WIC and TF...

[Rikki Jean]

We're in need of WIC right now, so we're using it. I'm not overly thrilled about the compromises that we'll have to make, but it's better than being overdrawn, and their choices have improved tremendously since we were on it a year ago, so I'm excited about that! If anyone has any suggestions for making it work for us to be as close to "healthy" as possible, I'd be so grateful! Here's what we get:

-$22/month in fruits and vegetables. This one is a no-brainer, for the most part. They are allowing organic produce (), so now all i have to do is figure out which of my local stores has the best prices on organic...fun (not!). I can't wait until they switch over to farmer's market vouchers! Here are the restrictions and rules for fruits and veggies:

• Canned and frozen fruits and vegetables are allowed. I really don't think I'll buy anything canned, but I might consider some frozen options, mainly for fruit that I would put in smoothies or oatmeal, but that costs a bazillion dollars right now because it's not in season.
• For canned/frozen, the stuff that's not allowed is basically anything that has sugar or syrup in it, anything breaded, in sauce, or with other ingredients, which is not something I would buy anyway. There are also not any potatoes allowed other than sweet potatoes or yams.
• For the fresh produce, I cannot buy herbs and spices, edible blossoms (like squash blossoms), bagged salad with added dressings, croutons, etc. (wouldn't buy that anyway), or dried fruits and vegetables (which stinks, because we love dried stuff here! It kills me that you can buy concentrated juices, but not dried fruits...). Again, sweet potatoes and yams are the only allowed potato.
• Other than that, all produce (including organic!!!!) is fair game.

-12 gallons of low-fat, non-organic milk. Ugh! We try to only drink whole milk, and our ped wants DS2 on only full-fats because he's skinny. Besides that, I obviously don't want to be pumping us full of hormone and antibiotic filled yuckiness (especially the little one in my tummy!). Soooo, I think my plan is to only get WIC milk every other week. I'll go for the 2% milk that claims to be hormone free. The other weeks, I'll stick to non-homogenized milk from TJ's (raw milk is legal in California, but it's just way to expensive for us ).

-3 dozen, non-organic eggs. I get a flat of 30 eggs at the farmer's market for $8, so I think that I might just stick with those, and not worry about WIC eggs (well, except for today, because I'm down to two eggs and the FM isn't until Saturday). If my stinking chickens would just start laying again, I wouldn't even have to give it any thought...it's only been five months.

-3lbs cheese, cheddar, mozzarella, colby, or jack. I've always just gone for Tillamook, since it was the one "regular" cheese that seemed to have the most approval here...

-5lbs of whole grains, in 16oz increments only. This includes:

• whole wheat bread or tortillas (non-organic), but they must be labeled, "100% whole wheat" (which kills me, because we all know how much room that leaves for interpretation from the manufacturer ). I don't have any good excuses for not just making my bread, other than the fact that I'm a hit and miss baker, so until I really get it down, I'm still buying bread...
• corn tortillas
• Brown rice (non-organic, short, medium, or long grain, regular, quick, or instant, basmati, or jasmine). I don't really need rice though, as I have about 15lbs right now from Azure.
• Organic whole grain barley
• All of the categories of oatmeal (other than groats, which aren't listed), non-organic.
• Organic bulgur

-108oz of breakfast cereal. Yes, oh, so, healthy! I'll probably be skipping cereal.

-4lbs of beans, peas, lentils, or peanut butter. I don't really need much of either one of these, but organic beans, peas, and lentils are allowed, so I'm considering stocking up on beans...

-Juice, which I won't be bothering with (unless someone here can give me a compelling reason that I should buy it!).





Soooooo, if anyone has any bright ideas for me, I'd be soooo appreciative. Bread is the one that is really making me bite my nails, for whatever reason!

[FairyRae]

We use the juice to make juice kefir--drop milk grains in, let ferment for 24+ hours, then enjoy! Grape juice kefir tastes just like sparkling grape juice!

Just another way to get fermented goodies into the little ones, and use those WIC checks at the same time!

ETA: We don't do milk, but if we were going to use the store milk, I'd probably try to make kefir or yogurt out of it--culturing it can ONLY make it better for you all and easier ot digest...

[Ruthla]

I'm pretty sure that WIC can provide whole milk with a doctor's note. Since your son's ped wants him on whole milk, it should be easy enough to obtain that note.

Concentrated apple juice makes a good sweetener to use in baking. Cranberry apple sauce is easy-peasy- 1 undiluted can of apple juice concentrate (12oz) and one bag of cranberries, cook on the stove until all the cranberries pop- cook longer if you like a smoother result. You can also sub apple juice concentrate for part of the liquid and part (or all) of the sugar in cakes and such.

