This week I learned that the average weekly food stamp allotment is $21.00. I learned this because of the story of 4 United States congressman who are trying to live for one week on the amount of food that $21.00 can buy.

Isaiah J. Poole, executive editor of TomPaine.com, writes that one of “the members, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and his wife, Lisa, have maintained a blog about their experience. It’s a sobering read—not just the experiences of the normally well-fed politicians who are doing this for a week, but the comments of ordinary people who have had to do this, and worse, for weeks or months at a time. It makes you wonder how on earth a nation’s leaders can be so casual when spending public money on instruments of war, power and political advantage, and yet be so stingy when it comes to that most basic form of human compassion, making sure your neighbor has enough to eat.”

The Food Stamp program is up for reauthorization as part of the omnibus farm bill and McGovern’s family, along with Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), Janice Schakowsky (D-Ill.), and Jo Ann Emerson (R-Ohio), are participating in the National Food Stamp Challenge, intended to call attention to the need to increase food stamp benefits.

Government officials say that the current food stamp benefits are enough but we all know that there’s a difference between eating and eating well. My friend, Billy, subsisted on $3.00 per day for 100 days (his Lenten project) and he said that could afford food that would make him feel full (a bag of Doritos, anyone?) but that he couldn’t afford food that would make him feel full and was healthy.

Poole continues, “Even for those people who are not seeing eroding benefits over time, the reality is “there are health consequences” to living on such a limited budget for more than a few days. People on food stamps are often forced to choose foods with higher fat, breads that are not whole grain and processed foods with unhealthy levels of sodium and sugar—a dangerous combination for people prone to diabetes, heart disease or other diet-related health problems. ”

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

This post was written by Mary Mancini