Rep. Barbara Lee Eating on a Food Stamp Budget

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-13th District), who represents Piedmont in Congress, is among the House members who are taking the SNAP Challenge this week — eating on a Food Stamp budget of $4.50 per day.

She and nearly 30 other members of the House of Representatives are dramatizing pending legislation that would cut the Supplemental Food Assistance Program. Nearly 2 million Americans would lose Food Stamps if the cuts are approved.

"This morning, I went shopping for the week on the SNAP budget," Lee wrote in a blog post on Huffington Post this week.

"Getting your budget down to $4.50 a day is complicated. You need to try to make sure you have enough protein, limit your sodium, and find good vegetables. If you have special dietary needs, like diabetes or an allergy, there's even more to think about.

"What I'm thinking about most during this trip is that I'm shopping only for myself.

"When I was a young, single mother, I was on public assistance. It was a bridge over troubled water, and without it, I wouldn't be where I am today. I spent hours debating what to buy and what to skip, all the while keeping my sons in my mind. I could go without breakfast; my sons couldn't. I went through the grocery store today thinking about what I wanted, not what my sons would eat, but that wasn't always the case. I would have bought ground beef and white bread for them, not yams, and certainly not tuna."

You can read the rest of Lee's blog post here and more about the SNAP Challenge in this Huffington post article.

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