[Rikki Jean]

Thank you ladies!

Ruthla, I'm planning to talk to the ped about it, but I forgot to say that before.

[Magelet]

definitely culturing the hormone free milk (particularly if you can get a doc. not for whole milk). yogurt is yummy and easy to eat, but if you can convince the kids to drink buttermilk or use it in a lot of food, it is way way easier to make than yogurt ime. (add 2 T culture (from the storebought cultured buttermilk, several brands in the bay area sell this. it says cultured in little tiny print, or from an old batch) to 1 quart milk, let sit in a warm place (proof box, top of a pilot light stove, in a pilot light oven with something to keep the door cracked, top of the fridge for 12-24 hours until its nice and firm/jelly/jiggly. if you let it go too long, it will seperate which is ok, because you can add some vinegar and salt and drain it like yogurt cream for farmer's cheese)

is it possible to get non-organic flaxseed eggs? they have a bit more omega-3's and are on the weston a price compromise list in the shopping guide. if not, I still might get at least some of them. they might not taste as good, but they're good for baking, and they do have some nutrition, if not as much. if you can get and afford the farmer's market eggs, by all means go for that though. but if its only a few months while your chickens are molting, and your budget is really tight for high quality meat and dairy and eggs, go with the low quality, imo.

Are there any other restrictions on the bread? could you get something like ezekials sprouted bread? depends on how much bread you eat, but I might get plent of oatmeal, and barley, and use other food money to buy sourdough bread, but thats me. (or work really hard on making your own bread and learn a lot in the process). barley is GREAT in winter soups, really makes the soup seem hearty and filling, and absolutely delicious. I'm not sure if storebought bulger would be very TF. I don't think it is able to be soaked since its steamed and then dried?

with the beans, I'd definitely get them. If you can and it's not reducing what you get in other catagories, why not? dried beans are quite nutritious when you soak them, and once you learn to cook them and use them very tasty (something I'm still learning). And even if you don't use them that fast, they last a while, so you'll have a stockpile for emergencies, or the future when you aren't on WIC.

[Rikki Jean]

Magelet, thank you so much for your input!

Originally Posted by Magelet

definitely culturing the hormone free milk (particularly if you can get a doc. not for whole milk). yogurt is yummy and easy to eat, but if you can convince the kids to drink buttermilk or use it in a lot of food, it is way way easier to make than yogurt ime. (add 2 T culture (from the storebought cultured buttermilk, several brands in the bay area sell this. it says cultured in little tiny print, or from an old batch) to 1 quart milk, let sit in a warm place (proof box, top of a pilot light stove, in a pilot light oven with something to keep the door cracked, top of the fridge for 12-24 hours until its nice and firm/jelly/jiggly. if you let it go too long, it will seperate which is ok, because you can add some vinegar and salt and drain it like yogurt cream for farmer's cheese)

I do bake with buttermilk, but I can also make yogurt pretty easily, so that shouldn't be an issue! Thanks for the idea! Why did I never think before of making my own buttermilk!?

Originally Posted by Magelet

is it possible to get non-organic flaxseed eggs? they have a bit more omega-3's and are on the weston a price compromise list in the shopping guide. if not, I still might get at least some of them. they might not taste as good, but they're good for baking, and they do have some nutrition, if not as much. if you can get and afford the farmer's market eggs, by all means go for that though. but if its only a few months while your chickens are molting, and your budget is really tight for high quality meat and dairy and eggs, go with the low quality, imo.

They have to be plain, white, no-frills eggs, unfortunately. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do about the eggs, but I need more eggs than 3 dozen per month anyway, so maybe it'll be a half and half thing, like I'm planning to do with the milk.

Is the WAP shopping guide published online, or is it only for members?

Originally Posted by Magelet

Are there any other restrictions on the bread? could you get something like ezekials sprouted bread? depends on how much bread you eat, but I might get plent of oatmeal, and barley, and use other food money to buy sourdough bread, but thats me. (or work really hard on making your own bread and learn a lot in the process). barley is GREAT in winter soups, really makes the soup seem hearty and filling, and absolutely delicious. I'm not sure if storebought bulger would be very TF. I don't think it is able to be soaked since its steamed and then dried?

The bread MUST be labeled "100% whole wheat". Since Ezekiel breads and other ones like it have other incredibly healthy grains in them too, it can't have that label, and therefore, is not approved.

I went the grocery store last night, and I left without bread. I was just appalled at my choices. Every.single.bread that was exactly 16oz and had the "100% whole wheat" label had HFCS as the second ingredient. I probably spent 25 minutes trying to find something that I felt comfortable bringing home, but there was nothing. I checked out the tortillas, but of course, all of the WW ones were in heavier packages, and the corn ones were scary.

