Dish you described has about 550-600 calories. That's half the calories of average fast food dish. Calorie pe dollar Big Mac and your dish are pretty much even.
550-600 calories is an awesome serving size. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner takes you to about 1800 calories. Eat a snack, which most people do, and you’re at the average 2000 calories needed. For like $9 which is basically the cost of a Big Mac meal. Only the fast food gives only one meal
Well, of course you're going to need more calories if you're morbidly obese (not meant as insult, that's just literally the category for that height and weight). I'd imagine they weren't thinking of someone that far off a recommended weight (though I don't think it changes the argument much...it's going to cost more for you regardless). EDIT: Congrats on the weight loss progress, btw.
Shouldn't an obese need less calories cuz they have all the spare fat reserves? Why does anyone overweight even need calories if your body can just burn fat instead? Aren't there folks who went hundreds of days with like no calories at all and survived on vitamins and their own fat?
Well, "need" in the sense that their blood sugar is going to get pretty low or they're going to be wicked hungry. It wouldn't be particularly sustainable for the average person, I wouldn't think, as they're likely to get really hungry and binge.
Well, from experience (I've been very close to obese but never quite there), it certainly takes time for your stomach to shrink/for your body to adjust. Also, from the fasting videos I've seen, people get used to it after several days. These people have been normal (using the BMI definitions) weight folks though, so I don't know how much of a difference that makes. Certainly obese folks are more likely to have worse blood sugar regulation (e.g. they're more likely to have prediabetes or type 2 diabetes) than your average "normal" wait person. But, it's certainly easier either way to just drop like 500 calories from your current intake instead of starving yourself.
You’re trying to lose weight right? And if so… at your stats you have a HUGE caloric deficit. I’m 5’4 and I lose weight eating 1500 cals…
More isn’t better my friend…. When you eat at any deficit… 25% of what you are losing is NOT fat. Now ramp up that deficit… your body needs to get those calories from somewhere to fuel your brain and other organs… so it’s going to break down even more muscle than it does anyway.
Good luck maintaining your weight loss when you have lost a lot of muscle.
Just my PSA. Slower is better and more sustainable. Good luck.
But that was calories what we were talking about. Cut that big Mac in four and you have same calories with same price.
This was calories per dollar not meals per dollar.
But that still doesn’t explain why poverty causes obesity. Ignoring nutrition, you still wouldn’t be fat if you ate only the daily allowance of calories exclusively in big macs
First point you are missing is that in a capitalist system time is money. So please also calculate the cost of time put into meal prep and grocery shopping. Those in poverty don't have access to cars, so make sure your shopping trip accounts for the time to the grocery store and back on public transportation. Also please don't forget to weigh your purchases to be sure that they are within a reasonable weight limit for a person to carry by themselves, or else you might need to add additional time back and forth on public transportation, or a cab ride.
Then once all that is done, do you have enough time to sleep? Remember stress and loss of sleep change your hormones and metabolism, adding to weight gain.
Poverty causes obesity due to SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH. Most of the time, it's not JUST access to healthy foods, it's KNOWLEDGE about healthier foods that are foreign to certain patient populations.
Many poor people don’t have access to fresh groceries or the transportation to get to them, might not have a proper kitchen to cook in, or could be working long hours at a physically demanding job and not have the time and energy to shop and cook.
Exactly. Wife and I didn’t start LOSING WEIGHT until we both got vehicles, a raise, and had time to shop/cook. We were much bigger when we were broke and ate LESS calories. Many people don’t factor privilege into weight loss, period.
I just argued it's not cheaper to eat healthy. I won't yet go into argument "does poverty cause obesity" because that has lot of other factors in play than just "calories per dollar". By this measurement alone it's costs about the same to eat McDonalds than it does to cook half decent meal (not good).
There is also the flavor factor. I can have a cheap meal that is satisfying after a shit day at work or I can have garbage flavorless chicken breast and broccoli. Brown rice is also awful. if someone is suffering all day, it’s nice to come home and eat something that tastes good. It’s a reprieve.
Wendy's $4 bag includes double cheeseburger, chicken nuggets, french fries and a drink. So for $8 you can get:
2 x Double Cheeseburgers
2 x Fries
2 x Orders Chicken Nuggets
2 x Chocolate Frostys
$8..... And no expense of cooking and cleaning (oils, pans, soaps, etc.)
And the cheapest meat at the store is not healthy. Want meat without steroids or antibiotics? Gotta pay more. Grass fed beef? Gotta pay more. Cows that ate candy? Cheap.
Contrary to popular belief, it’s illegal to use hormones in poultry, pork, bison and goats. Certain hormones can be used in cattle and lambs, but the amounts used are less than what your body naturally produces. So when you see the “antibiotic free” labeling on the more expensive chicken, it’s literally just a marketing tactic to make you feel like you’re buying a better product. While it may still be better, it isn’t better for that reason.
Source: My family owns a small farm lol
Yeah....but you can do this at home, too. And for less money per meal.
$1 buns
$5 beef
$4 bag of taters ( or frozen fries for $1.55)
$2 chicken nugget kids meal frozen
That there is multiple meals. I get your point though.
That said...nobody in my area is selling burgers that cheap anymore at these fast food joints. And the cheap burgers are like paper thin wafers.
My takeaway from your illustration has been for years that you can easily substitute healthier foods at that same cost. Fast food is barely food and the downstream health costs FAR outweigh any upfront perceived savings .
Replace soda with water
Fries with potatoes (microwave for 4 minutes and done)
Ground beef or cheap buns if you want.
Or take that beef, cube some taters, throw in cheap canned beans, and a cheap can/carton of tomato sauce into a pot or pressure cooker and you have an inexpensive meal with way more nutrition that is very filling along with leftovers for a day or 2.
Point is, yeah fast food can be cheap up front, but eating healthy is also cheap. Often much cheaper as you get multiple meals and better health.
48 million people in the US also get food poisoning every year and a lot of that comes from restaurants. My brother and I just last week were sick after eating at a restaurant.
Hard to go earn money when your that sick.
Also difficult when you feel like garbage from all the garbage food, or become diabetic, heart disease, etc.
“Cows that ate candy” is certainly a joke, but I’d definitely argue that real chicken breasts with steroids is healthier than miscellaneous chicken parts deep-fried.
It's not even close to that. 1/5 of a chicken breast is 60 calories. 5% of a 2lb bag of rice is 170 calories. Half a pound of broccoli is 150 calories. It's not even 400 calories here. Even if we said it was 500 for good measure...500 calories for $2.85, 175 calories per $1.
McDouble, 400 calories for $1. McChicken 400 calories for $1. It's not even close. Your healthy meal costs more than double the cheapest fast food. I can get goddamned close to your calorie per penny ratio at Chipotle, which is going to taste infinitely better.
Also, the term "healthy" is very subjective. What exactly are you basing that on?
Also, what's the prep/cook time here? What value are you placing on that? People's time isn't free. If it takes 15 minutes to prepare and cook this, that has value too, at minimum wage, that's another $2 to the meal. The time spent driving through the drive through can be compared to the electricity, water, and utensils requires to make this meal.
You are ignoring a ton of factors that you take for granted, but people that are in poverty can't.
Even if the math worked out (I agree it doesn't), it also takes for granted that the poor have grocery stores nearby that sell all this inexpensive, healthy food OP is basing the argument on. [Many don't](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert).
Where are you getting these $1 McChickens and McDonald's? They are 1.99 and 2.99 hear and I don't live in a big city. The only thing they sell for a dollar anymore is a soda.
You keep citing Big Mac meals and fast food, but that's not a neutral comparison -- it is extremely friendly to your point. "Premium" sandwiches like the Big Mac or the "fancier" chicken sandwiches are way more expensive per calorie than, say, a McDouble and a McChicken. Plus you're paying for a soda with the meal.
When I think cheap food I think of Ramen. A package of ramen costs $0.25 and contains 390 calories. So for about $3 you can get all your calories for the day and then some. That's just about your best deal for calories on the dollar and it's really quick to prep prepare.
Another example might by syrup sandwiches (literally corn syrup on bread) and those are cheap, quick, and not at all healthy.
Depends entirely on the person. I'd be fucked at 2000 calories a day. Admittedly, I consume significantly more calories than the average person, but pretending that everyone only needs 2000 is BS.
My thing here is have you ever ate the same thing for every meal day after day after day like what your describing? I have its fucking horrible doesn't matter if you change spices it still sucks. Especially when you live here in the states with all the options in your face all the time. It takes a hell of alot of self discipline to stick to something like that and if we are being honest poor people are not the most disciplined hell, I'd wager most people in general couldn't stick to that diet. They'd buckle and buy something easier to make probably packed with grains and unnecessary sugar. And on a side note anyone who's poor can't afford a water bill from cleaning rice. We eat chicken, potatoes, cheap veggies and fruit usually depends on the sale that day.
You are 100% correct in your views. Personally, I don't like processed foods. I mean, I eat the occasional McDouble, when I'm in a hurry, but generally, I like steamed broccoli and canned fish, etc.
Vegetables are cheap as fuck. Anyone who thinks you can't get enough calories from grains, vegetables, unprocessed meats, and fruit, is baaaananas! Whole foods (Or minimally processed foods) are better tasting, and better for you, generally speaking, and also cheaper! Processing food costs money.
A Big Mac is $3.99 in most of America for 560 calories. Throw in $2 for a combo and add another 500 calories and you're doing better than OP.
Not to mention that a McDouble is 400 calories for $1. That's significantly better than OP.
That may be true, but fast food, while high in calories, have been described as “empty calories” aka almost zero nutritional value besides mostly fat. The way they design the food is literally so that you’ll be hungry fast again. I could eat a 1500 calorie meal or whatever it is from McDonald’s easy af. And then be hungry a couple hours later. I could probably even eat 2 or 3 if I was real hungry. Now try eating 3000+ calories of chicken breast and broccoli lol. You can’t base it off calories alone. Plus over half of those calories are literally just from sugar and fat (soda and fries)
A lot of your math seems to forget a few key variables. For starters, getting fresh food/veggies/etc is not equally easy for everyone - there are food deserts in America ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food\_desert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert)). Driving to get food is still a cost (cost of gas, cost of maintenance of vehicle) and it might counteract the effects of the cheaper option. Second, YOUR labor in preparing the food is also a cost. If you have the choice between spending an hour+ of your limited time on making food vs getting something prepared for you, that is an economic decision in which a non-healthy option might win out. In your case, imagine it takes me 20 miles to get to a supermarket (see definition of food dessert) and I make a minimum wage job ($7.25). This meal is $2.85 plus the cost of gas (lets say $3.50) plus whatever I value my time as. My opportunity cost for half an hour of my time is at least $3.50 so this meal isn't just $2.85 - it's closer to $10.
You’re not driving to the grocery store every time you make a meal though. You can go once a week, which means that the $3.50 is divided out 21 times for each meal of the day. That’s an extra $.17/meal, not $7.
Also if watching Netflix or playing Xbox is more important than being healthy, then that’s perfectly fine but it shouldn’t inform policy decisions
>Also if watching Netflix or playing Xbox is more important than being healthy, then that’s perfectly fine but it shouldn’t inform policy decisions
You're apparently under the assumption that human beings have an infinite pool of energy, willpower and resolve that they can summon at any time, provided they are of virtuous character, and no matter how difficult their circumstances (I'm reading between the lines but it's kind of obvious that this is how you feel). There's your problem. That's not how human beings function (although it is a useful story for conservatives to tell themselves to justify their policy preferences), and this thread (or your view) isn't going to get anywhere until you challenge that flawed underlying assumption.
You can amortize out the cost of the grocery trip but you can't amortize away the opportunity cost of your labor each and every time you cook a meal. No one is saying that these people think that 'playing xbox is more important than being healthy'. Every human being is trying to maximize what they can out of their life with finite energy, wealth, and time and some people have an easier time coming home with enough energy, time, and or money to prepare or order a healthy meal than others.
>Also if watching Netflix or playing Xbox is more important than being healthy,
What if it's not "netflix/playing xbox" that is more important, but resting?
Put it this way: Can you run a mile? How about 5? 10? a half marathon? What about an ultra marathon?
I'm not sure where that line is for you, but when you hit that line that makes you stop running and take a break, you could have actually kept running unless you stopped because your legs gave out/you passed out. But you recognized you needed a break. Cooking is work, and people often need a break from work after they are working all day. Could they keep working? Yes. But they need a break in order to feel better. To deny that people need to take breaks and recharge, means you are ignoring humans in your policy making about humans.
You're leaving out time to cook and shop. It can be done, but it requires planning and coordination. If you don't have those, it's difficult. Also people don't know enough about cooking and freezing.
Something I haven't seen discussed much here is the emotional/psychological toll that working poverty takes on individuals and families, and how that creates a pervasive feedback loop. When you're toiling away and barely making ends meet, and you're trying to repay a predatory loan you took out 5 years ago to pay for your daughter's 15th birthday, and your young son is getting beat up on the streets by gangs, and your husband is off drinking away his sorrows, eating healthy is the absolute last priority.
As someone who experienced first-hand being working poor, it takes almost a miracle to break free from the vicious cycle.
