Saturday, September 12, 2009

Affordable Dining

My church has a pretty good outreach program. We work with all kinds of ministries trying to reach out to our neighborhood and community at large. The newest program we’ve just started sponsoring is Angel Food Ministries. This is a service that provides food for less than you might pay at your local supermarket. There are various packages of food stuffs you can buy through this service. Most of this is not prepared. You do your own cooking. For those who are on food stamps, having a hard time with the budget, or just want to stretch your resources you can order one or two of the food packages which most closely meets your needs and pay for them when you order. Then on delivery day, about two weeks after the order deadline, you go to the local host site and pick up your order.

This will be the first month we’ve been a host site and I’m ordering. After looking at the monthly menu I chose the signature package and am considering the senior convenience package as well. What the signature package has is several pounds of meat, some frozen vegetables, sacks of potatoes and onions, fruit juice, eggs, and shelf stable milk. The contents are sufficient to feed a family of 4 for a week. Being single I’m pretty sure I can stretch that to at least 2 weeks maybe more. The senior convenience box has 10 frozen dinners and desserts. Those two boxes of food will run me less than I usually spend at the store when I shop for 2 weeks. The reason I’m only considering, rather than determined to buy, the convenience box is that I tend to be a bit lazy. Having food I don’t need to cook would probably mean that the microwave dinners would be used first and the food that requires cooking would be used last. I think the selling point on that will be how large the frozen dinners are. So I’ll ask. Another strong contender for purchase on my part is the produce box. But if I buy that I’d have more potatoes than I could use in a couple of months and some fruit that might go to waste. Guess I don’t need to tell you that waste would eradicate the savings in this.

The food looks appealing in the pictures on the website and there are recipes to suggest ways of using the food. The members who suggested this ministry checked it out and assured us that it is quality food. I explored the website a bit further and there’s a nice online magazine that has recipes and articles on how the service has helped. It has some spiritual articles too. San Antonio, being a major city, has quite a few host sites. If you don’t live in a large city you can probably drive to a nearby site either in your town or another one nearby. This service is popular with churches. So I’d like to encourage you to check out the website. Just go here. There’s a nice user friendly menu of additional pages with more info on the upper right of the home page. I’ll let you know how this experiment in affordable dining turns out.

9 comments:

Etta said...

This is a great program!I haven't ordered in awhile, but you really get a lot of food for the money. The food that I have received has always been good quality.

Lee said...

Thank you Etta, It's great to have a second opinion!

Cheers!

Buffy said...

You sound like you're in the same situation as me. Single/senior citizen. I find that buying that much food at one time is too much and I cook from scratch all the time. The same goes for Sam's Club, Cosco and other stores that sell tons of one food. It's OK if you have a family, but for me, no. I don't like packaged foods either. Too many preservatives you can taste that slime preservative feeling in your mouth. Yuck. I like fresh whole fruits, veggies, dairy and meats that I can pick and choose for myself as far as freshness and looks of it.

What kills me is chocolate desserts.

Not everybody is the same in their cooking/eating habits. I'd say, give it a try!

See my blog at
Through Buffy's Eyes

Sandi McBride said...

I need to pass this information on to my church Lee. Thanks for providing the information.
Sandi

Lee said...

You're welcome, Sandi, I hope they put it to use and that you find it useful too.

Hugs!
Lee

Lee said...

Hi Buffy, thanks you for sharing your opinion. You're right, we are in the same boat. And I know how to cook from scratch but hate the torture of trying to do that in the microscopic kitchen I have in my apartment. Hopefully my next one will have a more counter space.

Hope you'll come back and check on any follow up reports I do.

Cheers!

San said...

That's a lot of food for thirty bucks, Lee! And a godsend for those who don't like to do a lot of chopping and stirring and sauteeing.

Lee said...

It is a lot of food, San! But I think I'll be doing plenty fo chopping and stirring. Maybe even some sauteeing. I'm hoping that having this in the freezer will get me away from the fast food kick. :-)

Hugs!
Lee

Deepanjan Ghosh said...

But cooking is such FUNNNN!!!