Food Stamp Challenge at UCLA explores food insecurity

Pushing his cart through the aisles of Ralphs, Edwin Eshaghzadeh picked out peanut butter, bread, eggs, yogurt, tuna and black beans.

Eshaghzadeh had only $31.30 to spend for a week’s worth of food, a budget he has not followed since he was a child and his family was on food stamps. When he was younger, he didn’t fully understand how hard it was to eat on a limited budget.

“Until I had to go through the motions myself – to be there at the grocery store, putting things back, realizing I can’t afford the price – I didn’t realize what it was like,” he said.

For the past week, the fourth-year psychobiology student lived on a budget intended to replicate the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, as a part of the Food Stamps Challenge. Many people across the country, including some politicians and prominent figures, have participated in the challenge.

Eshaghzadeh created and initiated the Food Stamp Challenge at UCLA because he wanted to educate himself about hunger and draw attention to the issue from other UCLA students. Eight other students, who are Eshaghzadeh’s friends, also participated in the challenge from Nov. 20 to Tuesday.

An average person on SNAP receives about $30.65 per week, which equates to less than $1.50 per meal, said Laura Mizes, the youth outreach coordinator at MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, a nonprofit organization that works to alleviate hunger in the United States and Israel.

For Eshaghzadeh and those who participated in the challenge last week, that budget translated to $31.30 for one week’s worth of food.

Roughly 48 million people in America are hungry, and roughly 47 million people receive SNAP benefits, Mizes said at a presentation before the challenge began on Nov. 19.

The federal government spent $94.8 billion across all food and nutrition assistance programs in the 2011 fiscal year, Mizes said.

Recently, however, budget cuts have threatened to knock anywhere from $4 to $40 billion of funding for SNAP, Mizes said.

At the beginning of the challenge, Eshaghzadeh said he thought not eating enough food would be the biggest struggle he would face.

But the Food Stamp Challenge at UCLA – which Eshaghzadeh initiated to educate students about hunger – was flawed, he said. Eshaghzadeh, who is working to educate himself and others about hunger as a fellow at MAZON, said he felt by doing the challenge he would gain more of a perspective on hunger.

After doing the challenge, he said living on SNAP was not just about having a tighter budget for food, it was about the way it might affect all aspects of a person’s life.

Mizes said she thinks the challenge allows people to connect more deeply to the issue and learn how to advocate against hunger.

The night before the challenge began, Eshaghzadeh and two other participants went to Ralphs to buy provisions for the week.

Eshaghzadeh did not plan his budget or shopping list before arriving at the store; rather, he wanted to replicate what it would be like to be “food insecure,” having a lack of access at all times to enough food to lead an active and healthy life, Eshaghzadeh said.

Thirteen years ago, Eshaghzadeh was also on SNAP, though they were known as “food stamps” then.

Eshaghzadeh and his family immigrated to the United States from Iran for religious reasons. They spent seven months in Austria, and once they arrived in the U.S., with no income, they were put on food stamps for 15 months, he said.

The meals Eshaghzadeh prepared over the course of the week reminded him of the time he and his family had spent on food stamps when he was younger.

For breakfast he had two eggs, for lunch, tuna with a small amount of mayonnaise, and for dinner, beans or pasta. Every now and then he would throw in a snack of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to tide him over. He only drank tap water.

“Everyone who is doing the challenge is going into it with so many resources that it is actually impossible to even get close to simulating the real experience of someone on SNAP,” he said.

Becca Sadwick, a fourth-year political science student who participated in the challenge, lives on the Hill, which Eshaghzadeh equates to the pinnacle of resources for food and living.

Sadwick stuck with the challenge and made as many meals in her room as possible. She looked up the food prices for the meals she had in the dining halls.

In her room, she mainly ate frozen foods, cereal or candy. In the dining halls, she typically had an apple, a quarter cup of spinach, a potato dish and a type of protein. She kept breakfast cheap, at only 85 cents, so she could compensate for her lunch and dinner, which typically came in around $1.74, depending on the protein.

Sadwick, whose diet is both lactose and gluten-free, said she ate less food and lower quality food as the challenge progressed. Her budget also prevented her from spending money on healthy foods – like an apple or lettuce – that would not satisfy her as much as candy or a frozen waffle would.

Other students not living on the Hill found creative ways to get more affordable food.

Last Friday, both Eshaghzadeh and his friend Josh Weinreb, a fourth-year molecular, cellular and developmental biology student and a challenge participant, decided to accept a free meal from the Jewish organization they affiliate themselves with for Shabbat. They said they made this decision prior to the challenge because they thought they would accept the meal if they were actually “food insecure.”

The challenge ended Tuesday with a reflective session, during which participants discussed their experiences on the SNAP budget. Next year, some of the student participants hope to make the Food Stamp Challenge at UCLA an annual event.