Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP): What do you think about the #SNAPChallenge?

Here's the thing. I did this, living on $30 a week, more than once. It meant less crap (freezer pizzas and toaster strudels) and more work (make your own pasta) but it works.

The SNAP challenge doesn't work because it puts a SNAP budget into a non-SNAP kitchen. Americans on SNAP aren't usually in a position to make their own pasta because even such basic tools as a good rolling pin and knife are missing in most of their kitchens. As a Strength.Org instructor (Cooking Matters Conclusion - even with shitty picture of my ugly mug WITH "ConAgra" sticker on my chest) for the local food bank I make it a habit to send my students (mostly younger single mothers on SNAP) home after the first day and have them write down every tool they have in the kitchen. After that a massive struggle ensues as I try to create a seven day menu within $46 (that's the actual SNAP amount, by the way) for a single person or $76 for a single mother with kids. And I am a chef and used to cooking with an eye on hacks for everything, anyone who isn't will struggle even more.

Myself, as someone who has a stock pot and cheese cloth, I can make stock and have soup at $1.03 per meal as an appetizer three times a week. I have a stick blender so I can puree some tomatoes and make a beautiful tomato soup that I can reuse the next day as a pasta sauce and the following day as my pizza sauce. I have an oven that doesn't fluctuate 100 degrees and is 40 years old as it is almost normal in low income housing so I can make my own bread, pizza, and pie as a treat on Sundays.

I also know how to read ingredient labels. I can shop for stuff that fills me up and makes me not unhealthy. I'd say 90 percent of my students can't.

Unless we can elevate SNAP recipient's kitchen skills (precisely what I am doing at Cooking Matters and www.nokidhungry.org) or those who take the SNAP challenge have to do so on a two-burner movable stove, it's not even in the same ballpark.

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