Actress Gweneth Paltrow is living pretty rough these days. She can only spend $29 on food for the entire week. The actress hasn’t fallen on hard times, but rather she’s participating in a very unique challenge. The challenge is the brainchild of American Chef Mario Batali, it’s called “the food stamp challenge.”
The challenge is intended to raise awareness for people struggling to feed their families who are on government assistance programs. Republican lawmakers love cutting funding to these programs, while their holy cow (the military budget) remains mostly untouched if not fed more each year.
With fewer good paying jobs and more minimum wage jobs taking their place, families are having a hard time buying even the basics. Here is the tweet Paltrow shared:
This is what $29 gets you at the grocery store?what families on SNAP (i.e. food stamps) have to live on for a week. pic.twitter.com/OZMPA3nxij
— Gwyneth Paltrow (@GwynethPaltrow) April 9, 2015
You can see why so many people were not very warm to Paltrow’s well intentioned gesture. Here are a couple of people?reacting to Paltrow’s?tweet:
its so cool how celebs (gwyneth paltrow) can challenge themselves to live off a food stamp budget like its a game or something
— julianne knight (@jul_knight) April 12, 2015
Gwyneth Paltrow is trying to act all noble doing the food stamp challenge. When most women on food stamps are also trying to feed a family
— Disney Princess (@Sassierprincess) April 12, 2015
Now there are lots of factors that I’m sure Paltrow did not take into account. While her photo contains healthy, vitamin-rich foods, it’doesn’t?contain the calories a person who might need to work?two or three?jobs would need in order to have enough energy to survive. This usually means cheaper high-fat and high-calorie foods.
It’s much cheaper to buy cans soup or pre-made pasta than it is to buy fresh fruits and veggies. This is a sad fact in today’s America. And even if fresh foods were cheaper, lots of single parents may not have the time to cook from scratch.
As fun as it is to make fun of Ms. Paltrow, I think there is a “let them eat kale” joke in here somewhere. I thank Ms. Paltrow for bringing attention to this issue. Like her or not, she had done something good by making people talk about this subject. Many celebrities are known for supporting posh environmental causes. At least she’s trying to connect with the working poor in America. So let’s give her some credit.
Here’s a video from The Young Turks?on the story.
