(MENAFN- Arab News) LOS ANGELES: Four days proved too much for Hollywood star Gwyneth Paltrow when she tried to get by on a $29 food-stamp budget only to give up when chicken and black licorice beckoned.
The 'Iron Man' and 'Shakespeare in Love' star was challenged by celebrity chef Mario Batali to live on the equivalent of the average US government food stipend for low-income families.
The goal was to raise funds and public awareness for the Food Bank For New York City which provides millions of free meals to New Yorkers in need.
With $29 Paltrow filled her grocery basket with a healthy-looking mix of eggs black beans lettuce kale a tomato some avocados and corn tortillas.
'As I suspected we only made it through about four days when I personally broke and had some chicken and fresh vegetables (and in full transparency half a bag of black licorice)' she wrote on her Goop.com blog Thursday.
Giving herself a C minus for her efforts Paltrow blamed income inequality between men and women for the difficulties that 'hardworking mothers' face in feeding their families.
Paltrow a mother of two was seen Tuesday at a Los Angeles film promotion event that featured with an $80-a-head prix fixe menu although it's unclear if she ate from it the E! showbiz network reported.
One in seven Americans or 46 million people live on what the US government officially calls the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP.
The US Department of Agriculture which oversees SNAP puts the weekly cost of food for a young family of four at between $151 to $247.
If Paltrow 42 was trying to prove the near-impossibility of living on food stamps alone the point was missed by many critics on social media.
'Looks like Paltrow did some conscious uncoupling from her food stamp week' snickered one cynic on Twitter riffing off the way she and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin labeled their 2014 divorce.