The 21 club in Congress

Lawmakers in Congress scrimping on $21 worth of groceries a week can find better ways to learn about the inadequacies of the federal food-stamp program.

The Food Stamp Challenge taken by four House members comes off as a stunt. A better choice for the four — Democrats Tim Ryan of Ohio, Janice Schakowsky of Illinois and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, and Republican Jo Ann Emerson of Missouri — is to tour food banks and drum up votes for a $4 billion increase in the annual food-stamp budget.

The bill, introduced by McGovern and Emerson, would be part of the 2007 Farm Bill. But it isn't a sure thing. The gargantuan farm bill is a bloated edifice stuffed with more pork than a barbecue joint. It remains to be seen whether lawmakers are willing to make fiscal trade-offs to pay for an increase, not just in food stamp benefits, but in spending for the networks that distribute food to 500,000 low-income seniors nationwide.

The formula for computing food-stamp benefits hasn't been adjusted for inflation in more than a decade. As a result, 26 million low-income and elderly Americans rely on food stamps with an average allowance of $3 a day.

The four in Congress are attempting to live like that for a week. But it doesn't take seven days of ramen noodles to grasp the inadequacy of food-stamp benefits.

Rather than highlight a very serious issue, the congressional food pact trivializes it.

Rep. Ryan mourns the eggs he cannot eat because they are unaffordable at $1.29 for a half-dozen. Organic products and fresh vegetables are as out of reach for the four as caviar is for most of us. The worse deprivation: ignoring food at the endless stream of lobbyist lunches, receptions and political fundraisers.

The congressional lawmakers should eat heartily. They'll need the strength — and no small measure of courage — to take a knife to the farm bill and carve out room for boosting the food-stamp program.