Eating healthy not easy (on social assistance)

Eating healthy not easy

By commoner • Jan 29th, 2009 • Category: Focus, January 30 - February 5

Nick Logan
nc616634@dal.ca

The government of Nova Scotia provides $6,096 a year to a single person living on income assistance, but one recipient says it’s not nearly enough to live a healthy life.

Holly Bell refuses to eliminate natural and organic foods from her diet just because she’s receiving limited money from the government, even if that means sacrificing other comforts.

“I own nothing, actually. All of the furniture has been found or donated or given, over the years, and that’s fine,” the 63-year-old says, “but I would not be fine without buying organic food.”

Until recently, her 19-year-old son lived with her, so she received $915 to cover rent, utilities and food for the month.

Bell will have much less to spend on groceries now that she’s on her own. After her son moved out last month, her payment went down almost $400.

She doesn’t have harsh words for the department of Community Services, but she does say caseworkers don’t like to stray from what their policies say.

“I’d like them to be able to look me in the eye and say, ‘Look, you can’t eat well in terms of maintaining your health so you don’t cost the health care system a lot of money.’”

Being healthy is essential when you’re poor, she says, because you can’t afford to get sick.

For a single person — with no medical issues — in Nova Scotia, Community Services provides a basic monthly allowance of $208 for personal spending, which includes food.

“We used to break them into food, miscellaneous, and personal, but we found we were being too prescriptive,” says the department’s director.

The role of Community Services is to help people meet their needs, says Janet Rothbun, but it’s up to recipients to decide how they spend their monthly cheque.

Spending money on things not considered basic needs – such as a car and credit card payments – contributes to people coming up short in their finances.

That’s not the case in Bell’s situation. She spends most of her personal allotment on eating properly.

“There is nothing more important,” she says.

She usually has to resort to using a credit card to buy groceries before she gets her next payment.

“Week one is the best eating week. This is typical of people living on income assistance. Week two is significantly worse. The last week is no frills. By then there might not be any bread, or fruit.”

Statistics Canada reported in November a 26.9 per cent price increase for produce and 12.4 per cent for cereal products.

The amount allotted for food and other costs by income assistance, says Rothbun, has gone up 15 per cent since 2002, when it was $180 per month.

And last year it only went up $4.

It may not seem like much of an increase, Rothbun says, but it works out to an additional $1.4 million going into social assistance.

That increase doesn’t go far for Bell. She pays $4 for organic spelt bread — compared to $2 for an average loaf at the supermarket — but she eats it sparingly, she says.

“One of the myths is that people (on social assistance) don’t manage their money well,” Rothbun says, “I think we can all learn a lot from them.”

“They’ll buy in bulk, watch the flyers in the newspapers, trade coupons … people that are on it for a longer period of time usually have very good management skills.”

Nutritionists can work with welfare recipients to teach them how to shop for healthy food on limited means, she adds.

Bell knows how to stretch her dollars to maintain a healthy lifestyle, but that comes from her own knowledge of food.

Some of the nutritionists Community Services works with are dated in their knowledge of healthy eating, she says.

When money is particularly tight, Bell prefers to stock up on items that last longer, such as lentils, carrots and rice.

But it’s all food she insists is tasty and keeps her feeling like she’s in her thirties.

“Once you start eating like that, you feel so good you wouldn’t think of not continuing to eat like that.”