I really need to just make my bread anyway. I feel like a big slacker because I don't do this regularly anyway.

I wanted to get barley last night instead of bread, but they didn't have any organic barley, so I skipped it. I'm going to check with the other grocery stores in town to see if they have organic. If I can't find it, I guess I'll go with the conventional...

I've never cooked with bulgur, so I don't know much about it anyway. Thanks for the tip.

Originally Posted by Magelet

with the beans, I'd definitely get them. If you can and it's not reducing what you get in other catagories, why not? dried beans are quite nutritious when you soak them, and once you learn to cook them and use them very tasty (something I'm still learning). And even if you don't use them that fast, they last a while, so you'll have a stockpile for emergencies, or the future when you aren't on WIC.

Again, I couldn't find organic dried beans, so I didn't bring any home. I probably should have just gotten the conventional, but I went for peanut butter instead. Again, I'm going to call around.

[Magelet]

The WAP shopping guide is a little booklet (oh 3x4 inches perhaps, maybe 10-20 pages thick) that they publish every year. You can get this year's version on their website, for $1 including shipping and handleing. I highly recomend it, I use it all the time. It helps particularly because each type of food is arranged into "best" "good" and "avoid" catagories, and though they don't list all the brands that produce this type of food, they also provide a descriptor of what it is that makes it "best" or "good" or "avoid". We eat a lot of "good" foods since we're on a fairly tight budget, and it is great to know what brands of soy sauce are good (naturally fermented and not just brewed), a local brand of chickens (rocky and rosie) are on the good list from 2008, and more. There are a lot of mail order sources of more local (often not to california) foods, but there are also plenty of national brands, and the descriptors are also helpful for figuring out which local brands are good or best. (of course farm stuff that falls under the catagory is great as well).

For those of us who don't have as an option doing most of our shopping at a farm, I think it is immensely helpful.

That's a bummer about the bread. They should say "whole grain bread that is corn syrup free" or something. That would be so much healthier than 100% whole grain bread with corn syrup.

[Ruthla]

It's a shame you can't buy flour, instead of bread. That would be cheaper for them anyway! I'd go with the oatmeal or barley if there aren't any appropriate breads available.

Do they still print up checks like they used to, or is it on a "credit card" now. I used to have a choice when I used a check: get everything on the check, or get only some things from the check, and "lose" the other items. Once the check was spent, it was spent, and I couldn't buy, for example, 1 gallon of milk now and another half gallon later if my check said 6 quarts. I couldn't get my cereal and wait with the juice or vice versa.

If the checks are still like that, then I'd suggest stocking up the house with conventional beans and grains so as to not lose the benefits. However, if you can spend them later, then it makes sense to "not buy them yet" and wait to use them later in the week.

Oh, another thing about WIC juices: you can also get tomato juice, then use it in cooking soups or stews, in addition to getting concentrated fruit juices for baking.

[Rikki Jean]

Originally Posted by Magelet

The WAP shopping guide is a little booklet (oh 3x4 inches perhaps, maybe 10-20 pages thick) that they publish every year. You can get this year's version on their website, for $1 including shipping and handleing. I highly recomend it, I use it all the time. It helps particularly because each type of food is arranged into "best" "good" and "avoid" catagories, and though they don't list all the brands that produce this type of food, they also provide a descriptor of what it is that makes it "best" or "good" or "avoid". We eat a lot of "good" foods since we're on a fairly tight budget, and it is great to know what brands of soy sauce are good (naturally fermented and not just brewed), a local brand of chickens (rocky and rosie) are on the good list from 2008, and more. There are a lot of mail order sources of more local (often not to california) foods, but there are also plenty of national brands, and the descriptors are also helpful for figuring out which local brands are good or best. (of course farm stuff that falls under the catagory is great as well).

For those of us who don't have as an option doing most of our shopping at a farm, I think it is immensely helpful.

That's a bummer about the bread. They should say "whole grain bread that is corn syrup free" or something. That would be so much healthier than 100% whole grain bread with corn syrup.

Oh, but don't you know that corn syrup and hfcs are just the same as sugar?

Thanks for the info on the shopping guide. I'm definitely going to order one!

It's good to know that the Rocky and Rosie chickens are on the good list. I've been buying Rosie chickens at Henry's for a while now. I reallllly want to buy from a farm in Ventura that has free-roaming chickens who are not fed any corn or soy, and maybe even limited grains (I can't remember off the top of my head right now), but I've been holding out, as it's $4/lb, and Rosie is only $2.99/lb. I live about two hours from Ventura, but this farm is at the Santa Monica FM every week, which is about an hour from me, so whenever we are able to make the switch, we'll be buying a bunch of birds once a month.

