Dieting and Food Stamps

There have been a number of articles about people, mostly politicians, trying to subsist on $21 a week, the amount allowed by the food stamp program. This article in the LA Times is one of the latest. It seems to me many of the articles are unrealistic in several ways:

• the first mistake is to say, you start the week with $21 and no food on hand and you end the week with $0 and no food on hand. A more realistic cost accounting would look at the cost of the amount of food consumed during the week. If you use a third of a bottle of cooking oil, then your budget is charged with a third of the cost.
  
• a second mistake is not buying in bulk
• a third mistake is buying processed, not ingredients.

Avoid those mistakes and I think it'd be possible to live on the food stamp allowance, reasonably healthily though not with all the fruits and vegetables now recommended. And certainly not enjoyably. Rather like living without TV; it's doable, but no one wants to.