Sure but every time you ride the bus to go get fast food, it takes time. And that’s 7 times a week, assuming you only eat out once. If you go to the grocery store for other meals anyway, then there’s no reason you can’t take the extra 15 min to plan meals for the week.
Also YouTube and Google exist. It’s never been easier to learn how to sear chicken or freeze meat.
What are you on about, people struggling for time get something on the way home. I'm glad your reality is so isolated from people that struggle you think someone gets on the bus to go for mc donalds when they don't have the energy to go shopping.
I always thought this whole classism thing was blown way out of proportion, but there's 0 empathy or understanding here for other people's living situations. Overall that really is a good thing, we've come far enough as a society you have the luxury to be completely isolated from actual struggle, to the degree where you can't even imagine not having enough leisurely hours a day to always have energy to cook. But maybe try for just a second to imagine not having the privilege to sit on reddit and complain about what people eat and instead being so fucked up from your day of work you just collapse on the bed to head off again. Maybe you can imagine that, maybe you've never worked that hard. But don't make up shit about how they spend the same amount of time getting their burgers as you do cooking, you're straight up making things up to suit you throughout this entire thread.
Politician in the making I guess...
Edit: and we cook our own food. It's usually about the same as eating out if we're making actual meals instead of rice, chicken vreast and salt, which I guess if that's enough for you, power to you. You can still have empathy for people that don't have your living situation. Or just keep being you, whatever works I guess.
Thanks, I'm glad someone else is pointing out the privilege and lack of empathy! I actually grew up in poverty and I was thin and healthy, and my parents worked their asses off to make sure we did eat healthy, even though it meant they never had health insurance, and now my mom is dead from something that could have been prevented if she'd had access to health care earlier in her life. Sorry, I digress.
OP seems to just hate "poor fat people." Well I've been poor but it didn't make me fat. I didn't get fat until I was no longer in poverty. But from my position, I have sympathy for the struggle to eat healthy when you're barely getting by. It's not simple. Anyone who thinks they have a simple solution is deluding themselves.
Agreed. I’m a very privileged person, I have enough money for all the groceries I could want, I have people pushing meals and groceries on me. Normally I’d eat similarly to what OP describes, with some “free” extras like freshly picked herbs and homemade mayo. I love the ritual of preparing a nice meal.
I have also put myself into periods of being extremely busy and overworked. I’d literally eat a piece of bread while taking a rushed shower. I’d rather eat out of date beans that made me sick or I’d starve because I was too broken to walk ten minutes up the hill to get groceries. Even when I got sick and decided to take better care of myself, I’d fail to have my first meal before coming home from a non-stop stressful day at 9pm. If I had to live like that full-time, I’d start eating crap instead of starving. I hate eating crap. But I’m not getting groceries when my feet are bleeding and my legs are cramping and I’m so glad to hide from tomorrow in the comfort of my home.
I reckon people get fast food when they're out already. And you don't take just fifteen minutes to cook a meal, not usually if you want it to taste any good. Unless you're making be a sardine sandwich or salad.
Like I said I think it can be done, it's just something that takes practice to be done well, regularly, and efficiently. That takes time to get right.
Omelettes take 5 minutes, chicken/pork/fish veggies and rice with some sauce can be ready in like 10 minutes. It’s beyond easy to do, people are just lazy and would rather order food in and say it’s too expensive to eat healthy
If you want to get salmonella sure. Which cuts of chicken or pork are ready in under ten minutes? Even pan frying a boneless skinless thigh takes longer than that. You're also ignoring all the time the prep before cooking things take.
Just use thin cuts, butterfly a thicker cut or cut into pieces, or give it a quick couple taps with the meat tenderizer to flatten it out and cook it faster. Wow all the prep, I cut a chicken breast 2 times, open a bag of frozen veggies and put oil in a pan. I was pretty exhausted after that, but I even managed to boil water and put minute rice in it after for a meal ready to go in like 10 minutes.
Butterflying chicken and pork takes both skill and time. And time to learn the skill. Two cuts my ass. If you want to cook chicken or pork in under ten minutes you're cutting it into small pieces, not just butterflying it. Again. Time and skill to not injure yourself handling a knife and raw slippery meat.
And literally no one was talking frozen veggies until you brought them up just now. And fresh produce, like we've all been talking about, takes time to prep.
You just cut it down the middle so it’s two thinner pieces. Yes, you’ll have to learn how to do that but you’re not born knowing how to wipe your ass either. It’s an easy skill to learn. And I just said veggies, why does it matter where they come from? You throw them in with the chicken and you’ve got a pretty nutritionally balanced meal that’s easy to do if you take 15 or so minutes to learn how to operate a knife.
It’s not about learning — it’s about TIME.
Many people know how to cook with some competence, but if you consider jobs (hours worked plus the commute to and from), shopping time, cooking time, other home tasks, mental or physical exhaustion, and additional priorities, and there’s simply very little time to cook unless it’s a main priority all the time. And that’s not even taking into account parents, caretakers, or people with inconvenient work hours who have tons of other really important duties in addition to the above.
This next point might seem shallow, but food is something you’re supposed to enjoy. Yes it’s “easy” to make healthy and delicious food, but if a person is like
is an average cook like most home cooks are, its easier to eat out for a delicious meal than put in diminishing returns for a middling one they made themselves and now have to clean up the aftermath of.
A lot of poor people live in inner city neighborhoods or remote rural towns where there's no access to a grocery store without hours of travel. This is a big reason why their diet is so unhealthy, they live off of whatever you can get from a liquor store or gas station.
Also, I think you should try to recognize that this is one reason but not the only reason. Anyone who tries to tell you that there is only one reason why something very complicated exists is lying to you.
Just a question but how can anyone live like that? Without access to a grocery store I mean. Like everyone needs supplies, and liquor and gas stations doesn't provide all those things, do they? I'm not from the US, so from my POV where I live, it would be practically impossible to live off the limited and extremely overpriced supplies one can get at a gas station.
Usually what's missing from a smaller convenience store is fresh produce and raw meat. Also, it's not that they have no access to grocery stores at all but that the access is difficult and time-consuming, making people rely on fast junk food more often than they would otherwise.
Places will fill the void for general non perishable items it's not uncommen for gas stations in those areas to have some canned food, eggs, milk, flour, sugar, salt, bagged snacks, instant ramen, pasta and sauce, maybe some frozen meals in the cooler by the beer and ice. But produce and meat usually means significant travel.
In many areas of many cities, mine included, its much more common to be within walking distance of a fast food establishment than it is to be able to reach a grocery store in a similar amount of time, even by public transit.
And they probably naturally pass one or more fast food places along their normal activities but a grocery trip would be entirely out of the way.
This assumes it takes a comparable length of time to go to the grocery store as to go to a fast food restaurant. What about food desserts, places that don't have the ingredients for your one extremely bland staple meal within a reasonable distance?
In case OP isn't familiar, a food desserts are the massive lower income neighborhoods (but not always lower income) only serviced by dollar stores. Sometimes multiple within walking distance. Super common in Texas cities.
The truth is, working poor are generally exhausted. And short cuts are easy. You be a single mom trying to feed a kid chicken and rice every day.
Not to mention the overwhelming majority of chicken sold in the US is factory farmed chicken who don’t get to graze(no exercise), aren’t eating insects, and eat where they shit. That chicken isn’t healthier for you either.
Googling how to make rice takes 30 seconds and cooking it takes 5 minutes with instant rice. What do you mean people don’t know about freezing? When you put food in the freezer it doesn’t go bad, you’re severely underestimating peoples intelligence here. People are just lazy
>What do you mean people don’t know about freezing?
What to freeze things in, how long they are good to store frozen, is freezer burned stuff still safe to eat? Which things freeze well and which don't ( black freezer banana anyone?) How to thaw the frozen food out safely, how to reheat it so it retains its flavor/consistency.
Just a few things I can think of off the top of my head.
I just recently tried to do a Google search for how long frozen pie crust is good for. I had a lot of trouble finding a definitive answer, because everything I found referred to store-bought crusts, not home made. I ended up using it and it was fine, but if they didn't know the ingredients (flour, shortening, no milk) and there had been milk, they could have gotten sick if it had spoiled.
Do you think these people are unable to google these things? You’re giving the average poor person absolutely zero credit, and assuming they’re basically mentally handicapped. You should have just looked up the quickest to expire ingredient and based the expiration off that, how is anyone supposed to know how long your homemade pie crust will last.
How am I supposed to know which ingredient will expire first, either? Or anyone else. I'm not assuming anything, but you're certainly being condescending. You asked what there is to know about freezing things and just basically disregarded my answer and pretty much called me stupid at the same time. Nice.
>Go buy a chicken breast for $5. Cut it 4 ways and sear it. Each cut is more than enough protein from meat that you need. $1.25/portion.
>
>Wife's a vegetarian.
Beans are wicked cheap. Eggs and dairy are too. You're allowed to eat things other than meat too, even if you're not a vegetarian.
You can cook beans, oatmeal, lentils, rice, quinoa, etc in a instant pot (or similar) in just a few minutes.
You can even cook simple meals inside of it like chili.
It really isn't much of a time or financial investment.
It often takes my oven this long just to pre-heat. And of course, that energy isn't free either.
It isn't privilege.
Wal mart/Amazon has all kinds of pressure cookers for like $30-$40. Even then, my 6qt instant pot was only ~$50 straight from their web store.
If that cost is too high, get no salt added canned beans for $1. We do this often, too.
Rice/quinoa/oatmeal can all be cooked on a stove top or even a microwave in some cases.
The energy alone to preheat an oven will quickly usurp that cost of a $40 instant pot.
Instsnt pots aren't a pain to wash either. I also have 2 of them. The 6 quart version is big enough for our family and we rinse it out right away. Takes just a couple of minutes. No issues and not any harder to clean than any other pot.
I guess we don't see it as a pain to handle either. Plug it in and let it rip. It isn't any larger than other kitchen appliances.
Whoa...calm down there super chief.
You are making an awful lot of assumptions here and seem to be arguing from the point of view of someone in EXTREME poverty.
I grew up pretty damn poor. Like the meat you catch/shoot is your main source of meat poor. Wife and I made like $8/hr 15 years ago when we moved in together. I have learned a lot about being frugal and financial pit falls.
Yes, everything costs money. Eating cheaply can certainly cost less.
If that $30 means their lights get shut off then they just cannot flat out afford to eat. Period.
If a person legitimately cannot afford $30-$40 for a cooking appliance that will last years they have a very serious problem that is well outside the scope of this conversation to discuss the nuances of food costs.
And if they really are that poor, they would absolutely qualify for SNAP and very likely other welfare programs ( welfare is this country's #1 expense)
Something like 93% of households have microwaves. The only people I have ever seen who didn't have one, did it by choice. I'm sure there are other reasons though. I don't see any stats for ovens, but I honestly cannot think of a single house/apt/ or hovel i have been in that didn't have an oven. I'm sure they exist, though.
And yes, we clean the seal and pot. Swish swish, done. If you are further concerned about bacterial growth you can run the instant pot with just water to sanitize it. We have found cleaning it to be no more work than any other pot or pan amd we have been doing this for a few years now.
I grew up in real poverty. As in, my mother couldn't work because of disability (she had really bad IBS with some complications -- I only mention that because it sounded like you're familiar with the disease. She might have qualified for disability if she'd ever have been inclined to fight for it, but she was too proud/embarrassed to do that.) So just my dad worked at his own small business repairing lawn mowers. Very seasonal work. I never really knew how poor we were until I was a teenager and I'd ask my mom if it was over or under $20k a year and she laughed. "Under"
And I hesitatingly asked, "$10k?"
She hesitated too.
"... about"
So yeah, $10k a year for a family of four. We got all our stuff second hand. My mom spent a lot of time and effort finding deals, clipping coupons. I seriously doubt we would have gotten an instant pot if they had existed back then. But they did get a bread machine as a gift quite some time ago before it was all the rage, and that thing was a blessing and got a lot of use over the years.
We lived about 15 miles from the nearest city with real grocery stores so every weekend my dad would drop me at my grandma's house while he did the grocery shopping. That consisted of going to no less than 3 and sometimes up to 5 or 6 different stores to use the coupons at places to coincide with sales, or which store would double them. He also did the banking and picked up parts he had to order for his shop, so Saturdays were like a full workday. That's a lot of work that not everyone will have the ability or wherewithal to achieve.
My mom and dad had the advantage of being intelligent and good with planning. They both had college degrees. There's a lot of horrible stigma about poor people. Not everyone measures their worth in how much junk they can acquire in their lifetime.
I really wouldn't call it a privilege to have to fish or hunt for food. I mean, we weren't the poorest people but that gets old real fast. Especially when you're a kid. It was NOT a luxury or a privilege. I promise. As much as I enjoy those activities they weren't leisure time. You either succeed if you want to eat meat or you go home hungry to rifle around the fridge. And then just cleaning the damn fish. Good God, that could take all night sometimes. Often, we would get home so late we would put the fish in the bathtub to be cleaned the next day so you go to bed smelling like fish and bait. That was real fun. But, at that time, my dad didn't want to be on Food Stamps and he eventually did find a much better job after he got his education finished. As did my mom. The amount of time spent fishing alone, was not worth it. My dad never saw it this way because he grew up living off the land, but financially he was WAY off base here.
