On a couple of my recent blogs, I found it amazing what some people consider to be necessities. We have become so pampered as a society that we demand VARIETY in our diet, as well as nutrition. The truth is, if you're poor, there's no RIGHT to variety in your diet.

We marvel at people in third world countries who live on $3-400 a YEAR. While they don't pay rent (they squat in makeshift shacks), they still must pay for food and clothing.

Some people don't make it. But a remarkable number of people around the world DO make it, on salaries that we would consider a trifle.

HOW do they do it? Well, if you visit these places, you're not going to find a hell of a lot of MEAT. What meat they DO have is from a couple chickens, raised for eggs and the occasional chicken in the pot, fish from a sewage infested river, and the occasional rat. But more often than not, their diet consists chiefly of grains and legumes, the least expensive forms of protein they can purchase.

Ever wonder why Mexican diets consist largely of things like refried beans, rice, and flour tortillas? It isn't necessarily because it's their first choice; it's because it is what they can AFFORD. The same can be said of the heavy use of rice in Oriental cultures.

As a country, we are spoiled. We demand a diet that costs us more than a dollar per serving, without regarding that that same dollar is a meal, OR MORE, for many people around the globe. I have seen "budget" meals listed at $1.25 a serving. That's extravagance in our neck of the woods.

I mentioned previously that I feed my family of 7 on less than $200 a month (that's about $6 a day). It's no mystery how we do it. Baking mix costs $1.99 and will make a whole lot of pancakes and biscuits from a single box. We could make our own baking mix for less, but the value's good enough that I prefer to save my wife a LITTLE time and buy the premade mix. A bottle of Mapleine costs about $4 (you can get generic for less, but since we make our syrup rather than buy it, I prefer the better taste of Mapleine), and will make a few gallons of syrup when combined with sugar, which costs about 37 1/2 cents a pound. Compare that with 2 bucks for a bottle of syrup, and it's a bargain. Bacon ends and pieces cost about a buck a pound and a 3 pound box will flavor beans and make gravy for a month. Eggs? a buck a dozen or less, and egg whites are an excellent source of protein.

Pinto beans run about 50 cents a pound; rice about the same. Barley's a little pricier, but worth it for the occasional meal. If you have a grinder, wheat is the best value of all if its bought unground. We have to wait for a sale to buy oatmeal, so we usually have cornmeal mush or grits when we want hot cereal. Cold cereal is rarely an option, as we buy powdered milk instead of fresh to save 20 cents a gallon; plus, ounce for ounce cold cereal's not a good buy.

The meat we do eat consists of ground turkey, which we buy when it goes on sale for $1 a pound, chorizo or kielbasa when each of those goes under $1 a pound, tuna at 50 cents a can, chicken leg quarters at 35 cents a pound (or whole chickens when they're on sale for 49 cents a pound), and hot dogs when they go on sale at 59 cents a package or less.

Vegetables? 3 for $1 at the dollar store. Fruits? 2 for $1 at the dollar store for pineapple; we occasionally splurge on the large $1 per can peaches, pears, and/or fruit cocktail. We also harvest anything that we can get freely as far as fruits and vegetables are concerned.

We buy potatoes at 5-15 cents per pound, and grow our own in our garden. Bread comes from the thrift store at 85 cents a loaf (a $5 purchase gets a free extra loaf), as well as the occasional snack pie or twinkie (a LITTLE luxury's not a bad thing).

Before we buy ANY food, however, we make sure we have at least a month's supply of flour, sugar, oil, shortening, butter, bacon, beans, rice, potatoes, baking soda, baking powder, powdered milk, and vinegar. Though we won't have the most nutritious meals on record, we know that with these (and a few other staples I'm sure I left off the list), we will certainly NOT go hungry for the week.

If we could afford fancier foods, we'd buy them. I won't even hesitate to admit that. But we have a rule in our house that at least two dinners out of the week have to have NO MEAT so that we can conserve the meat we do have and don't have to eat beans for every meal.

When we had more than enough money, we didn't conserve it. But we DID learn, the hard way, that the secret to success is living BENEATH your means. And we've done that. As a result, my children have never gone to bed hungry in their lives. Not once.

One of the keys to eradicating poverty in this country is by teaching people to realize that they're not entitled to eat out, they're not entitled to brand name foods; they MUST make do on what they have. As LW rightly wrote, poverty should NOT be comfortable.

When my mother was staying with us, in Nevada, we got a glimpse of the ethic I've worked hard to leave behind. We had next to nothing and were scraping by, while my mother, with rent unpaid, would come home with expensive electronics and high priced gadgets (the marble rolling pin sticks out in my mind), demanding that she had "EARNED" it.

Sure you've earned it. AFTER the needs are taken care of, NEVER before!