Food Critic Now Turns to Food Stamps

Unemployed writer describes his adjustment
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 1, 2010 5:33 PM CDT
Food Critic Now Turns to Food Stamps
An Electronic Benefit Card used in the food stamp program.   (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

Ed Murrieta used to be a food critic for the Tacoma News Tribune with a $1,300 monthly expense account and a "middle-class salary." Today, however, "I eat on the fringe of the food business, hungry for work and living on the dole, one of 6 million Americans whose sole source of income is food stamps." Murietta recounts his plight in a first-person account in the Seattle Times.

"As I search for work without success," he writes, "I find neither shame nor deprivation in food stamps." (But maybe a little embarrassment, including the time he inadvertently took food from a church's donation table.) He's got a $200 monthly food budget now, and he's learned to make it work. "Though it's not without its labors and worries, life on the food lines tastes pretty good, from where I sit. But I know that feeding myself with my own money would taste a whole lot better." (More food critic stories.)

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