[Rikki Jean]

Originally Posted by Ruthla

It's a shame you can't buy flour, instead of bread. That would be cheaper for them anyway! I'd go with the oatmeal or barley if there aren't any appropriate breads available.

Do they still print up checks like they used to, or is it on a "credit card" now. I used to have a choice when I used a check: get everything on the check, or get only some things from the check, and "lose" the other items. Once the check was spent, it was spent, and I couldn't buy, for example, 1 gallon of milk now and another half gallon later if my check said 6 quarts. I couldn't get my cereal and wait with the juice or vice versa.

If the checks are still like that, then I'd suggest stocking up the house with conventional beans and grains so as to not lose the benefits. However, if you can spend them later, then it makes sense to "not buy them yet" and wait to use them later in the week.

Oh, another thing about WIC juices: you can also get tomato juice, then use it in cooking soups or stews, in addition to getting concentrated fruit juices for baking.

Yes, it's still the voucher program, which is such a pain in the neck! It makes the produce such a pain, because there is $10 for me (since I'm pg), and $6 for each of my boys. I have to separate my produce into three different purchases, and keep track of which group goes with which check. I guess I shouldn't complain about it since it's free, but I'm sure glad that I didn't have my boys with me, because it was enough of a headache trying to keep track of the numbers without any distractions! Oh, and yeah, I totally don't need tons of milk at once, but it's combined with other stuff, so I have to get it all.

There is talk of them moving over to a card-system, like EBT, but I'm not sure when or if that is ever going to happen. I think it might be more difficult because, while EBT allows you to get most grocery items, WIC only allows very specific items, and the cashier has to be aware of what those items are. I don't know how that would work out if they moved to cards.

Great point about the flour. I wonder if they've considered that, or if it's not an option because they think that people will make stuff like cookies and cake with it, kwim? Not that some of the breads are much better for you!

Good idea about the tomato juice! Thanks!

[Ruthla]

Like people can't bake with breakfast cereals anyway? Ever heard of rice krispy treats?

I imagine they'd have the EBT-like card set up with a set number of units of each item (quarts of milk, ounces of grains, etc.) and that you'd probably have a set time period in which to use up the credits on the card. It is more complicated than EBT with simple dollar amounts in the card- most people on line behind me just think I'm paying with a debit card.

[Zoeanne]

This is a timely post for me, since I just re-enrolled in WIC yesterday.

How are you getting bulgur? As part of the cereal allotment? That's how I got oats..

Great tip about lacto-fermenting the juice...thanks!

When I went yesterday, the only brown rice I could find in the proper-sized container was "parboiled"--anyone know if that's super-yuck or okay?

I used to get Tilamook cheese too, though I think it's technically not allowed since it's in 8 oz blocks, not 16oz. Also, the new guidelines I got said "cheapest available" for cheese.

Do you know if the produce has to come out under your $ allotment, or can you just pay the difference?

Thanks!!!

[Magelet]

I think tillamook is available some places in 1 lb amounts. costco sells hung honken peices. I'm sure someplace else does too.

I don't think par-boiled is good. It's already been cooked, and then dried, I think? so you can't soak it before cooking it.

[Ruthla]

The products need to be within the $ allowed for that item. You don't get the difference if the food costs less, and you can't pay the difference if you select items that cost more (although you can use coupons to get the items to come in under the $ limit.) If you want the $5 brick of cheese, and they only allow $4 for cheese, you can't pay the $1 and get the cheese- you can either get your WIC cheese or not, and you can pay $5for the "fancy" cheese separately if you want to.

[Rikki Jean]

Originally Posted by Ruthla

Like people can't bake with breakfast cereals anyway? Ever heard of rice krispy treats?

Oh, yeah, I guess that's true!

Originally Posted by Zoeanne

This is a timely post for me, since I just re-enrolled in WIC yesterday.

How are you getting bulgur? As part of the cereal allotment? That's how I got oats..

Great tip about lacto-fermenting the juice...thanks!

When I went yesterday, the only brown rice I could find in the proper-sized container was "parboiled"--anyone know if that's super-yuck or okay?

I used to get Tilamook cheese too, though I think it's technically not allowed since it's in 8 oz blocks, not 16oz. Also, the new guidelines I got said "cheapest available" for cheese.

Do you know if the produce has to come out under your $ allotment, or can you just pay the difference?

Thanks!!!

Bulgur is allowed under grains. There is no alternative for cereal, just cold or hot, and it has to be on the approved list that they have in the booklet.

