Total cost of meal: roughly $4

 

Macalester College's Community and Global Health seminar

My colleague Devavani Chatterjea invited me to speak at Macalaster's Community and Global Health Seminar. My lecture, on"Good Food for All: Why Farm-Fresh, Organic Food is anything but Elitist," came out of research I'd been doing for a potential book project on the topic of food justice.

Long-fermented Bread & why you should eat it

Walnut Levain from Runner & Stone, Brooklyn, NYC (Credit: Mayumi Kasuga)

[This article first appeared on BonAppetit.com on April 8th.]

No one really knows why celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder of the small intestine that's caused by eating gluten, and gluten sensitivities are on the rise. But celiac disease researchers and plant geneticists have some solid theories, one of which is the abbreviated fermentation times used at industrial bakeries.

"Most of the plastic-wrap bread you find at grocery stores is made very quickly with yeast—it goes from flour to plastic-wrap in three hours or less," says Stephen Jones, a wheat breeder who is the director of the Washington State University Research Center at Mount Vernon.

What that means is that gluten proteins don't have time to break down as they would in a bread made by traditional methods, where fermentation takes place over 18 to 25 hours, and that makes it harder to digest. It's possible, celiac experts theorize, that after years of eating highly processed bread, our guts are rejecting it.

Thankfully, there's a resurgence of craft bakeries around the country that make bread the old-fashioned way. All of these bakeries ferment their dough with wild yeasts for at least 12-15 hours—often much longer. This not only improves the digestibility of the bread but also lowers its glycemic index. All of these bakers also use "whole-milled" whole wheat flour—that is, flour that's been milled from its intact state. (To make white flour, industrial mills separate the endosperm from the more nutritious bran and germ. They add them back for whole wheat flour, but some craft bakers speculate that the germ, which goes rancid quickly when removed from the endosperm, is either not added back or is "denatured.") Some of these bakers even mill their own whole wheat flour in-house.

And perhaps most important of all: These breads taste fantastic!

Grand Central Bakery:

This Northwest bakery, with ten locations in Seattle and Portland, ferments loaves for at least 12 hours. Portland head baker Sean Coyne, a Per Se alumnus, just launched a 100 percent whole-grain bread made from whole-milled whole wheat, emmer, spelt, and rye flours. The lighter Goldendale loaf (made with 68 percent whole wheat) is perfect for sandwiches. All the whole grain flours are milled at Camas Country Mill in Eugene, OR.

Ponsford's Place (San Rafael, CA):

Unlike most bakers, Craig Ponsford uses 100 percent whole-wheat flour for all his breads—even the challah, which is made of hard white whole wheat. (His croissants and pain au chocolat are made of a whole-milled whole wheat flour that has 5 percent of the bran sifted off.) All the flour—used for loaves such as American whole wheat, sourdough walnut, and pumpernickel--has been whole-milled at Certified Foods in Woodland, CA.

Runner & Stone (Brooklyn, NY):

This five-month-old restaurant and bakery carries marvelously flavorful loaves such as buckwheat baguettes (made with buckwheat, rye, whole wheat, and white flour) and spelt ciabatta (made with 85 percent spelt and 15 percent white flour). The man behind the magic is baker Peter Endriss, who uses only organic flour, much of it milled at Farmer Ground in Trumansburg, NY. Most loaves here undergo an overnight fermentation and even the brioche and croissants contain some whole wheat flour.

Tabor Bread (Portland, OR):

Like Grand Central Bakery, this six-month-old Portland bakery sources its whole wheat, rye, and spelt from Eugene's Camas Country Mill. Instead of buying it pre-milled, however, baker Cory Mast mills it on-site in an Austrian-made Osttiroler stone mill. (The organic white flour, which is pre-milled, comes from Central Milling in Utah.) The dough ferments for three hours in the morning and then is shaped, put into baskets, and fermented in the walk-in overnight. In the morning, Mast bakes kamut baguettes and enormous boules of red fife (an heirloom whole wheat varietal) in a wood-fire oven. Coming soon: polenta bread made with corn from Ayers Creek Farm.

Tartine Bakery, San Francisco:

Chad Robertson has achieved rock star status for his authentic long-fermented loaves of whole wheat, walnut, sesame, sourdough, and olive. He uses whole-milled organic flour from Central Milling and lets his dough leaven for as long as 30 hours. Ever since his wife, Elizabeth Pruitt, became gluten-intolerant, Robertson has also been experimenting with easier-to-digest ancient grains like einkorn, emmer, kamut, and spelt.

Walnut Levain
Recipe by Peter Endriss, Runner & Stone, Brooklyn, NYC

INGREDIENTS:
300g white bread flour
100g whole wheat bread flour
300g cold water
1g dry, instant yeast (osmotolerant if possible)
10g kosher salt
150g levain
200g walnuts, raw, untoasted

PREPARATION:
Prepare levain with equal parts water and flour and 25 percent old starter 12 hours before mixing the dough. Leave to ferment at room temperature.

Mix together white bread flour, whole wheat flour, and cold water until combined and let sit for 30 minutes. Add all remaining ingredients except walnuts and mix on low speed until combined, and then medium speed for 1 minute to develop a little strength. Mix walnuts in on low speed just until combined.

Put dough in a lightly oiled bowl and let ferment at room temperature for 1-2 hours (longer if room is cooler, shorter if room is warm). Fold all four corners of the dough into the center and flip over in bowl. Cover and place in refrigerator for at least 12 hours, up to 24 hours.

Two hours before you'd like to bake, remove the dough from the refrigerator and allow to come to room temperature for 1 hour. Divide dough into 2 pieces (about 1 pound each) and shape into boules or batards. Place on floured board or sheet tray, cover and allow to proof for 1 hour. Halfway through the final proof (and 30 minutes before you're ready to bake), preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit with a baking stone on the lowest rack of the oven. Score loaves and place on stone. Throw a few pieces of ice onto the floor of the oven, quickly close the door (be careful for steam!) and bake for 20-30 minutes, to deep golden brown. Cool completely on wire racks before cutting and enjoying.

Note: This recipe has not been tested by the Bon Appétit test kitchen.