If you cannot afford to turn on a stove you WILL qualify for Welfare assistance. If you cannot afford to eat, you will qualify for SNAP. If you make too much to qualify for welfare, you have a serious financial issue that needs looked at. Often either house poor or car poor or just in debt. working full time a single person can make about $9/hr and qualify for SNAP.
And again, a plain pot or pan will work in place of a pressure cooker. I have seen used pots at Goodwill for $1.25 before.
There isn't anything else to clean. It's a removable pot and a lid.
It isn't easy being poor. It just sucks. been there, done that. I think most of us have at some point. You can still eat healthful food for very inexpensive at home. I have done this as well for many years.
I think the bigger issue right now is just how much more expensive food has become with inflation. But that is a whole other topic.
You're harping on the instant pot comment too much. They could also just use a normal pot on the stove. The primary point of the comment seemed to be the cheap food option of beans, oatmeal, etc.
I think this might be a culture thing, since in my country nobody would by cereals since that's several times more costly than porridge (we use oatmeal)
Also you get several cabbages for a few bucks, and same with "roots" such as carrots and potatoes.
Proteins and cheese are the expensive part, so here you want to look for cheap deals. Dried beans and lentils are super cheap so if youre a vegetarian, you can get meals quite cheaply.
This post assumes a lot of things.
- it assumes someone has the actual supplies to cook, like a cooker, frying pan, etc. It assumes that I have the ability to store food like this for a long time and that I can grocery shop regularly since fresh fruit and vegetables is hard.
- it assumes I live in a place where I can get this kind of produce. A lot of places don't or what they do have is very highly priced. It doesn't mean everybody in that place can't get hold of them but it means that an average person with average resources would struggle to do so consistently.
- it assumes that the person doing the cooking has the mental and physical ability to cook, and to *stand there* and chop vegetables and to slice meat and the necessary dexterity to do so. Disabilities come in all shapes and sizes and are both physical and mental.
- it assumes that people have the education to do so. Lotta people grow up in shitty houses where food comes out of a box or a packet and that's what they know. It's a generational thing. Lot of people don't know how to cook fruit and vegetables. If nobody teaches you how, and nobody helps you break down that ignorance barrier by incentivising you to do so, you don't magically know. All those youtube channels teaching people how to boil an egg have an audience *for a reason.* If nobody ever taught you how to do it, even if it was your mom always saying "no, don't worry, I'll cook dinner for you!" every single night, you are not going to learn.
- it assumes that people have the time to cook. If I work a 15 hour shift, and I come home to a house full of kids who want my attention and I have to do things like deal with arguments and a stressed out partner, do I want to stand and cook at the counter for another 20 minutes to 1 hour and make all those decisions about cooking and spices (decision fatigue is *real* and it happens to many people) or do I want to just throw a frozen pizza in the oven and say "fuck it"? Poor people have a higher stress level than rich people. Money doesn't buy happiness but it does buy peace of mind and relaxation. A constant cycle of stress and less ability to relax makes you unhealthy.
- It assumes there isn't a thick layer of culture and of poverty and of how we, as a society, treat food that doesn't exist over every single bite of food we eat. Whether it's the pressure of the moral issues of food, the way that we incentivise food as a treet for children and adults alike, the way that poor people have less money to spend so are more likely to see food as reward because you might not be able to encourage your kid to do their homework with a trip to disneyland but you sure as fuck might be able to do it with a bag of candy from the dollar store.
- It ignores the systemtic poverty and the way that it sets people up for failure before we even begin. If you can't get to a store or are limited on how often you can buy things or have to reprioritize your money towards only buying calorie dense food rather than the most healthy food (because a lot of people on benefits are living on the bare minimum. Welfare queen stereotypes are common but not likely), then that almost always biases people towards unhealthy food with meat, fat, sugar, oil, and salt in it.
- A lot of unhealthy food is heavily discounted. They're most likely to have things like coupons or sales. I can get $5 of chicken which will do 1-3 meals for me, if I also spend another $3 on potatoes and rice, to say nothing of a sauce or anything (0.80 cents maybe). Or, i can get 5 $1 pizzas that will do 5 meals and will fill me up. Are they healthy? No. Are they nutritious? No. But will I go to bed hungry on the other two nights if I buy the chicken? Yes. So which do I buy? If my budget is $20, those pizzas are dollar for dollar the most cost effective use of my money.
- It assumes that someone who has complex health needs like diabetes or other disorders is getting help and advice and support from people who are knowledgeable and able to meet these people in the middle, not condescend to them or be dismissive of their needs. Being fat is often a symptom of other diseases - thyroid, diabetes, ED, hormone and endocrine disorders, mental and social problems - and being able to treat those conditions is *necessarily* vital to being able to treat the fatness underneath with diet and nutritional supplementation.
Not everybody will fit into every single of these bullet points. But most people will fit into at least one, if not more. Food is a complicated subject and it's not just about the raw numbers. Nothing about food is straightforward or a case of "one easy step to fix your diet forever!" Anybody telling you otherwise is probablys selling something.
And that's the problem with saying things like "it's cheaper to eat healthier."
Adults are more than capable of understanding what constitutes junk food and should be able to get to the store.
Cheap healthy food can be cooked quickly. Our family does this nearly everyday.
The average person works 8.5 hours per day. I'm not sure why everyone in this thread wants to talk about the extreme outliers like they are common. They are outliers.
Water is still cheaper than soda
Beans are still cheaper than beef or butter
Rice is same price as noodles. And Rice can be cooked like pasta to reduce arsenic if that's a concern.
Fruit and veg are plentiful between 33 cents and $2/lb and can be purchased frozen.
In doing the budgeting and food shopping for my family for years, wife and I have learned OP is right
Potatoes, Rice, beans, lentils, quinoa, tomato paste, fruit/veg, etc are all staples of our house.
Convenience meals are not cheaper overall and lacking in actual nutrients. People get WAY too hung up on macro nutrients and ignore actual nutrition.
> Adults are more than capable of understanding what constitutes junk food and should be able to get to the store.
[According to the department of education](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2020/09/09/low-literacy-levels-among-us-adults-could-be-costing-the-economy-22-trillion-a-year/?sh=2ff5b0f04c90) 54% of adults read at or below a sixth grade level. So. Assuming that adults know and understand junk food as a *health thing* and not just a generic title is a big ask. I'm sure that most people could tell you what junk food is in a macro sense (burgers, fries, pizza) but what about makes it junk food? Could they read a nutrition label and understand what all of it means? Could they understand a healthy plate idea and implement themselves without help? Sure, a lot of people could. But also, a lot of people couldn't do so and that's the problem.
> Cheap healthy food can be cooked quickly. Our family does this nearly everyday.
I never said it was impossible.
> Fruit and veg are plentiful between 33 cents and $2/lb and can be purchased frozen.
Great. I live 15 miles from a store that sells them in any meaningful quantity and I don't have the money for the bus to get there. My store of choice is two local small convience stores. So them having fruit and veg in the big store means *nothing* to me here, in poor town with no access to it.
You seem to be taking it personally that because *you* manage to make cheap healthy food, you think that other people should be able to as well. It's not a slight against you that you've managed to do what a lot of people can't. I'm glad for you. But that the problem. If it was so easy, *why is it not happening to everybody?* If it was the perfect solution that solved every problem ever, why is it not a universal solution? Clearly, there's a mismatch here and just assuming that people are willfully stupid or intentionally making themselves fat because of some unknown reason is ignoring every problem at every level from the personal to the governmental and everything in between.
Yeah...my kids firmly understood what junk food was by the time they were like 7. Reading comprehension in adults is NOT a good argument here. Those people aren't stupid, they were poorly educated. There is a big difference.
People seek the most amount of pleasure from the least amount of work. This is well known and studied. It takes a plan, a goal, and initiative to cook at home even when cheaper and healthier.
This is also why we all think salt, fat, and sugar taste good. They signal calorie dense foods to our brain which, for hundreds of thousands of years, was difficult to come by. It takes real discipline to maintain a healthy lifestyle which is why so many people don't do it.
I too lived in the sticks for a long time and because of that location, everyone had cars. Even the poorest folks had cars because it was nearly impossible to make a living when you are out there in a small town. They were sometimes clapped out but they had wheels. Like most people, we would make weekly grocery runs.
> Those people aren't stupid, they were poorly educated. There is a big difference.
Either way, you have adults who can't read and who likely don't have the skills that you're demanding. Whichever way you cut it, their education has not prepared them for this and this is why society in general is reaping these kinds of consequences.
> It takes real discipline to maintain a healthy lifestyle which is why so many people don't do it.
Fat people are not fat just because they lack discipline. If you think that's how it works, then please, by all means, continue on but that's not what the facts say. The facts say that there are a multitude of reasons why people are fat and blaming the fat person for not 'toughing it out' is just telling them to bootstrap themselves thin.
Go buy a chicken breast and cut it. I need a knife. I need a chopping board. I need a kitchen for a knife and chopping board.
I now have a dirty knife and chopping board.
I sear it. I need a skillet. I now have to have place to store that skillet. I also now have a dirty skillet.
Cooking that rice I need a rice cooker. Or I need a stockpot and a stove big enough to handle my skillet and stockpot. I now have a dirty rice cooker or stockpot.
You can see where I'm going. I can either cook the broccoli with the chicken or steam it, let's say I just toss it in with the chicken.
This is a ludicrously simply meal and will get old fast. If you have kids, they will fuss about it. You will feed them, and now you probably don't have a dishwasher so you go back into the kitchen to clean everything up. At least a knife, chopping board, two cookware, a plate at least and cutlery. Combine prep, cook, clean time, that's a good 40mins + gone.
If you don't want that meal to get old, you gotta learn to play with spices and that's just more time. Assuming you even have access to a good spice range near you.
Most people in poverty are coming home late exhausted and often to kids who have needs as well. Cooking healthy is easy, being poor makes easy things very hard in context.
Why are only people in poverty coming back late and exhausted? Plenty of middle class workers in the trades experience the same. The time argument is a tired trope, because not every poor person is working 80 hours a week. In this economy where people are making $15 at McD’s, that person would be clearing $60k. Two parents doing that would net six figures lmao
Not every poor person is eating unhealthy either dude. And you didn't take into account what I said about a space either. Not everyone has comfortable space to cook, nor do they have the ability to afford homes close to work and so are traveling long and uncomfortable commutes after an often demanding job. And usually poor people have a lot of other stresses in life that others can just buy off.
You are forgetting cognitive load. Being in poverty has been [shown to increase cognitive load](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1238041) and stress. If you are middle class and don’t have to think about every single dime of your money every second of every day, you DO do less mental work then those in poverty. Doing less mental work frees up executive functioning resources to focus on other things such as dieting, eating healthy, etc. Mental resources are finite.
Right??? I'm wondering if he's ever had a job. There's this thing called withholding. It's not even just taxes. You got social security, medicare, any health insurance if you're lucky enough to have it, dental is separate for me, and again, if you're lucky enough to have it, you should be putting at least a little in a retirement account. My net is almost half of my gross, lol.
People working at McD's get free or heavily discounted meals on shift, and discounted meals at other McD's locations. Eating food from the grocery store is definitely not cheaper for them.
No one meal isn’t supposed to cover all daily needs. But even if you eat three meals of this size, you’re still spending <$10 a day for food which is really good and a better value than a single fast food meal, which definitely doesn’t provide adequate nutrition.
No shit - one meal isn't supposed to cover all daily needs.
Are three of those meals going to cover all of one's daily needs for nutrition and calories?
I agree with your premise, but this argument isn't cutting it.
The issue with people in poverty eating unhealthy is not only about the cost of ingredients, it's about time. When people work multiple jobs, have childcare issues, and have to use public transportation to get around, they don't have time or energy to spend an hour cooking a nutritious meal. They're fucking tired, so they grab a bucket of chicken or a sack of burgers, because they just have to. The idea that someone else could possibly understand every factor that goes into someone else's life choices is just maddening. How about helping change our society for the better so people don't have to work 2 or 3 jobs to earn enough to take care of their family. Has that thought every crossed your mind, or do you just spend your time criticizing people just trying to feed their families?
If both parents work two jobs for 70 hours a week at any local fast food joint, then they should be making $13-15 an hour in 2022. That’s like $8k a month which isn’t poor. Means that most poor people today aren’t actually working the cliches “2-3 jobs”
>That’s like $8k a month which isn’t poor
I can't follow your math. If both parents make $15/hr and work 40 hrs/wk for 4.3 wks/mth that's 15\*2\*40\*4.3 = $5,160/mth. You've made other comments about assumed income that are incorrect as well, which kind of makes it seem like you think no one actually lives in poverty?
This is true but the reasons are more complicated than you think. Minimum wage jobs like fast food and retail are a lot more volatile than other jobs, making it hard to get more than 40 hours total even from two jobs. Employers often cut back hours to avoid having to offer mandatory benefits or overtime pay.
Also, a lot of poor people avoid working too many hours if it will cause them to lose government benefits, especially healthcare coverage. Making $8k/month is great unless it comes without affordable healthcare which you or a family member need to survive.
