Bulwark Takes – "Jared Tried the White House’s $3 Diet"

Podcast: Bulwark Takes
Host: The Bulwark (Jared Pullen, with interviews of Professor Colleen Heflin; clips from USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins)
Release Date: January 27, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode centers on Jared Pullen’s real-life attempt to follow the White House’s newly suggested food guidelines, specifically Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins’ claim that nutritious meals can be made on a $3-per-meal budget. Jared explores the practicality of this challenge over three days, sharing both logistical difficulties and personal impacts. The episode contextualizes the experiment with expert insight from Professor Colleen Heflin (Syracuse University), highlighting deeper issues of food insecurity and the limitations of official government food plans.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Background: The $3 Meal Claim

• The White House issued new food guidelines advocating for more full-fat dairy, butter, and red meat, and less sugar.
• USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins (01:55) on News Nation:

  "It can cost around $3 a meal for a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, you know, corn tortilla, and one other thing."

The Grocery Trip and Budgeting

• Jared recounts his Aldi shopping experience (02:23–03:24), carefully calculating each purchase to stay under $27 for three days.
  • Key purchases: 5 lbs of chicken breast, canola oil, long grain white rice, seasoning, tortillas, frozen broccoli, salt, bananas.
  • Total spent: $23.97, leaving a $3 cushion for emergencies.

Meal Preparation and Experience

• Preps the week’s food for convenience but finds it time-consuming (03:24–03:44).
• First day’s meals structured solely around chicken, rice, tortillas, broccoli, and banana.
  • Finds the food monotonous, lacks condiments/spices for flavor (03:53).
  • Physical effects:
    • “Not gonna lie. I kind of have a headache. I also feel quite exhausted… I'm just tired. I'm not feeling all that great currently.” (04:29)

Expert Perspective: Limitations of Food Plans

• Professor Colleen Heflin assesses Jared’s nutritional intake (05:03):

  “It's not quite clear to me that you met the dietary recommendations in terms of your fruit and vegetable consumption... whether you're getting adequate protein, whether you're, you know, getting enough fiber, can definitely have a toll on your physical health as well.”

Historical Context

• Professor Heflin references the old SNAP Challenge (05:38), which aimed to show the difficulties of eating on minimal budgets and how such experiences can deepen empathy for the food insecure.

Challenges in Budgeting and Shopping

• Jared notes he was “shocked” by the cheap chicken, but sacrifices—no olive oil, no butter, limited seasonings—are significant (06:24).
• The utility of frozen veggies: “The broccoli actually was probably the best part. I will admit it was quite refreshing. I did one meal without the broccoli was like, never doing that again. It was just super dry...” (07:24)
• Personal recollection of food insecurity growing up and the struggle to stretch a limited family food budget in the past (07:49).

Psychological and Social Aspects

• By Day 2, monotony and lack of enjoyment set in after he runs out of broccoli (08:08–09:04).

  “Eating $3 meals every day, the same ingredients, it gets tiring... It's just kind of exhausting and makes it feel like a chore.” (09:04)

• Heflin on food’s social value (09:12):

  “So many of us experience a lot of joy and satisfaction when we eat... when we are eating a minimal diet... that can physically make us, you know, less excited... So that has like a mental toll also.”

• Jared highlights an additional challenge low-income Americans face: balancing food costs with other essential bills (10:01).

Food Insecurity & Policy

• Heflin details the harsh trade-offs families face (10:13):

  “They’re going to prioritize paying for rents and utilities... delay going to the doctor. When people talk about affordability crisis, they're really talking about the rising costs across multiple sectors. So when housing and energy prices go up, it means there's less money for food in the household.”

• Updated claim from Secretary Rollins (11:06):

  “A full day, meaning three full square meals and a snack is about $15.64... It wasn't what I meant... I grew up with a single mom in a really small town... never meant to be flippant.”

• USDA’s response to Bulwark queries: Simulations assert nutritious meals can cost under $10/day, but Jared’s experience doesn’t reflect this; thrifty plans rely heavily on canned or frozen produce (11:47–12:40).

Wider Policy Criticism

• Heflin’s recommendation for policymakers (12:49):

  “I think we should be measuring food insecurity. This administration has suspended measurement of the food security measure... we're implementing some drastic new provisions... that will reduce access to SNAP benefits and create what is really a historic change in funding... which is going to really cause some profound fiscal problems at local levels moving forward.”

The Scope of Food Insecurity

• In 2024, “roughly 47.9 million people lived in food insecure households” (13:49), placing individual experiences like Jared’s in a broader context.

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins:

  "It can cost around $3 a meal for a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, you know, corn tortilla, and one other thing." (02:04)

• Jared’s realization after day one:

  "Not gonna lie. I kind of have a headache. I also feel quite exhausted… I'm not feeling all that great currently." (04:29)

• Professor Colleen Heflin – Limits of such diets:

  "It's not quite clear to me that you met the dietary recommendations in terms of your fruit and vegetable consumption... can definitely have a toll on your physical health as well." (05:03)

• On food as more than sustenance:

  "So many of us experience a lot of joy and satisfaction when we eat... when we are eating a minimal diet, oftentimes that's monotonous and doesn't have a lot of taste and joy in it, that can physically make us, you know, less excited... That has like a mental toll also." (09:12)

• Tradeoffs for low-income households:

  "They're going to prioritize paying for rents and utilities... when housing and energy prices go up, it means there's less money for food in the household." (10:13)

• Heflin’s policy critique:

  “We should be measuring food insecurity. This administration has suspended measurement of the food security measure... [and] will reduce access to SNAP benefits.” (12:49)

Important Segment Timestamps

• 00:00–01:29 – [Skip, ads]
• 01:29 – Jared introduces the $3 meal challenge and White House guidelines
• 02:04 – Rollins asserts meals can be nutritious for $3 each
• 02:23 – Jared’s Aldi grocery run details
• 03:24–04:29 – Cooking, first day’s meal, and initial effects
• 05:03 – Professor Heflin explains dietary pitfalls of low-budget meals
• 05:38–06:20 – The SNAP Challenge and empathy-building
• 06:24–08:08 – Personal experience, memory of his mom’s budget struggles
• 08:08–09:04 – Running out of broccoli; monotony and mental fatigue
• 09:12 – Social/emotional impact of restricted diets
• 10:01 – Financial trade-offs for low-income families
• 11:06 – Rollins adjusts claim: $15.64 for three meals plus snack
• 11:47 – USDA’s lack of specifics and reliance on simulation
• 12:49 – Heflin’s critique of recent policy and data measurement cuts
• 13:49 – Magnitude of food insecurity: nearly 48 million in 2024

Tone and Takeaways

• Tone: Candid, skeptical, and empathetic. The experiment is approached in good faith but reveals discomfort and doubt about the practicality of government claims.
• Summary:
  • Trying to live on $3 meals is possible with great effort and compromise, but it can be monotonous, nutritionally suspect, and emotionally taxing.
  • Real food insecurity involves more trade-offs (bills, health, dignity) than a controlled experiment can capture.
  • Policy claims need to account for the lived realities revealed in such challenges and center the voices of the food insecure, not only data models or simulations.

For those who haven’t listened:
This episode will give you an inside view of what it’s like to follow the White House’s budget food guidelines, the limitations those on the margins face, and expert insight on why mere budgeting solutions miss the mark in America’s food insecurity crisis.