Rep. Rush Holt takes on the food stamp challenge

Congressman Rush Holt (right) and representatives from Milltown ACME and local food pantries inspect their cart during a shopping trip to raise awareness for the food stamp program. MILLTOWN — After over an hour of shopping at the Milltown ACME on a Saturday morning, he looked at his receipt and then into his cart, meagerly filled with some canned vegetables, potatoes, meat and grains.

“I think you can live on this,” Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) said. “But it wouldn’t be fun.”

However, Holt and anti-hunger advocates said this is the reality for over 800,000 New Jerseyans and millions more nationwide who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, to eat.

With nearly 15 percent of American households facing food insecurity, Holt took to the grocery store to highlight the hunger issue and aimed to buy a week’s worth of food on an average food stamp budget: about $31.50.

He sought healthy but inexpensive meals for a week’s worth of breakfast, lunch and dinner, studying unit prices, analyzing the versatility and nutrition of foods. Shopping alongside were his wife, Margaret Lancefield, a physician; Diane Riley, director of advocacy for the Community Food Bank of New Jersey; representatives from Spotswood’s Community United for People (CUP) food bank; and ACME managers.

“I always look at unit prices when I shop,” Holt said. “But I never in the last 30 years, I’ve never had to watch the budget this close.”

Eggs — at $2.49 — were a must, useable for everything from a breakfast omelet to a lunch egg salad sandwich. As was a $2.19 loaf of bread, a discounted $4.73 chicken roaster, $3 worth of ground beef, canned vegetables three for $2, and a halfgallon of milk for $2.69.

Holt too worked to save money wherever he could. Instead of orange juice, he went for $2.09 frozen concentrate that could last. With tomato sauce expensive, he opted for the homemade route with $1.69 crushed tomatoes and 75-cent tomato paste.

Yet quickly the expenses added up. Cheese was unaffordable, as was jelly and butter, condiments and spices.

“Spices — that would break the bank,” Holt said.

Though nutritious, lettuce and other fresh greens were “too expensive,” Holt said, and instead used his last $3 on carrots and a 99-cent can of ACME Chunk Light Tuna.

In total, with certain items like rice and pasta prorated for the week, Holt came in 40 cents under budget — donating all the food to the Spotswood CUP Food Pantry — and left with a greater appreciation for what people on food stamps go through week in and week out.

“Intellectually, I knew what was involved in this,” he said. “But doing it is something else.”

According to N.J. Department of Human Services data, nearly 822,000 New Jersey residents participated in the SNAP program in September 2011, including 46,226 in Middlesex County. Nearly 47 percent of these participants were children.

Yet Holt said food stamp budgets could soon be on the decline. A boost in benefits that occurred with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is soon expiring, he said, and could result in a $3 to $4 reduction for recipients. President Barack Obama’s 2012 budget proposed continuing the boost untilApril 2014, but Holt said the extension was not included in the House- Senate conference bill.

“You see how hard it is to have a balanced budget for a week even with today’s benefits,” Holt said after his shopping experience. “I certainly can’t imagine what this would do to families if it was reduced.”

Riley said that if the SNAP program saw cuts, community food banks simply wouldn’t be able to pick up the slack, with pantries already giving away more food than ever and many who once donated food, now coming to get something to eat.

“It’s such an important program for people and we need to keep it strong, at least right now, when the economy is still recovering,” Riley said.

She said that the SNAP program suffers from many misconceptions. For example, people can’t purchase nonfood items under the SNAP program, which is efficient, she said, with an under 5 percent error rate and a rigorous application process.

Both Riley and Holt encouraged others to replicate the $31.50 shopping budget to experience what so many others go through on a weekly basis.

“Everyone should try it,” Holt said. “They should try it and repeat as they go down the aisles, ‘There, but for fortune, go I.’ ” Contact Chris Zawistowski at czawistowski@gmnews.com.