Congressional Food Stamp Challenge

Reflecting on the Week

The Food Stamp Challenge is over, and I made it through the week without cheating. I lost three pounds, triumphed over my addiction to Diet Pepsi (for the week only), and feel quite proud of myself.

 

Enough about me. Here are the lessons I learned:

 

Living on food stamps is not just about the food. It takes a lot of planning ahead to live on a food stamp budget, and still, even if you get the calories you need, you can’t get the nutrients. Maybe some nutrition expert can figure out how one can eat healthily on a food stamp diet, but I can’t see how it’s done. Fruits and vegetables, especially fresh ones, are very expensive relative to foods like pastas and bread.

 

Cooking makes the dollars go further. The chicken I roasted carried me through the weekend. I made chicken soup with ramen noodles to go with my chicken dinners and chicken salad for lunch. To be very honest, I almost never cook, except on special family holidays like Passover and Thanksgiving. One needs to know how to cook, must have the time to cook, and the oven to cook in. Low-income Americans who live in cheap motels, for example, may have neither refrigerators nor stoves.

 

My diet was pretty boring, though the chicken made it quite a bit better. Good thing I like chicken. Again, I’m sure someone with more skill in the kitchen and more time than I have, could plan more interesting meals.

 

I spoke with a radio talk show host today, who said that food stamps just increase dependency, that poor people should be taught a lesson, and that they should just stop having children. He also said that food stamps were just meant to supplement anyway, that kids get free meals at school, and that poor people should get their lazy selves off their couches and get a job.

 

I tried to keep my cool and countered that most of those families receiving food stamps had at least one and maybe two working adults in them, and even working full time at a low wage job put that family below the poverty level, and that, even if he was right, which he wasn’t, should the children be punished by sending them to bed or to school hungry or malnourished? I said it was in our interest to ensure a generation of healthy children if we want to be competitive in the world, and besides that it was a moral issue that in the wealthiest country in the world, tens of millions of people struggle to have enough to eat every day and many fail. Talk about clueless and cold, in my estimation, that guy was it. 

 

We are heading into summer vacation, which is a time of particularly high risk, since many children will not have access to the breakfast and lunch programs they receive during the school year. 

 

It’s clear to me that Congress must act and pass the provisions of Representatives Jim McGovern’s and Jo Ann Emerson’s Feeding America’s Families Act. I am grateful to them for inviting me to participate in the Food Stamp Challenge. Now I hope it will make more than a three pound difference.

Jan's Blog: The Food Stamp Challenge

Read Jan's menu for Challenge Days 1-4:

When I accepted the Food Stamp Challenge - eating on $21 for a week, the national average food stamp allotment - I didn't really give it much thought.  Kevin Anderson on my staff, the one who brought the Challenge to my attention, was also doing it.  I knew it would be a useful and interesting experience. I didn't think about how hard it would be.

Shopping was really hard.  Here's what I learned.  It is much easier to afford pasta and bread than it is fruits and vegetables of any kind.  It is hard to buy much of anything for $3 a day.  It is impossible to get a Starbuck's coffee or a Diet Pepsi if you don't want to run out of money pretty quickly.  I also learned how miserable it would be to live on food stamps for any length of time.

I shopped Monday night for some things that would last all week and others that would last the four days I was in Washington.

Here is my menu for first the four days.
 

On Day 1, I had a horrible headache from caffeine withdrawal - no Diet Pepsis.  Breakfast was fine but dry tuna on two pieces of white bread was not especially satisfying.  Then I found out that for the purpose of the Challenge, I could use condiments which include mayonnaise and relish.  Halleluyah!  I went to a couple of receptions at the Capitol and had to decline all drinks, hard or soft, and goodies.  Instead I told people why and was nourished by their praise.  (Pretty sleazy, I know.)

On Day 2, I had planned to have toast and a banana for breakfast, but I forgot that I didn't have a toaster.  So just plain white bread and margarine had to do.  I was really looking forward to lunch which was left over Pasta Roni and tuna.  Pretty good.

Lettuce with a little dressing (condiment) was a real treat.  I am looking forward to a big salad with all kinds of veggies including basil (way too expensive) when this is done, plus some strawberries and cantalope and asparagus.  But not until next Tuesday.

Today is day three.  I went shopping this morning with an NPR reporter who was doing a piece for "All Things Considered."  She asked me if this was a gimmick.  I said that in some ways I suppose it is.  But yet, there is a reality to it.  I know that a big salad is coming, and I'm not stuck with pasta and rice for very long.  But it is definitely a learning experience.  I won't take those things for granted in the same way, and I will definitely work to improve the Food Stamp Program to make nutritious food more affordable.

Even though I'm a white meat person, I bought chicken leg quarters at a good price -- $6.18 -- to last me for the rest of the week.  I overpaid for one tomato, $1.28, because the price wasn't labeled in the bin, and I didn't realize it cost so much.  Let's see how thin I can slice it.  A bag of carrots for $1 will provide a good snack, replacing a glass of water as my snack of choice.  And I bought three more bananas for $.44.  I love bananas.

Every day 35 million people in American struggle to put food on the table.  I am not one of them, not even close.  But just this small effort to put myself in their shoes, has made even more real to me the immorality of such a fact in the richest country in the world.

I am a co-sponsor of H.R. 2129, the Feeding America's Families Act of 2007, introduced by Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Jo Ann Emerson (R-Missouri) who issued the Food Stamp Challenge and are also doing it, along with my colleague Tim Ryan (D-Ohio).  This important bill would increase funding for our nation's anti-hunger programs, including the Food Stamp Program.