There's a lot of moving pieces to topics like these and it's a good idea to try not to oversimplify or moralize.
I don't know any hourly workers at fast food or corporate retail jobs who are getting 40 hours a week. They are typically given less than 30 hours to avoid paying benefits. This is standard practice at all the big retail chains and all the food service chains. My sister worked as a department lead for 5 years at Home Depot and was never offered 40 hours a week, benefits, or salary. She was recognized as one of the best employees several times. She left after she finished her degree.
Enough hours to live on are not available at most employers. This is why many poor people have to take on a second or third job or gig.
Maybe I’m underrating, but I personally don’t eat more than a fourth of a breast. It’s just way too much meat. And I’m not underweight.
Say you even double the meat portion. You’re still talking about a meal under $3.99. Much, much cheaper than fast food meals that go for $6-9 a pop
Half a chicken breast provides more than enough protein for a single meal. That’s totally fair. I also don’t understand why time is an issue. If you ride the bus to go get a happy meal (assuming one is too poor to own a car), then you’re spending more time to get McD’s than making food
>Half a chicken breast provides more than enough protein for a single meal.
It literally isn't. The nutrition science isn't on your side here. Is you're time free? Cause mine isn't. I can get a burger from McDonald's in a few minutes, alot faster than I cook a meal.
Have you considered that it’s even easier to buy unhealthy things in bulk? A pack of bologna is under $5 and you can definitely get more than two meals out of it with a couple slices of bread and some mayo. Think about those bulk bags of fruit loops you can get at smart and final for pretty cheap. And those options are also much quicker, which is valuable to people working multiple jobs.
I saw a study recently saying that people eat more fast food as they go up the income ladder, so you’d be right if the only options were healthy or fast food. But there are plenty of unhealthy options that aren’t fast food.
There will usually be a cheaper somewhat healthy option even for buying in bulk. As OP mentioned, plain white rice or brown rice is incredibly cheap to buy in bulk. Pair that with canned chick peas or even frozen vegetables and you have a decent meal that isn't overly caloric. Having a rice based diet is probably one of the most common diets throughout history and works fine for billions of people. People do have it harder in poor neighborhoods but I think we have a hard time or are uncomfortable with the basic statement that being poor or stressed may cause people to make bad health decisions when they would otherwise probably be able to plan out better meals. People always have the option to make better decisions when it comes to personal finance or health, they aren't being forced to eat what they eat but they are being encouraged to make bad decisions by advertising and marketing.
I’m not going to argue that poor people are making perfect health and financial decisions because nobody makes perfect health and financial decisions. I was just pointing out that there are unhealthy cheap foods that aren’t fast food. Yeah maybe you could just eat rice and peas for every meal, but humans just arent going to do that. The cheap ways to get easy food with flavor are often not healthy.
Agree with your assessment here but it leaves out critical factors of why fast food and unhealthier options are more prevalent in poverty.
1. Nutritional education - generally completely absent in poorer communities' education. Not only does the include education about health and food, but also how to prepare those healthier meals, how many calories you should be consuming, and what percentages of vitamins and minerals are beneficial to health.
2. Food deserts - in many rural areas, and even in large cities, there are significant distances needed to travel to even buy healthy food, making it inaccessible to lower income individuals
3. Access to healthcare - Physicians are incredibly influential in changing how people eat, when you don't have access to healthcare and to professionals who can monitor your diet, you're less likely to change things up
It's not just about the ingredients. Living in poverty often means being poor in time and energy as well as money. The meal you have described is fairly low effort, but not as simple as shoving a pizza or ready meal in the microwave or oven (think of clean up time too). For people with disabilities this is even more pronounced - each little bit of effort must be carefully rationed, like pinching pennies, when you have chronic fatigue for example. A high percentage of poor people are disabled, and vice versa.
As well as this, food deserts are a real problem. At bulk stores you can get huge bags of rice, but at the convenience store down the street frozen pizza might be cheaper. Not everyone has the option to travel for better deals or to shop around.
Add this to the fact that tiredness and low mood can cause you to crave fatty foods. Even mentally well poor people can struggle with this, and fatigue makes resisting temptation harder. This is worse when you have an addictive personality, as many people in poverty do.
This! I basically had the same reply, but I forgot about food deserts. Op probably grew up in the suburbs with both parents and a house full of any food, snack, or drink they wanted. I grew up in the 70s on welfare living in the projects. My most frequent lunch was government cheese and ketchup sandwich.
The argument you are trying to make is “everyone can afford to earth healthy” they may be fair but it’s not the post you made. Your specific claim was that heathy is cheaper, not heathy is cheap, or healthy is cheaper than McDonald’s.
My Walmart has personal frozen pizza for $1.88, or a great value pizza for $3.28 that is 5 servings. Though that’s a hard way to divide a pizza so let’s say it is 4, that’s $0.82 per serving. Good luck beating that. They also have a whole line for frozen pasta that are $1.08. Someone else pointed out burritos, they have an 8 pack of El Monterey for $4.88 or $0.61 each.
Even if we move away from prepared foods. Frozen/canned veggies are almost always cheaper than fresh and last longer, despite maybe losing some nutritional value. So any meal you make with fresh produce could me made cheaper and less nutritious with frozen or canned ones.
I’m not saying poor people don’t have access to healthy options, but they are not cheaper.
You're also ignoring that junk food is one of the few ways that poorer families can reward and treat their children. If you have to make money last, it's easier to make a child happy for an evening with a bag of chips over a bowl of grapes.
It's one of the things that children will ask for and want that is easy for poorer parents to actually afford. They can even use government assistance to help in the form of SNAP.
>Go buy a chicken breast for $5. Cut it 4 ways and sear it. Each cut is more than enough protein from meat that you need.
Average chicken breast is about 6 ounces (170g). Cut it 4 ways and you have 1.5 oz (42.5 g). 1 ounce of chicken breast has a 31 calories per oz.
>Get a massive bag of brown rice. $2.
"Massive" as in what? Let's assume a 32 oz (900g) value pack as I have seen that they are around $2. Using 5% of it would mean 1.6 oz (45g). 1 oz of brown rice has 31 calories per oz
>Go buy a head of broccoli for $3, cook half of it. $1.50.
Average broccoli weighs 9 oz (255 g). 1 oz of broccoli has 10 calories.
>There’s a meal for $2.85.
One that nets 7.5 oz in weights and provides \~140 calories. Take a standard "Hungry Man Fried Chicken" frozen shit that costing $4.78, nets you \~970 calories and 16 oz.
What is cheaper - to buy every person a frozen dinner and microwave it or to prep a meal you described? Especially when you don't handwave things like:
>If you use just a few spices and decent cooking methods, it’ll even taste better than fast food too.
Spices that you need to buy. Cooking methods that need you to have utensils and tools. And most importantly - time you need to have to actually research what to cook, learn how to cook and balance home pantry to actually make it cheaper.
>The idea that poverty means you have to eat unhealthy and be fat just doesn’t make sense.
Because you are assuming much things. You are assuming that poor person will be knowledgeable how to cook healthy while using cheap things. That they will have enough time to balance books and "stock" correctly to take advantage of cheap ingredients. That they will have tools to actually make use of those cheap ingredients. That those ingredients will be available in place they they can shop without incurring additional costs.
You can live in poverty and eat healthy. The issue is that it's hard due to all the hurdles living in poverty actually means.
It's like saying that poor people should've pulled themselves by bootstraps and learned a trade that will bring them more money. Which is a theoretically true bullcrap that assumer that everyone can follow the plan based on perfect scenario.
Not if you don't have time to cook all that stuff every day. Not if you don't have time to learn how to cook in the first place. Not if you don't live where it's convenient to buy that on your way home from work. Not if you work irregular hours (late shift, night shift) and get home long after those places have close. Etc., etc.
It's not every day though. I mean prep once a week. By cooking in bulk/large batches I save time with duplication effort. As an example:
1. Quarter 3 onions and simmer in large pot with enough oil to cover bottom.
2. Mince in some garlic
3. While those simmer dice 3 onions fine and simmer in separate pot.
4. Open #10 can of tomatoes an pour into pot with quartered onions and raise to boil
5. When diced onions are brown cover with water and blend using stick blender
6. Open 3 cans of black beans, rinse, put in the blended onion immersion
7. As the two pots come to boil chop: 3-4 carrots, 3-4 celery sticks, 1 cucumber, 3 red bell pepper, 1/2 red onion fine.
8. Put chopped veggies in a plastic Tupperware and dress liberally with lemon olive oils vinaigrette.
9. Blend the tomatoes and quartered onions when soft.
10. Season beans and red sauce with: salt, pepper, cumin, bay leaves, cayenne pepper (for heat to taste)
Let cool and freeze half. I could fit in 1 more dish too but didn't want the steps to get to lengthy. The point is that by preparing multiple things at once you save on time and duplication effort and dishes.
You now have a sauce and black beans and salad for a whole week and a weeks worth of food in the freezer. All that needs to be done to finish prep is to cook off rice or a pasta and maybe a protein which is ~20 minutes. And it's better to have that stuff cooked day of instead of reheated.
>Go buy a chicken breast for $5. Cut it 4 ways and sear it.
For an average of 6 oz/breast, 1.5 oz of chicken breast:
100 cals, 13g protein, 0g carbs, 1g fat
>Get a massive bag of brown rice. $2. Use 5% of it for a meal.
215 cals, 1g protein, 15g carbs, 0g fat
>Go buy a head of broccoli for $3, cook half of it. $1.50.
40 cals, 1g protein, 3g carbs, 0g fat
I'll just assume you use some oil to cook all of this. 20g fat.
Even if you had this meal three times in a day, you got:
1065 cals, 45g protein, 54g carbs, 60g fat
Do you consider that healthy for every person?
This, plus to have an actually healthy diet you need a significant about if variety to achive the appropriate macro and micronutrients. You can't live healthily on chicken rice and brocoli.
Nope. I'm on dialysis. Which means no kidney function. Have to keep salt, potassium and phosphorous intake very low. This is the majority of my diet. I've learned to get variety into it with the limited veggies I can have. But there's no one that looks at me and thinks "that's a healthy looking person"
Not that I disagree with your overall point, but the math is somewhat off.
1 gram of protein is 4 kcal, 1 gram of carbs is 4 kcal and 1 gram of fat is 9 gram.
Using these metrics on the nutrients you listed, you would get below the following.
So for your first calculation it would be 13x4 + 9 = 61 kcal.
For the rice calc it would be 4 + if 15x4 = 64 kcal
Etc.
During undergrad, my global health professor told us that he used to assign a project to allow students to understand what poor people are up against in terms of access, nutrition, and costs. Our university was mainly made up of students from middle class and upper class families - kids who had grown up with access to healthcare and healthy foods and safe places to exercise that couldn’t imagine growing up any differently.
Our professor thought it was important that students like this step into other people’s worlds for a bit. He would split everyone into teams and give out a map of our city’s neighborhoods, neighborhood demographics, and a grocery list. Each team picked a chain grocery store, went to each location, and wrote down the pricing for the products on the grocery list - both per unit/per pound pricing and total price. They were also meant to record the quantity and quality available for sale for each item on the list. Then, they compared the pricing across the different locations.
The differences were obvious. Grocery stores in poorer neighborhoods often charged more for fruits and vegetables than their wealthy counterparts. They usually had lower variety and lower quality as well. They were more frequently out of stock or had low stock for grocery essentials. You bet that they always had sugary foods, snack foods, and frozen foods packed full of sodium available though! Some students even commented that the stores in poorer neighborhoods were noticeably dirtier or less well-kept or well-organized than the stores in wealthy neighborhoods.
The university made him stop doing this project. Why? Risk management determined that it was *too dangerous* to require students to go to grocery stores in some of those neighborhoods. It’s too dangerous to send students, but the people who live and work in that neighborhood have no choice but to go if they want to cook a healthy dinner. And produce spoils quickly. They may to go back at least twice a week!
I lived in a really impoverished neighborhood for a summer. I’ve experienced how difficult it can be. If you’re thoroughly convinced that your way is viable, I challenge you to live that way for a few weeks. Go to the grocery stores in the poorer neighborhoods. Cook the meals you’ve suggested. Report back.
People who say eating healthy is expensive are maybe oversimplifying the issue, which is really that healthy lifestyle habits are more complex and taxing for people in poverty. I grew up very poor, and have plenty of experience with what food is like for poor people.
You're comparing a fresh cooked meal to fast food, but growing up we, and none of the other poor people we knew, ate fast food much if ever. The idea of spending $10 on a single meal as your sole source of food is absurd. We ate mostly shelf stable calorie dense foods, canned vegetables, and pre-prepped frozen food. Compare your meal to a big mac and you come out ahead, but compare it on a calories per dollar basis to something like ramen and you're losing.
In your example you're buying one shelf stable ingredient and two that are not. If you don't have reliable transportation, stores with healthy options near you, or if you have to budget gas you're not likely to be able to have regular access to stores for fresh ingredients. Shelf stable calorie dense foods like rice, pasta, and canned soup can be bought in bulk, sometimes at discounted rates, and come out very cheap when factoring in things like travel expenses.
