Blog
Could you make it on $42 a week?
Last March an Ames couple challenged themselves to eat on $42 a week. That’s about $1 per meal each, less than what they would receive on USDA’s SNAP Thrifty Food Plan. (SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, was formerly known as the Food Stamp Program. The Thrifty Food Plan is the basis for food stamp allotments.)
The Rhoads’ SNAP Challenge
Vickie Rhoads decided to do the SNAP challenge with her family and share their experience to call attention the fact that nearly 13 % of Iowans are food insecure, meaning they do not have the ability to acquire nutritionally adequate and safe foods in socially acceptable ways. Vickie shared, “We have had friends and family whose income has been reduced due to job layoffs or family deaths”. A one-week challenge certainly does not replicate the complexities of poverty, but it is one way to better-understand the reality many Iowans face.
