I'm on Team Gwyneth Tried.

A lot of articles regarding Gwyneth Paltrow's attempt at the SNAP challenge are being pretty snarky about her quest only lasting about four days. But I want to go ahead and agree with this article that starts out Team Gwyneth--because she tried.

Ok. She comes from successful people and has been food-privileged her whole life. I don't think we need to stand and wonder about how she didn't know beforehand how difficult it was to feed oneself on the cheap--she has simply never had to do it. It's one thing to know what you know--and (I know this is an awkward way of saying it) it's really hard to know what you don't know. Unless you grew up knowing from dollar stores, discount bins, the brilliance of cheap meat slow-cooked and used as flavoring, and the necessity of eating lots and lots of noodles, where exactly do you go to find this out? Because some of us learned from our mothers and grandmothers--how to turn $3-4 worth of chicken thighs and a smattering of cabinet staples into meat you could do for dinner one night and sandwiches a time or two later, or why the basis of casseroles and hotdish all over the country begin from essentially, macaroni and cheese. That cookbook is word-of-mouth, not necessarily available at any store.

She didn't know. She has been about healthy eating and didn't know whole food eating is costly. Cheap food is prepared foods sometimes, and also pretty starchy, salty, and sugary. She wouldn't have known to compromise.

Poor eating isn't necessarily the healthiest eating, and it does often involve doctored-up prepared foods. There's ways, but they come from time and experimentation, and just because I can make three quarts of chili (the bastard East Coast version with beans) on a shoestring that goes for miles over rice, doesn't mean everyone is born turning bottom-shelf provender into quality eats. So, I am going to give it to her that she tried, and she learned how crappy living on a shoestring is, and how much work it is, and how not exactly healthy some of that eating can be. And if that means she contributes her voice later on to correcting our national issues regarding food scarcity, more power to her.

(And this was a SNAP challenge--but here's a new one: see if anyone wants to try and live under Kansas' welfare laws. You can get a gun, but not see a movie. On an ATM limit of $25 a day, I don't know how one is saving up for a gun. But really-no vino? Cigarettes if one is currently an addict--a lawful product in any other event. Bail bond company? TANF recipients can't post bail. Video arcades. This is a bill written by and endorsed by people with an aggressive dislike of poor folks. And it shows. Nota bene also:

Any person convicted on or after July 1, 2015, of a felony involving controlled substances or their analogs is disqualified permanently from receiving food assistance.

Individuals are eligible for food assistance if they enroll and participate in a drug treatment program approved by the Secretary. Individuals must submit to drug testing, if requested by DCF pursuant to a drug-testing plan. Failure to submit to a drug test or pass it results in ineligibility for food assistance until the individual complies with the drug treatment plan approved by the Secretary. The drug treatment plan exception does not apply to any individual convicted on or after July 1, 2015, of a second or subsequent felony involving controlled substances or their analogs.

You want to eat? Don't be poor and know anyone who does drugs. And expect to be piss-tested at sometime.)