Supermarket Exercise 2

I felt like the purpose of this project was to attribute our desired food to a money value and then compare that with foods that are essential the same but less desired. From this class we have talked about how unhealthy food is cheaper and more accessible for people. For me this activity showed me the extent of how cheap unhealthy food can be. My initial grocery list contained a lot of already cheap and  readily prepared meals. When I had to pick cheaper items I usually picked the store brand or changed how the product came. For example instead of buying frozen corn I bought canned corn. When picking the cheaper items I mostly gave up perceived authenticity of the product. An example of this is the ravioli. My initial ravioli had an Italian sounding name with a pretty package. While my second ravioli was the store brand and came in a a plain bag. Naturally the Italian ravioli sounded more authentic and that it would taste better. Overall, my decision to pick a different item usually came down to how the packaging looked.  

Another interesting part of this assignment was comparing the price of my entire list to the amount a family would receive for food stamps. I believe the amount a family would receive was about $150 a month. My initial menu cost $85.77 and my substituted menu cost $75.53. From these numbers my family would have meals for about two weeks then would be out of money. I thought this was really interesting since a lot of my food was already cheap. This made me think that even more substitutes can be made to my meal plan. But these substitutes would be very unhealthy and most likely come from a can. An example of this would be substituting ravioli for canned ravioli. This would cut this cost by a lot. Also I could buy more meals that are already prepared like frozen dinners. This exercise really points out how limited food stamps are.