Two Ontario university students who challenged themselves to the "OSAP Diet" -- spending no more that $7.50 a day on food while trying to eat healthy -- say it really can't be done.

Rachel Crane and Andrew Beach were two of four Ontario university students who took part in the Food For Thought initiative launched by the Ontario Undergraduate Students' Alliance. For three weeks, they stuck to the tight food budget to highlight that the Ontario government has not raised student loan limits in four years.

Beach, an undergrad at the University of Western Ontario, says while it may be possible to survive on a $7.50/ day food budget, eating nutritiously is another story.

"It's really hard. Trying to get a healthy balanced diet, getting enough fruits and vegetables, keeping your carbohydrates and protein in balance, it's really difficult on $7.50 a day," he told CTV's Canada AM Friday.

"And that's the point we wanted to prove."

For three weeks, Beach and the other three students cut their food budget to what the Ontario Student Assistance Program has decided is all that's needed for students living away from home.

The program provides loans to students who do not have the financial means to attend college or university. In calculating how much to lend to students living away from home, the program uses a "needs assessment model" that is based on what it considers reasonable allocations of costs.

OSAP's 2009-2010 outline for monthly living expenses allots $1,045 for a single student living away from home. That covers all living expenses, including food, shelter, transportation and miscellaneous. Out of the $1,045, $226 is allotted for food, which works out to about $7.50 a day or $2.50 per meal.

The Ontario Undergraduate Students' Alliance says not only is that allotment for food unreasonable, it does not allow for healthy eating -- especially in expensive cities and remote locations.

The alliance says that over a school year, the living allowance adds up to $12,540. That‘s below the Low-Income Cut-off, or poverty line, in Ontario, which currently sits at about $15,200 for rural areas, and it's well below the $22,171 poverty line in big cities.

"Right now, with OSAP, you're $3,000 below the poverty line," says Beach. "So the government is expecting students may have to live in poverty while going to university."

Crane, a student at Brock University in St. Catharines, says sticking to the diet meant eating absolutely nothing on campus, but instead bringing from home all the food and drinks that she would need each day.

"It was a lot of time management in packing that lunch, making sure you don't buy food on campus," she said.

She noted that while she survived on the diet, she did go over-budget many days. And she wonders how those who might need more calories would have fared.

"It's particularly hard for people who have special dietary concerns. Like if you're a varsity athlete, you might be consuming 3,000 calories a day," she noted.

Beach says he found that sticking to the budget meant that he cut back on fresh fruit and vegetables and says he worried about his vitamin C intake. He also tried to come up with tricks to save time and money in his food prep, such as cooking up a large batch of pasta, freezing it and using it over the week.

"But you start to get sick of pasta, you get sick of sandwiches. So we're encouraging the government to give a little bit more money so students have that additional variety," he says.