The Slow Food USA Blog

Over 5,570 meals shared

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Yesterday, as part of the $5 Challenge, over 5,570 meals took place!

Click here to see photos from Hawai’i to Illinois to New York to Texas….from potlucks to family dinners to community suppers to food truck rallies,

No matter where they were or how they came together, they were all trying to answer the question: is it possible to make a healthy, local, and delicious meal for under $5 per person?

People got creative and brought their own flair to it—like Bear Braumoeller of Slow Food Columbus, who decided to take the $5 Challenge one step further. He attempted (and, SPOILER ALERT, succeeded) to create a sustainable $5 meal in 15 minutes—to show that sustainable cooking can be quick as well as affordable. Also he live tweeted it.

Bear wasn’t the only one tweeting his progress. Joe Yonan, food editor of the Washington Post, asked his 6,000+ followers questions like “My #5challenge dilemma: Cut which of these to make budget: 3 of 8 apples 4 tart? Squash (ergo soup)? Sausage 4 stuffed peppers (more rice)?”

Mary Rosch—tweeting at @culinarylibrari – shared her cost calculation spreadsheet with her followers.  As did a contributor to our Tips, Tricks & Challenges tumblr
[link: ]http://5challenge.tumblr.com/] Tools and tweets like these helped get to the heart of the challenge—is this possible to do this? What makes it hard? What makes it easier?

This is what we heard:

On what made it hard:

   
• The real challenge in making $5 meals for us was access fresh, local, AND organic produce. Two people have space to grow gardens and were lucky to use their bounteous harvest, but there was much discussion about which tag you sacrifice, local or organic, to get within the price range.
   
• We found there were challenges with using certain ingredients—beef was definitely not an option. Also, desserts with a lot of chocolate or fresh fruit were out too.
   
• The hardest part for us was wondering how to calculate the cost of home grown veggies.
   
• The hard part was trying to feed many teen boys with meat that wasn’t tainted with hormones or antibiotics. We combined efforts on the meal between two families. I would have to venture to say that it is currently impossible to serve a $5 meal on a regular basis while serving pastured, organic, hormone-antibiotic free, trans fat free, GMO free food. I cannot give up on this endeavor but it is costing me an arm and a leg.
   
• Because I buy organic food, it lacks preservatives, so it is hard to shop only once per week and not have the food I buy go bad before the next weekend shopping day.

On what made it easier:

 
• It was a bit of a challenge but my local farmers market that took my EBT card helped a lot. I also used some vegetables given to my roommate by a friend who grew them in be garden.
 
• It was strangely liberating to have the monetary restriction. The good news is I was thinking of this for so long I thought of a lot of recipes to choose from.
 
• Having a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) box made it a bit easier. I feel like we get a lot of produce for the price we pay.
 
• What made it easy was that I went into my garden and built a meal around what was available.
 
• Collaboration and 2 big gardens made it easier.

What do you think? For those of you who took the challenge—or who take the challenge in other ways on other days—what makes it hard for you? What makes it easier?  You can share your tips, tricks & challenges on out tumblr page by clicking here.