Councilman Eric Gioia poor-mouths food stamp diet

from the New York Daily News

BY ADAM NICHOLS

Queens City Councilman Eric Gioia shops at Sunnyside market to see what week's worth of food stamps will buy. (Hint: Not as much as last year.) DelMundo for News

Queens City Councilman Eric Gioia shops at Sunnyside market to see what week's worth of food stamps will buy. (Hint: Not as much as last year.)

Rocketing food prices are slimming down the Eric Gioia poverty diet.

The Democratic city councilman from Queens struggled to survive last year when he spent a week living on $28 - the average food stamp allowance for a single recipient.

This year, the same allowance would leave him starving.

"Last year, I lasted five days and I was out of food," he said. "I had to go to a food pantry to get through the week.

"This year, I'd last three days."

With last year's budget, Gioia loaded up on pasta, tuna, ramen noodles, white bread and a handful of vegetables.

This week, he shopped for the same groceries. The bill was more than $6 higher - a 25% price increase.

"Last year was difficult, but this year would be impossible," he said.

"Prices have gone up so much, but the food stamp allowance hasn't changed. No wonder food pantries are bursting at the seams.

"What choice do people have now?"

To fit into his unchanged budget, several items Gioia could afford last year had to be dropped from this week's shopping cart.

Among them were four bananas, three ears of corn, two cucumbers and two packets of pasta.

"The things I had to sacrifice were some of the healthiest things in my shopping basket," he said.

"Nobody wants to feed their kids ramen noodles and fake cheese slices every day, but if you can't afford anything else what else can you do?"