$40 for a Week's Worth of Groceries?
Monday, Jan 26, 2009 | Updated 3:25 PM CDT
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Could you live on $40 worth of food per week?
There's a new diet that's sweeping the country that has nothing to do with losing weight and everything to do with trying to live on a food budget.
It started online, and it's called the "Hunger Challenge" or the "Food Stamp Diet."
Members of Congress are trying it in order to call attention to the state of food stamp benefits.
In Illinois, the maximum benefit is about $40 per week. That amount goes down as more people are added to a household, and roughly 400,000 Chicagoland residents live on that amount year-round.
The Chicago Anti-Hunger Federation and the Illinois Hunger Coalition serve millions of meals every year. Both organizations say they're seeing a dramatic rise in the demand for food.
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