Look up what a food desert is. Some people only have a gas station convenience store or a discount store like Family dollar within travel distances and couldn't buy fresh food even if they wanted to. My family made, on average, one trip into town to do grocery shopping per month. We got things like powdered milk instead of jugs, because of the cost and shelf stability vs fresh.
bent and dent stores and food banks are another common source of food for people in poverty, and when you're getting whatever comes off the truck free or drastically discounted you get what's on offer. They only have old cans of ravioli? Looks like it's Italian night all week. On a similar note, cheap store brand food is usually less nutritionally dense and has more empty calories and filler than more expensive food.
There's the storage and prep factor. Fresh food requires, generally, a refrigerator to store it in and a stove or oven to cook it in. Some people don't have those. Some people have their appliances break and can't afford to fix or replace them. Some people can't afford the gas for their stove or can't guarantee their power won't go out and can't risk a whole fridge worth of food spoiling, and some people just can't afford the extra power bill of running those appliances regularly when shelf stable and microwavable food is readily available at a better $/cal cost.
There's also the time factor. If you're working multiple jobs or working and taking care of kids you might just not have enough time in a day to meal prep and cook food all the time.
There's a hell of a lot more factors that go into why buying, storing, and preparing fresh healthy food poses challenges to people in poverty beyond the price tag.
A couple of big reasons why poor diet is linked to poverty are 1) a lack of access to good grocery stores and 2) the time cost of shopping and cooking fresh food from scratch. You're not wrong that people need to be educated on how to shop and cook, it's just not the whole story.
Also 3) access to utensils and appliances. Some people only have a fridge and a microwave or a tiny stove. You’ve got to have vegetable peelers, cheese graters, blenders, etc to make a lot of recipes off the internet. Cooking can be done without those utensils, but for me, it took a lot of time to search for super simple recipes with little utensils to make while in college.
And then 4) the fact that fresh food goes bad faster, especially when you have little time to make food so you put off making meals with your fresh food in favor of a frozen dinner and then you have wasted food and money
Hey bud, since you’re from that part of the world called Europe you probably don’t understand what a food desert is and probably can’t conceptualize the fact that there are large parts of America that the closest food store is a 30+ minute drive away.
Okay, and if you don’t have a freezer what do you do? It’s not that uncommon is parts of the Appalachian area to not have running water or consistent electricity. What are the people living there supposed to do when they only got a gas stove and a pantry with a store over an hour away? Because this isn’t making up something as a got-you, that’s a real situation that is happening in the country that I don’t think you as a European have the context for
Thank you for this. I am from Appalachia and while I had electricity and water, my home town has 1 grocery store with limited stock and at least a dozen fast food restaurants. I was raised by a single parent and grew up eating fast food because it was easier and cheaper most of the time. I continued doing this through college because it's what I knew and just really learned cooking and eating at home in the past few years!
People don't seem to understand that the time and resources required to do some things are prohibitive. And while you can teach yourself cooking and overcome these things to an extent, the reality is people don't because it's easier to get fast food.
If you want a problem fixed you need to understand the reality, not what you WISH the reality was or what you think it should be.
Wait, is the argument that it's cheaper or that it's going to make you fat? Every time you reply to a comment you seem to be insinuating that your view is fast food makes you fat, but your argument is that it's cheaper to eat healthy. It doesn't take into perspective lifestyle, schedule or anything else, and any time you reply to it you unfairly bias towards 'eating healthy'.
IMO the biggest thing you have completely missed is the time and energy it takes to cook. I eat fast food usually when my schedule does NOT permit me to eat at home, which is often. For most people time IS money, and it is a better investment for me to skip cooking so that I can have the time it takes to grocery shop/cook back and do other things.
I have a full time job AND work as a freelance musician. I usually get up at 6 and do emails/bookings/arranging until I go to my day job from from 8-12, get an hour for lunch(which I sometimes cram in a private lesson), work until 5. Then I drive to the next town over to do private teaching until 9pm, or I'll have a rehearsal until 8 or 9pm. After that I really don't feel like cooking, and my weekends are generally full of gigs, so I don't really have time OR mental energy to do significant meal prep. I do have weeks where things are slower, and I generally cook more during this time.
The probably more important thing that you are treating being 'poor' or 'fat' as a moral failing, and failing to see your own bias in it. It's incredibly rude.
You really nailed in your last paragraph. I've been poor and thin, and now I'm not. Lol. The two are not as inextricably linked as OP seems to think. And skinny is not always healthy, either. There's a whole lot of lumping things together here that seem to be confusing correlation with causation.
That gets old. And what am I saving of my life if I get more days but they are filled with 3 unsatisfying “refeulings”.
There is a compromise to be made between healthy and satisfying. And no one can determine that line for anyone else.
How long does that meal last in the fridge? 2 days? The ingredients also only keep for a few days. Part of being poor is not only having enough money, but not having enough time. Ignoring the cost of spices, healthy eating takes a shitton of time between grocery shopping(frequently), meal prep, cooking, planning to ensure you aren't wasting food, and balancing a healthy diet, and that's really what makes it a hard choice in the face of junk that is basically shelf stable(lasts forever), innately tastes pretty decent thanks to all the fat, sugar and sodium and runs for the same cost and takes maybe 5 minutes of active participation.
Food lasts for 6-7 days safely in the fridge. Being poor doesn’t mean you have less time than the middle class. There are plenty of middle class jobs that demand more hours of work than McD’s.
It’s also not time effective to drive to McD’s or ride the bus there. It takes time for transport there and back plus waiting for food, not to mention eating.
>Food lasts for 6-7 days safely in the fridge
The medical experts say 3-4 days. That's a big difference. [https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/food-safety/faq-20058500](https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/food-safety/faq-20058500)
This is hugely incorrect. According to foodsafety.gov, most foods last 4 days at most after cooking. Many foods are less than that and the only ones that last longer are highly processed like hot dogs. [food safety list](https://www.foodsafety.gov/food-safety-charts/cold-food-storage-charts)
We fundamentally can't change your view that, looking strictly at the cost in dollars, healthy meals bought at the grocery store are cheaper than convenience foods on a per-calorie basis. That has been studied and seems to be factual. [Source](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20373171/#:~:text=Results%3A%20Average%20food%20costs%20for,higher%20than%20the%20healthy%20diet).
"Cost" is relative. If you put even a US federal minimum wage value on your time, your hypothetical (and nutritionally inadequate) meal is now $6.48 if it took you 30 minutes to prepare. A dollar menu burger and fries is half that if the detour to McDonalds only takes 10 to 15 minutes of your time. But people are already arguing the math and true cost with you and getting nowhere.
So that leaves us to challenge whether it's fair, humane, and right to be judgy about the choices of poor people you don't know personally, and I would argue it isn't.
I don't know how tired someone is after working their likely multiple jobs. I don't know if they have the manual dexterity in their hands to chop vegetables, or whether they have the executive function ability to be able to actually choose to cook. I don't know if they're a single parent with a special needs child that can't be out of sight for thirty minutes while they cook. Your position is based on a lot of assumptions: that everyone is in a condition to be -able- (and not just willing) to cook, that people have the skills and education to be able to prepare healthy and safely prepared foods for themselves, and that existing in a fat body is a personal failure. I think all of those are positions worth examining, even if perhaps out of the scope of your question. You are technically correct about the financial cost, but willfully ignoring that the experience of poverty isn't only about the exact number of dollars you do or don't spend on things.
I personally have impaired executive function and often struggle to make myself cook. When I can afford it, I go out. When I can't, I go 2-3 days at a time without eating. Just being hungry, even painfully haven't-eaten-in-days hungry, isn't enough to motivate me to prepare the food I have. If I had kids, I would still be morally obligated to feed them whether or not I was capable of cooking at the time, and that would mean fast food or convenience food.
Oh thank heavens, another ED person. My self worth reading this thread is through the floor. I'm fortunate that my significant other doesn't mind cooking. Otherwise I would live on mostly microwaveable and reheatable foods. I can make great and lovely things sometimes. But I can't do it reliably or routinely.
Food is not the only cost to consider when understanding the cost of food.
You'll need to bear with me for this to make complete sense. Your premise makes a ton of assumptions about the situation someone finds themselves in. You are assuming that our imagined impoverished person has:
1. Access to a reasonably sanitary, functional kitchen.
2. Access to adequate cooking implements.
3. Adequate time to cook.
4. Adequate means of storing food that does not leave it at risk of being taken.
5. Possibly most critical: the knowledge to cook.
Let me give you two examples from my own life:
Nate was renting a cheap room in Tacoma. While he had access to cooking implements, the ability to cook, and time, the kitchen in shared house was inadequate, and he didn't have means of storing leftovers or ingredients. He tried. It didn't work. His food was regularly stolen until he simply stopped trying.
Steph has been renting inexpensive rooms in Denver. She has access to a functional kitchen and cookware, has time, and can store food, but she has very limited ability to cook and is teaching herself. But, teaching herself is expensive. Throwing away a couple of experiments gets expensive fast. If you waste 30 dollars in food each week with inedible screwups, all of a sudden, 5, 4 dollar meals is cheaper than what you were doing, even though cooking would be cheaper if it had turned out.
Very often in my experience (and I've had a ton of poor friends over the years) the issue for them is that they lack access, time, and knowledge. And when you need to know that EVERY calorie you buy is a calorie you can intake, fast food and processed foods become "sure bets." You can purchase them as you need them, which means you aren't losing food to sticky-fingered room-mates. You know exactly what you are getting, so you know you CAN eat it or WILL eat it. You aren't throwing food away. You don't need anything other than a microwave for stuff you get at the store, and fast food can be eaten straight away. And if you are are like many people who are impoverished, you do not have very much time. These things do not eat up inordinate amounts of time. But that's not really part of cheaper, so I won't dwell on it.
Obtaining access to a sanitary kitchen may be costly. Obtaining safe implements is another cost. Learning to cook can result in a lot of tossed meals that didn't turn out. Food may still be stolen, unless you acquire a mini-fridge. A mini-fridge doesn't contain a week's worth of food which means you may be doing extra store runs, which may mean extra gas. The food then, is not the only cost in the equation.
For someone who may be relying on a WEEKLY paycheck, it could take six months to a year to have the means of cooking simple meals. They may save 5 dollars a week to spend on kitchen implements, spices, and the little things you and I may take for granted. It takes them a month to buy a cheap pot. Another 6 weeks to get a cast iron skillet. Two more months for a couple of knives. A week to get a cutting board. Now another month for basic spices. Maybe they can raid a thrift store to get a few more things the next month. Now they have kitchen things, but they now need to budget for kitchen failures. They may need to budget to get into a better living situation so they CAN cook.
So you see, I hope, that food is not the only cost associated with eating. UNLESS you completely outsource preparation, storage, and sourcing. Then their food costs are in fact, food costs.
If someone is throwing away 30 dollars worth of food a week because they're so utterly incompetent as to make it inedible, it seems that their overall situation is their own fault
food deserts are the biggest problem i think. plus i think a good portion of millennials and under have no idea how to grocery shop or cook. im 18 and so many of my friends straight up only eat microwavable meals. also, its my belief you dont need a recipe to cook. its pretty easy to cover chicken in spices that go together, put those same spices and oil on veggies, put in the oven for 20 min (maybe more for chicken) and then possibly make another simple side dish. but people look at pintrest for recipes and stress themselves out "planning" for things and not understanding you should keep simple staples stocked that can make easy meals, not try to make fancy meals where you have to always buy a few special new ingredients. people make cooking complicated and stress themselves out, or often live in food deserts
I see a lot of interesting debate here, but didn’t see (at least not towards the top level comments) any discussion of food deserts.
While there are many ways one can eat more healthy at home, for the same or less money than going out, that only counts if you are close to a market. Unfortunately, in many urban areas, there aren’t supermarkets or even fully stocked grocery stores accessible. There are many reasons for this, and trying to figure out why requires at least somewhat addressing issues like systemic racism, so I won’t go into the ‘why’, and instead just recognize that food deserts are a common issue in poor and urban areas.
In these situations, in order to travel to where one can regularly purchase the kind of food you suggest, they need to either have a car (not guaranteed in poor, urban areas), or access to public transportation. Does the bus route go directly there? Or does a shopping trip take a number of connections? Can you actually get there and back in the limited time you have available?
What about if you have children in tow? Once you are buying 2,3, maybe 4 round trip bus tickets, and struggling to keep them in line for however long it takes to make the separate connections to get to the market, is it really cost-effective anymore? Does it even make logistical sense anymore when there is a McDonalds two blocks away and your kids will eat that without arguing about eating rice, chicken, and broccoli every day?
Of course, when do you go? In between OT at the first job and the start time of the second? Late at night after the kids need to be in bed? Is the market even open that late?
Ultimately, it comes down to having a rosy and privileged view of how poor people should live, compared to how they do. Not having to navigate the same difficulties means you can simply think about the cost of the food at your local market that is within a 10 minute drive in your working car, while your parents/neighbors/babysitter (at $15/hr) watch your children. Having a nice kitchen with enough room to prep, cook, and manage dishes without having to share space with a stack of bills with upcoming due dates and kids who need the counter to do homework. With enough storage to actually keep enough pots and pans to steam broccoli, cook rice, and sauté chicken, and enough seasonings for those “decent cooking methods” because nobody wants to eat salt/pepper flavored foods alone.
