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To follow the congressional debate about food stamp (SNAP) funding in the Farm Bill-and media coverage of that debate-you would think that the relevant issues are the deficit, rapists on food stamps, waste and abuse and defining our biblical obligation to the poor.

The only thing missing from that conversation is the state of hunger in America today and how we should respond to it.

“A good part of the food stamp debate in Congress and the media is not an evidence-based conversation, it’s fantasy-based,” says Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), a nonprofit organization working to improve public policies to eradicate hunger in the United States.

Weill insists that there is plenty that we know about food stamps that Congress and the media are busy ignoring, including from the government’s own data: a January 2013 Institute of Medicine (IOM)/National Research Council (NRC) report clearly described the inadequacy of SNAP benefits for most people struggling with hunger.

“The whole thrust of the report is that this is not a benefit allotment that’s adequate for people in most real world circumstances,” says Weill.

Since the average benefit for a SNAP recipient is just $4.50 per day, this conclusion shouldn’t come as much of a shock. But the authors-who comprised a blue-ribbon panel charged with conducting a scientific analysis of benefit levels-did a good job breaking down exactly why the benefit allotment might come up so short.

For starters, there is the “Thrifty Food Plan” (TFP) itself-a theoretical “market basket of food” that is supposed to represent “a nutritious diet at minimal cost.” The plan assumes that a consumer is able to mostly “purchase less expensive, unprocessed ingredients-such as vegetables and meat to make a stew.” It points out, however, that these ingredients require “substantial investment of the participants’ time to produce nutritious meals inconsistent with the time available for most households at all income levels.”