In a move that should surprise nobody, actress Gwyneth Paltrow has failed the #FoodBankNYCChallenge just after the halfway mark. The challenge, posed to her by celebrity chef Mario Batali, was to live on a $29 food budget for one week. Before the week began, Paltrow tweeted her $29 grocery haul, which included, among other things, seven limes.
This is what $29 gets you at the grocery store—what families on SNAP (i.e. food stamps) have to live on for a week. pic.twitter.com/OZMPA3nxij
— Gwyneth Paltrow (@GwynethPaltrow) April 9, 2015Paltrow was criticized by many on both the left and the right (including yours truly) for her laughably poor meal-planning and budgeting skills. (Seriously, SEVEN limes?! WHO NEEDS SEVEN LIMES?!)
The limes are perhaps the best example of how hilariously out-of-touch Paltrow is with grocery shopping and budgeting. Given that the black beans are from Safeway, and Safeway is currently selling limes at $0.60/each, Paltrow spent $4.20, or nearly 14 percent of her food budget for the week(!) on limes. Limes are not filling, given that they're mostly used to just flavor food. A seven ounce bottle of lime juice, which does the same essential function as seven limes, is sold at Safeway for $1.70. She could have spent the nearly three-dollar savings on something more filling, like oh, I don't know, nearly two pounds of chicken drumsticks, thighs, or quarters, which are sold for $1.69 per pound. Or, if Paltrow were willing to skip the limes entirely, she could have purchased two and a half pounds of chicken, which would have been good for at least six meals.
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Paltrow grew up wealthy, and has likely never had to budget or scrimp in order to eat for a week. It makes sense, and I'm not going to fault her for having a privileged background. It is, however, rather ridiculous for her to attempt to score political points by exposing how out-of-touch she is to not only the struggle of people enrolled in SNAP, but also the lives of everyday Americans living above the poverty line.
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