I wish I could remember if I paused here, if I said, “really?” If I just took it. I think I must have just taken it, because if I’d paused for a moment, I would have said, “No, you don’t have to do that, no thanks. I don’t need it, I’m fine.” But instead I grab the bag with the sandwich, I grab the coffee, I start to walk out. I say thank you, but not in a meaningful way. I don’t stop and look her in the eyes and say, “Thank you.” Maybe I should have. But there is food at my house and money and a Trader Joe’s gift card and this whole incident isn’t about me being needy but instead about me not doing math.

I walk out the door, but first, I stop to put milk in the coffee. Even as I’m doing it, I’m thinking, this is ridiculous that I’m doing this. I just accepted charity and now what am I doing, thanks for the free coffee, now let me also take your free milk, ha. Top off, whole milk, top back on, grab a straw.

I walk out, don’t look back.

Dear Mr. Mayor and anyone else: Want to know what it’s like to live on food stamps? Read this, this or this — or ask the 46 million Americans who do it every day, not as a “challenge” or for publicity but because they can’t afford food.

Speaking as someone who’s been on food stamps — as a child and again, more recently, as an adult — such challenges are no adequate comparison to the experience of being poor and living with food insecurity. Living just one week or even one month on less, you are not — as Batali says — “walk[ing] in someone else’s shoes.”

You have no idea — and the lessons you tell us you learn prove this.