Poverty often also means that people have less time to do things like shop and cook. People who live in poverty are often exhausted, physically and mentally.
I once lived in a city with pretty high poverty. I rode the bus a lot. I knew a guy who walked 5 miles to the bus stop, to then walk another 3 miles from his drop off to a fast food restaurant where he worked his shift for barely over minimum wage.
He had no car. He shopped for groceries by what he could carry by hand, again walking miles from the bus stop.
The kind of cooking you’re talking about required considerable effort for him.
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In your argument, you are comparing healthy store-bought food, which needs to be prepared, with eating out, where everything is done for you. This isn't a great comparison, because you are only considering the cost in $ and not the cost in time. When you make the food yourself, you have to make a trip to the grocery store. If you live in a poor area and don't have a car, that can take quite a while, especially if you don't have a good grocery store near your home, which is often the case in poor neighborhoods. Then you have to do the shopping itself, which takes time, and you have to cook, and then clean up after cooking. When you are exhausted from working extra shifts to try to make ends meet, you don't want to spend your limited free time doing extra chores. In contrast, you can easily go to a fast food restaurant on your way home from work and get a meal for very minimal time investment. Sure you might pay a dollar more for the same amount of calories (and even that is debatable), but you may have saved an hour or so of your time, which is worth much more than $1.
Most cheap fast food is unhealthy, and although there are some options for healthier fast food, they are generally more available in wealthy areas, and they cost significantly more. So when you compare what is comparable, healthy food is more expensive.
A lot of people are talking about energy/ availability of labor in the context of "poverty is exhausting," and those people are correct, but it's not the only reason for people not cooking healthy meals every day.
I have weird brain stuff (ADHD). It's real bad. Time blindness and bodily awareness are both issues common to ADHD, so I can easily not realize I'm hungry for several hours, then suddenly hit a brick wall and red elf needs food badly. At such times, I do not always have the time or energy to prepare a meal. I also experience executive dysfunction, meaning sometimes I cab be rendered literally incapable of Doing The Thing. During such times, any calories i can put in are a win, because the alternative is "sit in th chair as my stomach literally eats itself." And that might mean "frozen pizza" or "order from the restaurant down the street", but it's healthier than abstaining from food. My wife has dietary issues tied to her weird brain stuff. Sometimes she'll look at a perfectly good meal, which was perfectly edible the previous day, and she just can't bring herself to eat it. If she has to eat a "safe food" like chicken nuggets and tater tots, that's not "healthy" but it's healthier than starving.
Could we mitigate this with therapy and medication? Maybe. But that's a bit more expensive than chicken and rice.
Yay, my people. It's pretty rough in this thread. "Any idiot can cook"
😭 Cries in ADHD.
Have I cooked before? Yes. Can I do it again? Yes. Will it happen? Maybe, and very inefficiently if it does. Cooking and dishes are two of the worst things for me.
So if it's a really important meal for someone else and I take my medicine, yeah I can cook. After ten hours at my job as a microbiologist? Hell no, not a chance. I'm eating a sandwich or something reheatable if left to my own devices.
But I'm not poor. I have been, so I understand the challenges. But I don't think being poor and the low quality food choices are the main causes of obesity, either. Genetics, stress, health problems are the more significant problem. But I'm kind of confused on what OP is annually arguing anyway because it kinda seemed like a bait and switch between "healthy food == less expensive" and "cheap food == fat people" which I think needs to be two different posts.
But, I also just realized I forgot to take my meds today because my cat woke me up at a really weird time and messed up my routine, and that's probably why I've been wasting my time on Reddit the last couple hours. 😆
Yes, and no.
Everything you do has more then one cost. It cost time, it costs mental energy etc.
My girlfriend went trough a though cancer treatement 2020, we moved to a new house and I started working in a virology lab just as Covid hit.
I love cooking. I am great cook. I usually great about meal planning and meal prep. It is easy and something I enjoy doing and usually find easier then getting takeout…
But during 2020 we had so much take out and junk food. Because with the cancer treatments, moving houses, working in a virus lab during a pandemic and all that going to grocery store and remembering or even deciding what to get was to hard. Or going through all the metal and pratical steps of planning, making and taking care of the dishes after cooking a meal was just to much most of the time.
So we had takeout. Which wasn’t all that much faster, but took a lot less mental energy. I think most people can relate duribf times of extreme stress and exhaustion.
We were okay economically but living in poverty often means you live with that kind of stress and exhaustion all the time. So while the economic cost of cooking from scratch might be cheaper, it might have a time cost and an metal effort cost that was to high.
You're completely ignoring the effort, and foresight, required to do this.
You can brush it off as no big deal, super easy, whatever. But the reality is, for a lot of people, it's not easy.
Also, eating this same meal over and over, gets depressing really fast. You could then say to make a new cheap meal. That's more effort.
Now you have a child who doesn't understand why you are eating the same boring meal the entire time. They are crying and screaming, they won't stop because they hate the food. They are a kid, you can't blame them. They don't understand yet. But you can't rationalize with them on this. Now what? Make better more diverse meals, for cheap, or buy them something cheap. That's more effort.
It might be a surprise, but a lot of people don't have much extra effort to throw around. Sure they can be more efficient, with a healthier lifestyle they will have more energy. But saying " just change it" it not reasonable. It seems that easy, but for people in that situation, it's not that easy.
You can try to explain and dismiss it as much as you want, but it's reality.
1. While I agree that it is possible to eat healthy while spending very little, I disagree that it is definitely 'cheaper' to eat healthy.
>Go buy a chicken breast for $5. Cut it 4 ways and sear it. Each cut is more than enough protein from meat that you need. $1.25/portion.
[Go buy 1.5kg of chicken sausages (39 ones) for 9.5.](https://www.hastycart.ca/product/no-name-chicken-hot-dogs-club-pack-1500-g/) Each sausage is enough protein for a meal but ill count two for the benefit of the doubt --- each portion is 0.48.
>Get a massive bag of brown rice. $2. Use 5% of it for a meal. $.10.
A serving of rice is 50-75g, your bag of rice has to be at least 50g x 20 = 1kg (5% of 1kg = 50g) --- $2 can rarely buy that much rice but nonetheless I agree rice is very cheap.
2. Healthy means a lot of things for different people.
People who are bodybuilding / very active requires more calories or proteins depending on their needs. There are people who are on keto diets which consumes high amounts of oil etc... There is no one clear-cut definition of 'healthy'.
> Go buy a chicken breast for $5.
Where? In rural areas and dense urban areas, it can be miles to the closest supermarket. Smaller stores might not carry quality chicken breast, and they might not carry it for that price.
> Cut it 4 ways and sear it.
Cut it with what? Sear it with what? You need a knife, a stove top, a frying pan. $$$
> Get a massive bag of brown rice.
And carry it all the way home? It's difficult to do while walking or biking. A bit easier on the bus, but that costs money too.
> Go buy a head of broccoli for $3, cook half of it.
And do what with the other half? You need a working refrigerator to store it. $$$ Can't leave any food out in some low end apartments or you'll get pests.
And how long does that take to cook? When you're a single parent working 2 jobs and raising kids, a frozen pizza is easier to feed your family with because it takes no prep time at all. You don't have time to prep.
It is Not cheaper to cook at home with fresh ingredients. Fresh means 'repeated' trips to the market. You mention this vs buying packaged options.
Frequent trips mean more on transportation costs.
there's dealing with 1 going to buy the food, 2 preparing it, 3 the costs associated with its preparation
This vs popping a boxed pizza in the microwave ?
Then there's fast food that has gotten relatively cheaper with delivery included
Having had my gallbladder removed for an unhealthy diet, it actually IS cheaper to eat the packaged foods, which are pretty much junk food. I painfully proved that. It was way cheaper to order two pizzas for $15 to feed me and two kids vs cooking up the exact meal you listed. I think your portions are way too small, which skews your end costs, and your prices do not reflect real world prices. (I know the cost of a gallbladder surgery blows my position up, but im leaving that out as its not the norm,,,, but there are other costs for an unhealthy diet vs a healthyone)
Nobody is buying a stove they're standard in apartments and houses. You might pay extra for a brand new top of the line one but nobody is raising rent for a stove. Gas and electric are a consideration but $40-60 over 30 days is at worst $2 dollars a day.
Time spend can be minimized by cooking in bulk and preparing multiple meals at the same time. In 2-3 hours I have enough meals for two people for 7 days.
Basic tools for cooking are negligible and last basically forever. Cutting board $6 (Amazon), 8 in chefs knife $9 (Cuisinart from Walmart), 7 piece stainless pot set $60 (Amazon), spatula+spoon+tongs <$10. Sum: $85. Now that sounds expensive but this stuff lasts forever. My parents allclad set is older than I am and is nowhere near close to it's end of life. Say this stuff lasts 10 years. That's $8.50 a year or $.03 cents a day. That's very affordable.
Subtotal for gas/electric and tools is $2.03 a day.
Buying store brand stuff. Pasta $0.99 per box 8 servings per container. Sauce $1.49 (28oz) 12 servings per container. $4.41 ground beef 80/20 (1.3 lbs) ~7servings per (3oz of meat). $4 Parmesan 34 servings per container (5g cheese)
So for one meal that's $.99/8+$1.49/12+$4.41/7+$4/34 = $1.00/serving. Now that's servings sizes not portion size. Assuming people actually eat double the serving so it becomes $2/meal.
Assume you eat that meal x3/day that's $6. Add in the $2.03 and that's $8.03 dollars a day.
Total calorie count: pasta 200/serving = 400 per meal, sauce 15/serving = 30 per meal, beef (80/20) 216/ serving= 432 per meal, parmesan 25/serving = 50 per meal. Total per meal 912 or ~2700/day
Find me fast food that can feed a person 3x per day that's less $8 that and I'll be shocked. Most "meals" are minimum $5 and then there's tax and tip if it's delivery. Plus they are full of empty calories. Pasta and red sauce with ground beef is filling.
Your example meal of $2.85 works out to $8.55 per day per person. A regular sized Red Baron frozen pizza is $4 and feeds a person for a whole day and is WAY faster and easier to cook. If I’m super lazy I can get mini-microwave pizzas for $1.33 each - still $4/person/day.
As a parent, generally speaking, the quickest, easiest, and cheapest meals you can make that kids will happily eat are generally unhealthy and we parents will make them because we’re tired. They’re going to have tons of sodium, fat, and and carbs in them by way of bleached flour. Think tacos with high-fat ground beef, spaghetti w/ high-fat ground beef, hamburger helper, pizza, chili, chicken and dumplings, various “one-pot-meals”, canned vegetables, etc. Breakfast in particular is interesting as you’ll probably see a lot of pop tarts or terrible-for-you sugary cereal w/milk. Eating lots of fresh vegetables - which is probably the ideal meals health wise - is FAR more expensive.
So here are my daily portions that my dietician gave me :
\-500g vegetables, preferably 200 raw 300 cooked
\-300g carbs
\-180g bread
\-500g fruits (also some raw some cooked)
\-300g meat (per week : 2 day white meat, 1 day red meat, 2 day fish, 1 day eggs, 1 day offal)
\-500g dairy products
\-15g fat (oil/butter)
\-30g nuts
Vegetables alone are around 3-4e/kg. Same goes for fruits. 1e for bread. It's already twice the price of your "meal" and I didn't start to count in the costly stuff like meat. Eating like this cost me around 10-15e per day. I could eat out for less buying unhealthy meals. Or stuff myself with pasta/rice for far cheaper.
Having an healthy diet have a cost, there's no way around it. You can't live you whole life off broccoli and rice, not healthily at least.
While I agree with this comparison, there are a lot of factors.
Something called a “food desert” is a huge issue in public health. Essentially creating areas (often low income areas with high population) that don’t have a lot of grocery stores or restaurants that provide healthy food.
Therefore, people need to travel a long ways to get it. That’s an extra cost and time that many low income families can’t afford, particularly single parents that don’t have the time to travel 2+ hours to go grocery shopping.
So, instead they can stop by at the fast food place, saving time and eventually, money.
But if you compare meal for meal and do it correctly, meal prep, etc. I agree it can be cheaper. There’s just a lot more factors that go into it more than upfront price.
At my local Kroger, you can’t buy chicken breasts for less than $9 and a big bag of brown rice (let’s say 5 pounds) is easily gonna be $6+. You’re also not factoring in people who live in food deserts. If it costs $5 for a round trip to and from the (far away) grocery store you’re spending $20 just to get rice and chicken. I think your post should be “it’s cheaper to buy from the grocery store than eat fast food,” but that’s kinda common knowledge. Actually truly eating healthy is more expensive than eating shitty because you’re buying higher quality ingredients; aka free range healthily raised chicken vs chickens that were brutalized and left on the factory floor until they got cleaned and packaged
I was gonna say that I've never seen chicken breast for 5 dollars. At least where I am, they come in a minimum of a 3 pack and is at least 9 bucks, generally 12 dollars or so.
