Weigh-in.(Eric Gioia's diet)

Traditionally, dieting for a cause can be as good for one's figure as it is for the soul. Al Sharpton, during his hunger strike over Vieques, in 2001, dropped thirty pounds and several inches from his waistline. Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn's borough president, lost eleven pounds during his first Lighten Up Brooklyn campaign against obesity, in 2002. (He gained it all back.) The latest stunt-eating politico is Eric Gioia, a city councilman from Queens. Last week, he concluded a Food Stamp Challenge, during which he ate only what a New Yorker could typically afford on a week's worth of food stamps, or the equivalent of twenty-eight dollars.

"I did this to draw attention to the issue of how people are living in New York City," Gioia said the other day, in his parents' kitchen, in Woodside. "It's been terrible. I feel lousy. I'm tired. I just don't feel like myself." After three days, Gioia weighed in at a hundred and seventy-one pounds, up from his usual one-sixty-nine. In this respect, he resembled his college roommate Morgan Spurlock, who, while making his documentary "Super Size Me," ate nothing but McDonald's food for thirty days and acquired a soccer-ball gut.

Gioia's diet consisted primarily of pasta, white bread, vegetables, and tap water--the anti-Atkins. It followed a similar feat by the governor of Oregon, Ted Kulongoski, and coincided with attempts by four members of Congress to meet the same thrifty standards--all in the interest of raising awareness of the food-stamp program, which is up for reauthorization this year. President Bush has threatened to cut the program by hundreds of millions of dollars over the next several years, even though food-stamp provisions have not been properly adjusted for inflation since 1996.

Here are the groceries that Gioia brought home from a Food Dynasty in Woodside: two loaves of white bread, six ears of corn, five oranges, six bananas, three cucumbers, three cans of tuna, four packets of ramen, five boxes of Ronzoni pasta, one jar of tomato sauce, one bag of carrots (organic), one stick of butter, processed-cheese slices, one tub of pre-mixed peanut butter and jelly (Smucker's Goober). Total cost: $24.44. Feeling ...