Food Stamp Challenge

About

Food Stamp Challenge, also known as the SNAP Challenge, is a public awareness campaign in which participants challenge themselves to budget their daily expenses based on the monetary equivalent of what the U.S. federal government provides for the eligible beneficiaries of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or more commonly known as the “food stamp” program.

Origin

In September 2008, executive director of the non-profit public health organization Food Outreach^[1] Greg Lukeman launched the earliest known food stamp challenge as part of “Hunger Action Month,” during which he challenged friends to eat for a week on just $25.38.

Spread

In February 2009, CNN reporter Sean Callebs spent an entire month eating food on a budget of $176, the maximum amount possible provided by SNAP in New Orleans, Louisiana (shown below).

In October 2010, the documentary Food Stamped was released, in which a family live on food stamps for one week (shown below).

Cory Booker SNAP Challenge

On November 19th, 2012, Twitter user @MWadeNC^[30], a 39-year-old married woman from North Carolina, made a comment to Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker asking why children need school lunches provided to them if their families already have access to food stamps. Booker then challenged @MWadeNC to try to live on food stamps for a week or a month in New Jersey, which is known for its high cost of living.^[31] On December 3rd, Booker began the SNAP Challenge, alloting himself $33 per week for groceries. He was met with some criticism, as food stamps are supposed to be a supplemental and not a person’s only source of money for food. Booker offered a rebuttal on CNN (shown below), noting that many Americans unfortunately cannot survive without the SNAP program.

Other Politician Challenges

In May 2013, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy^[3] from Connecticut participated in a week-long challenge in which he lived on a budget of $4.80 per day. On May 24th, Murphy tweeted^[3] that he lost six pounds in the first four days of the challenge (shown below).

In June, Republican Congressman Steve Stockman’s communications director Donny Ferguson participated in the challenged in an attempt to prove that the SNAP program could be cut by as much as 12%. Fergusion ended up going over budget by 14% and purchased mostly processed foods high in sugar and sodium.^[4]

Gwyneth Paltrow’s Challenge

On April 9th, 2015, actress Gwyneth Paltrow began the #FoodBankNYCChallenge^[5] after being encouraged by celebrity chef Mario Batali and tweeted^[6] a photograph of groceries she purchased for her budget of $29 that week (shown below). In the first week, the tweet gathered upwards of 2,000 retweets and 1,600 favorites.

The following day, the women’s interest blog The Frisky^[7] published an article criticizing Paltrow’s food choices for not being “calorically significant.” Meanwhile, some Twitter users denounced Paltrow for participating in the challenge (shown below).