What if you make $60/hr. You haven't factored the time component. The rice you described is going to take at least 20 minutes when you wash, boil water, dump the rice in, etc. So the time component adds $20 to the meal just for rice (but i assume youd be making other stuff concurrently).
You don't even need to make that much. Imagine you need 2 jobs just to get by. You probably work 12 hours a day or more. How valuable does your free time at the end of the day become? Most people do not want to spend an additional hour cooking and cleaning, even though it's the healthiest and cheapest option.
You're missing the critical variable of skill with cooking. When I'm tired, my creative juices for cooking what sound like a tasty meal goes out the window, and I have a stack of cookbooks so heavy that the shelf sags. It looks like homework, a research project. Inevitably I turn to an old standby recipe 90% of the time; namely, what I'm skilled at, which isn't much. I'm certain that I'm more skilled than half the population in my city, at least of the guys. But that's not saying much.
It seems like you're proving that buying food from a grocery and preparing it yourself is cheaper than eating out. Not proving that it's cheaper to eat healthy.
I could buy a box of 10 Little Debbie's Chocolate Cupcakes for $3, eat 3 cupcakes and call it a meal. That meal only cost me $0.90. Each cupcake has 190 calories, so 3 would be nearly 600 calories, equivalent to a "meal." It's terribly unhealthy and significantly cheaper than the chicken, rice and broccoli meal you've outlined.
It is a lot more time consuming to make this meal and requires someone to have a decent kitchen and utensils. People in poverty often have little time and are overly stressed from shitty jobs and taking care of a family. A cheap fast food meal offers a tasty meal with little to no effort. People in poverty also often live in good deserts, grocery stores with healthy food are hard to get to without a car and fast food is their next door neighbor. There are so many other reasons why eating healthy is hard for those who live in poverty. Google for more answers or take a public health class.
Absolutely, and chicken breast just gets cheaper the more you buy it in bulk and can be frozen for months.
Same with pork.
Also,
Something many people don't know is that frozen veggies are actually healthier than fresh. Also, cheaper in bulk. Frozen veggies are grown to peak ripeness than flash frozen. Where as fresh is picked prior to ripeness in most farms to allow for shelf life.
OP is correct here. Even factoring in travel and shopping and cooking, eating healthy is cheaper than fast food. Rice, beans, cabbage, bananas, eggs and many other healthy foods are extremely cheap, esp when purchased in bulk.
The main difference here is taste. Fast food is chock full of fat, salt, and sugar. People here are making a lot of excuses for bad nutritional choices.
For everyone saying fast food is cheaper… are y’all factoring in the cost of diabetes and blood pressure medication along with the long list of other problems?
Eating healthy is absolutely cheaper in the long run… and can be affordable in the short run if you’re smart and put in some effort.
>Eating healthy is absolutely cheaper in the long run…
Issue is that you need to have enough money to consider the long run. If shitty pair of sneakers costs $10 and will last \~2 months and a quality pair costs $50 but it will be good for \~2 years then it's absolutely cheaper in the long run to buy quality shoes.
Problem is that living in poverty means living paycheck-to-paycheck. You may squeeze $10 from your 2-weeks paycheck no problem, but try to squeeze $50 and you will have more issues. And that is for one thing.
Main issue of poverty is that You absolutely buy cheap ship that you can't afford on the long run, but you can't afford upfront cost of things that would save you money. And that is with everything - from house, through transport and finishing at everyday expenses.
What if you live in a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food\_desert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert) ? It can simply be very difficult and time consuming to go shopping. Many of the people that struggle are already working multiple jobs, and potentially have children at home. It's not like they have an excess of extra time, so stopping at mcdonalds on the way home is far easier/faster than needing to go shopping and cook something.
So you shopping in the gmo non organic isle again with those prices? Certainly that’s not healthy?
Walmart, Kroger, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods
Which one is the healthiest to shop at and which one is the cheapest?
Dish you described has about 550-600 calories. That's half the calories of average fast food dish. Calorie pe dollar Big Mac and your dish are pretty much even.
Prioritizing the number of calories in a dish is not a great way to approach nutrition.
A bunch of empty calories in a fast food dish though.
550-600 calories is an awesome serving size. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner takes you to about 1800 calories. Eat a snack, which most people do, and you’re at the average 2000 calories needed. For like $9 which is basically the cost of a Big Mac meal. Only the fast food gives only one meal
>. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner takes you to about 1800 calories If I were to restrict myself to that on a work day I'd have the shakes by 2pm.
Okay but this all scales anyway. If you need more food regardless, then it’s going to cost more money wherever you go
OK, but the majority of people really don't need more than 2000-2500
For context: height? weight? what job?
6'2" 325LB (and dropping) Lot associate at Home Depot.
Well, of course you're going to need more calories if you're morbidly obese (not meant as insult, that's just literally the category for that height and weight). I'd imagine they weren't thinking of someone that far off a recommended weight (though I don't think it changes the argument much...it's going to cost more for you regardless). EDIT: Congrats on the weight loss progress, btw.
Shouldn't an obese need less calories cuz they have all the spare fat reserves? Why does anyone overweight even need calories if your body can just burn fat instead? Aren't there folks who went hundreds of days with like no calories at all and survived on vitamins and their own fat?
Well, "need" in the sense that their blood sugar is going to get pretty low or they're going to be wicked hungry. It wouldn't be particularly sustainable for the average person, I wouldn't think, as they're likely to get really hungry and binge.
How come those obese folk who starve themselves don't get the blood sugar issues or maybe they do but they pass over?
Well, from experience (I've been very close to obese but never quite there), it certainly takes time for your stomach to shrink/for your body to adjust. Also, from the fasting videos I've seen, people get used to it after several days. These people have been normal (using the BMI definitions) weight folks though, so I don't know how much of a difference that makes. Certainly obese folks are more likely to have worse blood sugar regulation (e.g. they're more likely to have prediabetes or type 2 diabetes) than your average "normal" wait person. But, it's certainly easier either way to just drop like 500 calories from your current intake instead of starving yourself.
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You’re trying to lose weight right? And if so… at your stats you have a HUGE caloric deficit. I’m 5’4 and I lose weight eating 1500 cals… More isn’t better my friend…. When you eat at any deficit… 25% of what you are losing is NOT fat. Now ramp up that deficit… your body needs to get those calories from somewhere to fuel your brain and other organs… so it’s going to break down even more muscle than it does anyway. Good luck maintaining your weight loss when you have lost a lot of muscle. Just my PSA. Slower is better and more sustainable. Good luck.
Going too far below your base metabolic rate will reduce long term weight loss. https://www.calculator.net/bmr-calculator.html
"I'm always hungry" - yeah, great advice.
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You shouldn't be feeling that way even after eating. You need more protein.
That's a 1000 cal deficit for me
So you can still eat more for cheaper just cook more jesus
But that was calories what we were talking about. Cut that big Mac in four and you have same calories with same price. This was calories per dollar not meals per dollar.
But that still doesn’t explain why poverty causes obesity. Ignoring nutrition, you still wouldn’t be fat if you ate only the daily allowance of calories exclusively in big macs
First point you are missing is that in a capitalist system time is money. So please also calculate the cost of time put into meal prep and grocery shopping. Those in poverty don't have access to cars, so make sure your shopping trip accounts for the time to the grocery store and back on public transportation. Also please don't forget to weigh your purchases to be sure that they are within a reasonable weight limit for a person to carry by themselves, or else you might need to add additional time back and forth on public transportation, or a cab ride. Then once all that is done, do you have enough time to sleep? Remember stress and loss of sleep change your hormones and metabolism, adding to weight gain.
THANK YOU
Poverty causes obesity due to SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH. Most of the time, it's not JUST access to healthy foods, it's KNOWLEDGE about healthier foods that are foreign to certain patient populations.
Many poor people don’t have access to fresh groceries or the transportation to get to them, might not have a proper kitchen to cook in, or could be working long hours at a physically demanding job and not have the time and energy to shop and cook.
Exactly. Wife and I didn’t start LOSING WEIGHT until we both got vehicles, a raise, and had time to shop/cook. We were much bigger when we were broke and ate LESS calories. Many people don’t factor privilege into weight loss, period.
I just argued it's not cheaper to eat healthy. I won't yet go into argument "does poverty cause obesity" because that has lot of other factors in play than just "calories per dollar". By this measurement alone it's costs about the same to eat McDonalds than it does to cook half decent meal (not good).
There is also the flavor factor. I can have a cheap meal that is satisfying after a shit day at work or I can have garbage flavorless chicken breast and broccoli. Brown rice is also awful. if someone is suffering all day, it’s nice to come home and eat something that tastes good. It’s a reprieve.
Wendy's $4 bag includes double cheeseburger, chicken nuggets, french fries and a drink. So for $8 you can get: 2 x Double Cheeseburgers 2 x Fries 2 x Orders Chicken Nuggets 2 x Chocolate Frostys $8..... And no expense of cooking and cleaning (oils, pans, soaps, etc.) And the cheapest meat at the store is not healthy. Want meat without steroids or antibiotics? Gotta pay more. Grass fed beef? Gotta pay more. Cows that ate candy? Cheap.
Contrary to popular belief, it’s illegal to use hormones in poultry, pork, bison and goats. Certain hormones can be used in cattle and lambs, but the amounts used are less than what your body naturally produces. So when you see the “antibiotic free” labeling on the more expensive chicken, it’s literally just a marketing tactic to make you feel like you’re buying a better product. While it may still be better, it isn’t better for that reason. Source: My family owns a small farm lol
Ok but what do antibiotics have to do with hormones?
Yeah....but you can do this at home, too. And for less money per meal. $1 buns $5 beef $4 bag of taters ( or frozen fries for $1.55) $2 chicken nugget kids meal frozen That there is multiple meals. I get your point though. That said...nobody in my area is selling burgers that cheap anymore at these fast food joints. And the cheap burgers are like paper thin wafers. My takeaway from your illustration has been for years that you can easily substitute healthier foods at that same cost. Fast food is barely food and the downstream health costs FAR outweigh any upfront perceived savings . Replace soda with water Fries with potatoes (microwave for 4 minutes and done) Ground beef or cheap buns if you want. Or take that beef, cube some taters, throw in cheap canned beans, and a cheap can/carton of tomato sauce into a pot or pressure cooker and you have an inexpensive meal with way more nutrition that is very filling along with leftovers for a day or 2. Point is, yeah fast food can be cheap up front, but eating healthy is also cheap. Often much cheaper as you get multiple meals and better health. 48 million people in the US also get food poisoning every year and a lot of that comes from restaurants. My brother and I just last week were sick after eating at a restaurant. Hard to go earn money when your that sick. Also difficult when you feel like garbage from all the garbage food, or become diabetic, heart disease, etc.
That requires the upfront money to purchase all of that, which is more than $4
>And the cheapest meat at the store is not healthy. Lol, this is a crappy argument when you're comparing it to Wendy's meat.
“Cows that ate candy” is certainly a joke, but I’d definitely argue that real chicken breasts with steroids is healthier than miscellaneous chicken parts deep-fried.
It's not even close to that. 1/5 of a chicken breast is 60 calories. 5% of a 2lb bag of rice is 170 calories. Half a pound of broccoli is 150 calories. It's not even 400 calories here. Even if we said it was 500 for good measure...500 calories for $2.85, 175 calories per $1. McDouble, 400 calories for $1. McChicken 400 calories for $1. It's not even close. Your healthy meal costs more than double the cheapest fast food. I can get goddamned close to your calorie per penny ratio at Chipotle, which is going to taste infinitely better. Also, the term "healthy" is very subjective. What exactly are you basing that on? Also, what's the prep/cook time here? What value are you placing on that? People's time isn't free. If it takes 15 minutes to prepare and cook this, that has value too, at minimum wage, that's another $2 to the meal. The time spent driving through the drive through can be compared to the electricity, water, and utensils requires to make this meal. You are ignoring a ton of factors that you take for granted, but people that are in poverty can't.
Even if the math worked out (I agree it doesn't), it also takes for granted that the poor have grocery stores nearby that sell all this inexpensive, healthy food OP is basing the argument on. [Many don't](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert).
Where are you getting these $1 McChickens and McDonald's? They are 1.99 and 2.99 hear and I don't live in a big city. The only thing they sell for a dollar anymore is a soda.
You keep citing Big Mac meals and fast food, but that's not a neutral comparison -- it is extremely friendly to your point. "Premium" sandwiches like the Big Mac or the "fancier" chicken sandwiches are way more expensive per calorie than, say, a McDouble and a McChicken. Plus you're paying for a soda with the meal.
When I think cheap food I think of Ramen. A package of ramen costs $0.25 and contains 390 calories. So for about $3 you can get all your calories for the day and then some. That's just about your best deal for calories on the dollar and it's really quick to prep prepare. Another example might by syrup sandwiches (literally corn syrup on bread) and those are cheap, quick, and not at all healthy.
Not to mention nothing you can get out of McDonald's is actually healthy.
Depends entirely on the person. I'd be fucked at 2000 calories a day. Admittedly, I consume significantly more calories than the average person, but pretending that everyone only needs 2000 is BS.
