Can You Eat Consciously/Organically on Food Stamps?

CNN reporter Sean Calleb highlighted the limitations of families getting by on food stamps last month. Check out his blog posts chronicling his attempt to live on a $176 food budget (what a single person would qualify for in New Orleans, LA). At first I was dismayed by his initial food choices early in the month (processed packaged foods), but encouraged that he learned that actually was cheaper and healthier to purchase fresh or frozen foods and prepare for himself. Though you pay in time (planning, preparing and cleaning). Sean received many emails, including one that suggested that we return to growing community gardens. His experience caused me to wonder how much my conscious eating habits would change if I had to rely on food stamps. Here are a few thoughts:

• My diet would evolve around beans -soup, stew, casseroles, fritters, hummus and falafel
• Eggs would be featured more often in dinner entrees via frittatas and omelets
• Breakfast - oatmeal, toast, fruit, eggs
• Would bake my own bread - quick breads for breakfast, yeast breads for lunch/dinner, more cornbread and biscuits and homemade cookies
• Whole wheat pasta with bean or ground turkey/chicken as secondary proteins
• Grow my own produce via home or community garden, freeze and can excess
• Pick fruit and veggies from farms that allow this (freeze and can)
• Buy in-season produce or frozen produce
• Eat more soups
• Drink a lot more water and green tea (loose leaf home brewed) to stay full
• Buy in bulk and purchase concentrated juice products
• Would have to limit organic to "dirty dozen", sale items and buy in bulk when on sale
• Eat a more vegetarian/vegan lifestyle (would have to evaluate cost of protein substitutes like tempeh, seitan and tofu, though I would have to watch the soy given my history)
• Fiber, fiber, fiber...keeps you full and flushes out disease causing toxins

Would you be able to live as consciously or organically? How?