I'm able to get Tillamook in 1lb blocks. Mine doesn't say "cheapest available", so that's not an issue either (although, I don't know how they'd regulate that, really. I'm sure that they can encourage it, but enforce it? I don't know. The cashier would have to be aware of what the cheapest was, and with thousands of products in the store, that seems kind of impossible). You might be in a different state than I am though (I didn't look before I hit reply), so it could be different for you.

In California, for produce, the voucher is good up to the allotted amount. Any amount over that, you can pay the difference on. If it's under the amount, that's fine too, but you won't get any money back. My future plan is to get a little more than each voucher is worth, because last night, I ended up going over by fifty cents on my $10 voucher, and I was under by forty cents or so on each of my $6 vouchers. It wasn't until I was driving away that I realized I should have taken two bananas from my $10 order and put one toward each of the other orders. Duh!

Originally Posted by Ruthla

The products need to be within the $ allowed for that item. You don't get the difference if the food costs less, and you can't pay the difference if you select items that cost more (although you can use coupons to get the items to come in under the $ limit.) If you want the $5 brick of cheese, and they only allow $4 for cheese, you can't pay the $1 and get the cheese- you can either get your WIC cheese or not, and you can pay $5for the "fancy" cheese separately if you want to.

For produce, the rules are different, thankfully!

Here, we actually don't have cost limits on anything anymore. They changed that over a year ago. I don't know if it's like that everywhere though.

[WuWei]

I prefer local to organic produce for nutrients. And it is cheaper. I only worry about the "Dirty Dozen" produce high in pesticides: http://www.eartheasy.com/eat_pesticides_produce.htm Or peel or wash conventional fruits/veggies well.

I'd save any extra $ for organic fats, oil, butter. Pesticides are stored in the animal fat. And only organic canola, soy or corn oil. The rest is GMO.

Yes, culture the milk.


Pat

[Rikki Jean]

Originally Posted by WuWei

I prefer local to organic produce for nutrients. And it is cheaper. I only worry about the "Dirty Dozen" produce high in pesticides: http://www.eartheasy.com/eat_pesticides_produce.htm Or peel or wash conventional fruits/veggies well.

I do too, but I can't get much local produce at my supermarket. We do get some produce from our garden, and we'll still be getting tons of stuff at the farmer's market. $22 wasn't even enough to get us through the week (which just kills me, since there's enough milk for like a month and a half!), so it's not like this is going to be providing all of our produce needs.

Originally Posted by WuWei

I'd save any extra $ for organic fats, oil, butter. Pesticides are stored in the animal fat.

This is absolutely what we're doing already, other than the current milk situation. Even though I'm ticked about the 2% milk, I feel like maybe it's not so bad, because of the fat-storage issue.

Originally Posted by WuWei

And only organic canola, soy or corn oil. The rest is GMO.

I don't use any of those oils anyway, so we're good.

[blueridgewoman]

So, I wasn't too clear if you can use corn tortillas- your original post didn't mention them but it looks like you checked them out at the store?

If you CAN do corn tortillas and have a Whole Foods that accepts WIC (do they?) or another large grocery store, Food for Life makes a great sprouted corn tortilla. I wonder if that would be acceptable....

[Rikki Jean]

Originally Posted by blueridgewoman

So, I wasn't too clear if you can use corn tortillas- your original post didn't mention them but it looks like you checked them out at the store?

If you CAN do corn tortillas and have a Whole Foods that accepts WIC (do they?) or another large grocery store, Food for Life makes a great sprouted corn tortilla. I wonder if that would be acceptable....

Sorry, I guess that I forgot to mention that in the OP. Yes, they do allow corn tortillas.

I'm guessing that Whole Foods doesn't accept WIC (I know that Henry's and Trader Joe's do not, which doesn't mean that WF won't, but it makes me lean more toward that being the case...). If they do, the closest one is about a half an hour away...I'm not sure if it'd be worth it to go that far for WIC benefits or not. Hmmm....

That said, I didn't know that FFL makes corn tortillas! I've never seen them at Henry's, and I live about five minutes from FFL's bakery. Interesting...

If I'd just shell out the $14 for a tortilla press, I'd be more inclined to make my own anyway. They're easy to make, it's just the rolling/pressing that makes me shy away from it.

[forestrymom]

Sorry, haven't read all the posts, but can you talk your ped into writing a note about whole milk for your ds? I had no problem with getting WIC to give us full fat milk based on dd's "failure to thrive". Just a thought. And so excited that they are allowing you fresh fruits and veggies--I'll have to look into WIC again. We could only buy canned.