As the House of Representatives passed a controversial farm bill that would cut approximately $20 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) last week, members of Congress decided to challenge themselves by eating on a budget of less than $5 a day, according to POLITICO.
Most members, and even their teams, have agreed to participate in the challenge, being led by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CAlif.), for one week.
"Doing this challenge is something that I choose to do... but for millions of Americans, this is how they get by, this is how they work to avoid being hungry, and often, that's a challenge that they're not even able to meet," Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) told the publication. "Standing in line at the grocery store, it's relatively few items in my cart, and calculating how much I think they'll cost only to learn that I was off by a little bit, which necessitated putting back a couple of items and leaving with even less - it's just really difficult to do once, I can only imagine how excruciatingly difficult it must be to that every single week."
Sen. Lee said it reminded her of a time when she had to live off food stamps while raising her sons, and saw this as a learning opportunity for lawmakers as every $1 spent with SNAP, $1.70 is returned to the economy.
"I was on food stamps for many years raising two boys, trying to go to college," she told POLITICO. "What's eye opening is first of all, the types of foods you can only buy on $1.50 a meal. They're high in sodium, fat and starch content... If you buy vegetables, you have to buy canned vegetables. When you look at the high incidence of hypertension, heart disease, diabetes [in low-income communities], it's off the scale, and a large part of it is diet."
So far, only Democratic lawmakers are participating in the challenge, but, according to Lee, every member received an invitation.
Many are documenting their experiences during the SNAP challenge on Twitter.
Check out the progress of just a few: Rep. Sandy Levin, Rep. Jim McGovern, and Rep. Doris Matsui.
