> My goal is merely to help bring awareness to the issue
He's not trying to do some kind of "poor simulation," and to accomplish his goal, he doesn't have to. Even by just doing a simple exercise like strictly limiting his food budget for a week, he has brought some light upon the difficulty that many people face.
It's ridiculous to think this raises any sort of awareness to the real issues that poverty presents. It's trite and ignorant to think anything otherwise.
You're wrong.
Raising awareness is not the same as getting people to even begin to understand the issue, it's just making people realize there is an issue.
Not living by some extreme set of constraints omg I have to give up everything does not diminish what he is trying to accomplish. You're just adding your own parameters to his experiment.