McGovern's Food Stamp Challenge

Until May 21, representative Jim McGovern is seeing how some of his constituents live by taking the Food Stamps Challenge. He and his wife, Lisa, are living on food stamps and blogging about the simple fact that living on a food-stamp budget sucks.

The challenge started on the 15th, and CNN aired coverage of the representative involved in the challenge forlornly picking at iceberg lettuce and lentils. But these meals haven't prompted McGovern to cheat. He writes about attending a banquet as part of his political duties, and he didn't eat from the appetizer trays or at the sitdown dinner. His wife brought him a sandwich that fit within the budget, and "I ate it in 3 seconds (people looked at me as if I were crazy)."

They have opened up their blog to comments, and the comments don't look filtered. People are offering tips (grabbing some ketchup packets at the fast-food huts, stretching cornmeal and rice) and debating whether or not this Food Stamp Diet will make substantial changes.

Rep. JoAnn Emerson of Missouri, Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, and Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio have joined McGovern in the challenge. Chicagoist is also talking about Schakowsky's attempts to make something palatable out of $3 a day. All parties involved want to increase the amount people on food stamps receive because, according to the International Herald-Tribune, "the a key component of the formula for computing most families' food stamps has not been adjusted for inflation since 1996."

Image of Jim McGovern from his official website.