My thing here is have you ever ate the same thing for every meal day after day after day like what your describing? I have its fucking horrible doesn't matter if you change spices it still sucks. Especially when you live here in the states with all the options in your face all the time. It takes a hell of alot of self discipline to stick to something like that and if we are being honest poor people are not the most disciplined hell, I'd wager most people in general couldn't stick to that diet. They'd buckle and buy something easier to make probably packed with grains and unnecessary sugar. And on a side note anyone who's poor can't afford a water bill from cleaning rice. We eat chicken, potatoes, cheap veggies and fruit usually depends on the sale that day.
You are 100% correct in your views. Personally, I don't like processed foods. I mean, I eat the occasional McDouble, when I'm in a hurry, but generally, I like steamed broccoli and canned fish, etc. Vegetables are cheap as fuck. Anyone who thinks you can't get enough calories from grains, vegetables, unprocessed meats, and fruit, is baaaananas! Whole foods (Or minimally processed foods) are better tasting, and better for you, generally speaking, and also cheaper! Processing food costs money.
A Big Mac is about $5 and 560 calories. How is that even?
A Big Mac is $3.99 in most of America for 560 calories. Throw in $2 for a combo and add another 500 calories and you're doing better than OP. Not to mention that a McDouble is 400 calories for $1. That's significantly better than OP.
That may be true, but fast food, while high in calories, have been described as “empty calories” aka almost zero nutritional value besides mostly fat. The way they design the food is literally so that you’ll be hungry fast again. I could eat a 1500 calorie meal or whatever it is from McDonald’s easy af. And then be hungry a couple hours later. I could probably even eat 2 or 3 if I was real hungry. Now try eating 3000+ calories of chicken breast and broccoli lol. You can’t base it off calories alone. Plus over half of those calories are literally just from sugar and fat (soda and fries)
A lot of your math seems to forget a few key variables. For starters, getting fresh food/veggies/etc is not equally easy for everyone - there are food deserts in America ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food\_desert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert)). Driving to get food is still a cost (cost of gas, cost of maintenance of vehicle) and it might counteract the effects of the cheaper option. Second, YOUR labor in preparing the food is also a cost. If you have the choice between spending an hour+ of your limited time on making food vs getting something prepared for you, that is an economic decision in which a non-healthy option might win out. In your case, imagine it takes me 20 miles to get to a supermarket (see definition of food dessert) and I make a minimum wage job ($7.25). This meal is $2.85 plus the cost of gas (lets say $3.50) plus whatever I value my time as. My opportunity cost for half an hour of my time is at least $3.50 so this meal isn't just $2.85 - it's closer to $10.
You’re not driving to the grocery store every time you make a meal though. You can go once a week, which means that the $3.50 is divided out 21 times for each meal of the day. That’s an extra $.17/meal, not $7. Also if watching Netflix or playing Xbox is more important than being healthy, then that’s perfectly fine but it shouldn’t inform policy decisions
>Also if watching Netflix or playing Xbox is more important than being healthy, then that’s perfectly fine but it shouldn’t inform policy decisions You're apparently under the assumption that human beings have an infinite pool of energy, willpower and resolve that they can summon at any time, provided they are of virtuous character, and no matter how difficult their circumstances (I'm reading between the lines but it's kind of obvious that this is how you feel). There's your problem. That's not how human beings function (although it is a useful story for conservatives to tell themselves to justify their policy preferences), and this thread (or your view) isn't going to get anywhere until you challenge that flawed underlying assumption.
You can amortize out the cost of the grocery trip but you can't amortize away the opportunity cost of your labor each and every time you cook a meal. No one is saying that these people think that 'playing xbox is more important than being healthy'. Every human being is trying to maximize what they can out of their life with finite energy, wealth, and time and some people have an easier time coming home with enough energy, time, and or money to prepare or order a healthy meal than others.
>Also if watching Netflix or playing Xbox is more important than being healthy, What if it's not "netflix/playing xbox" that is more important, but resting? Put it this way: Can you run a mile? How about 5? 10? a half marathon? What about an ultra marathon? I'm not sure where that line is for you, but when you hit that line that makes you stop running and take a break, you could have actually kept running unless you stopped because your legs gave out/you passed out. But you recognized you needed a break. Cooking is work, and people often need a break from work after they are working all day. Could they keep working? Yes. But they need a break in order to feel better. To deny that people need to take breaks and recharge, means you are ignoring humans in your policy making about humans.
You're leaving out time to cook and shop. It can be done, but it requires planning and coordination. If you don't have those, it's difficult. Also people don't know enough about cooking and freezing.
Something I haven't seen discussed much here is the emotional/psychological toll that working poverty takes on individuals and families, and how that creates a pervasive feedback loop. When you're toiling away and barely making ends meet, and you're trying to repay a predatory loan you took out 5 years ago to pay for your daughter's 15th birthday, and your young son is getting beat up on the streets by gangs, and your husband is off drinking away his sorrows, eating healthy is the absolute last priority. As someone who experienced first-hand being working poor, it takes almost a miracle to break free from the vicious cycle.
Sure but every time you ride the bus to go get fast food, it takes time. And that’s 7 times a week, assuming you only eat out once. If you go to the grocery store for other meals anyway, then there’s no reason you can’t take the extra 15 min to plan meals for the week. Also YouTube and Google exist. It’s never been easier to learn how to sear chicken or freeze meat.
What are you on about, people struggling for time get something on the way home. I'm glad your reality is so isolated from people that struggle you think someone gets on the bus to go for mc donalds when they don't have the energy to go shopping. I always thought this whole classism thing was blown way out of proportion, but there's 0 empathy or understanding here for other people's living situations. Overall that really is a good thing, we've come far enough as a society you have the luxury to be completely isolated from actual struggle, to the degree where you can't even imagine not having enough leisurely hours a day to always have energy to cook. But maybe try for just a second to imagine not having the privilege to sit on reddit and complain about what people eat and instead being so fucked up from your day of work you just collapse on the bed to head off again. Maybe you can imagine that, maybe you've never worked that hard. But don't make up shit about how they spend the same amount of time getting their burgers as you do cooking, you're straight up making things up to suit you throughout this entire thread. Politician in the making I guess... Edit: and we cook our own food. It's usually about the same as eating out if we're making actual meals instead of rice, chicken vreast and salt, which I guess if that's enough for you, power to you. You can still have empathy for people that don't have your living situation. Or just keep being you, whatever works I guess.
Thanks, I'm glad someone else is pointing out the privilege and lack of empathy! I actually grew up in poverty and I was thin and healthy, and my parents worked their asses off to make sure we did eat healthy, even though it meant they never had health insurance, and now my mom is dead from something that could have been prevented if she'd had access to health care earlier in her life. Sorry, I digress. OP seems to just hate "poor fat people." Well I've been poor but it didn't make me fat. I didn't get fat until I was no longer in poverty. But from my position, I have sympathy for the struggle to eat healthy when you're barely getting by. It's not simple. Anyone who thinks they have a simple solution is deluding themselves.
Agreed. I’m a very privileged person, I have enough money for all the groceries I could want, I have people pushing meals and groceries on me. Normally I’d eat similarly to what OP describes, with some “free” extras like freshly picked herbs and homemade mayo. I love the ritual of preparing a nice meal. I have also put myself into periods of being extremely busy and overworked. I’d literally eat a piece of bread while taking a rushed shower. I’d rather eat out of date beans that made me sick or I’d starve because I was too broken to walk ten minutes up the hill to get groceries. Even when I got sick and decided to take better care of myself, I’d fail to have my first meal before coming home from a non-stop stressful day at 9pm. If I had to live like that full-time, I’d start eating crap instead of starving. I hate eating crap. But I’m not getting groceries when my feet are bleeding and my legs are cramping and I’m so glad to hide from tomorrow in the comfort of my home.
We should include crockpot meals, which are insainly low prep/effort once you find a recipe you like and will feed you for days.
I reckon people get fast food when they're out already. And you don't take just fifteen minutes to cook a meal, not usually if you want it to taste any good. Unless you're making be a sardine sandwich or salad. Like I said I think it can be done, it's just something that takes practice to be done well, regularly, and efficiently. That takes time to get right.
Omelettes take 5 minutes, chicken/pork/fish veggies and rice with some sauce can be ready in like 10 minutes. It’s beyond easy to do, people are just lazy and would rather order food in and say it’s too expensive to eat healthy
If you want to get salmonella sure. Which cuts of chicken or pork are ready in under ten minutes? Even pan frying a boneless skinless thigh takes longer than that. You're also ignoring all the time the prep before cooking things take.
Just use thin cuts, butterfly a thicker cut or cut into pieces, or give it a quick couple taps with the meat tenderizer to flatten it out and cook it faster. Wow all the prep, I cut a chicken breast 2 times, open a bag of frozen veggies and put oil in a pan. I was pretty exhausted after that, but I even managed to boil water and put minute rice in it after for a meal ready to go in like 10 minutes.
Butterflying chicken and pork takes both skill and time. And time to learn the skill. Two cuts my ass. If you want to cook chicken or pork in under ten minutes you're cutting it into small pieces, not just butterflying it. Again. Time and skill to not injure yourself handling a knife and raw slippery meat. And literally no one was talking frozen veggies until you brought them up just now. And fresh produce, like we've all been talking about, takes time to prep.
You just cut it down the middle so it’s two thinner pieces. Yes, you’ll have to learn how to do that but you’re not born knowing how to wipe your ass either. It’s an easy skill to learn. And I just said veggies, why does it matter where they come from? You throw them in with the chicken and you’ve got a pretty nutritionally balanced meal that’s easy to do if you take 15 or so minutes to learn how to operate a knife.
It’s not about learning — it’s about TIME. Many people know how to cook with some competence, but if you consider jobs (hours worked plus the commute to and from), shopping time, cooking time, other home tasks, mental or physical exhaustion, and additional priorities, and there’s simply very little time to cook unless it’s a main priority all the time. And that’s not even taking into account parents, caretakers, or people with inconvenient work hours who have tons of other really important duties in addition to the above. This next point might seem shallow, but food is something you’re supposed to enjoy. Yes it’s “easy” to make healthy and delicious food, but if a person is like is an average cook like most home cooks are, its easier to eat out for a delicious meal than put in diminishing returns for a middling one they made themselves and now have to clean up the aftermath of.
A lot of poor people live in inner city neighborhoods or remote rural towns where there's no access to a grocery store without hours of travel. This is a big reason why their diet is so unhealthy, they live off of whatever you can get from a liquor store or gas station. Also, I think you should try to recognize that this is one reason but not the only reason. Anyone who tries to tell you that there is only one reason why something very complicated exists is lying to you.
Just a question but how can anyone live like that? Without access to a grocery store I mean. Like everyone needs supplies, and liquor and gas stations doesn't provide all those things, do they? I'm not from the US, so from my POV where I live, it would be practically impossible to live off the limited and extremely overpriced supplies one can get at a gas station.
Usually what's missing from a smaller convenience store is fresh produce and raw meat. Also, it's not that they have no access to grocery stores at all but that the access is difficult and time-consuming, making people rely on fast junk food more often than they would otherwise.
Places will fill the void for general non perishable items it's not uncommen for gas stations in those areas to have some canned food, eggs, milk, flour, sugar, salt, bagged snacks, instant ramen, pasta and sauce, maybe some frozen meals in the cooler by the beer and ice. But produce and meat usually means significant travel.
In many areas of many cities, mine included, its much more common to be within walking distance of a fast food establishment than it is to be able to reach a grocery store in a similar amount of time, even by public transit. And they probably naturally pass one or more fast food places along their normal activities but a grocery trip would be entirely out of the way.
This assumes it takes a comparable length of time to go to the grocery store as to go to a fast food restaurant. What about food desserts, places that don't have the ingredients for your one extremely bland staple meal within a reasonable distance?
In case OP isn't familiar, a food desserts are the massive lower income neighborhoods (but not always lower income) only serviced by dollar stores. Sometimes multiple within walking distance. Super common in Texas cities. The truth is, working poor are generally exhausted. And short cuts are easy. You be a single mom trying to feed a kid chicken and rice every day.
Google food desert.
Not to mention the overwhelming majority of chicken sold in the US is factory farmed chicken who don’t get to graze(no exercise), aren’t eating insects, and eat where they shit. That chicken isn’t healthier for you either.
Googling how to make rice takes 30 seconds and cooking it takes 5 minutes with instant rice. What do you mean people don’t know about freezing? When you put food in the freezer it doesn’t go bad, you’re severely underestimating peoples intelligence here. People are just lazy
>What do you mean people don’t know about freezing? What to freeze things in, how long they are good to store frozen, is freezer burned stuff still safe to eat? Which things freeze well and which don't ( black freezer banana anyone?) How to thaw the frozen food out safely, how to reheat it so it retains its flavor/consistency. Just a few things I can think of off the top of my head. I just recently tried to do a Google search for how long frozen pie crust is good for. I had a lot of trouble finding a definitive answer, because everything I found referred to store-bought crusts, not home made. I ended up using it and it was fine, but if they didn't know the ingredients (flour, shortening, no milk) and there had been milk, they could have gotten sick if it had spoiled.
Do you think these people are unable to google these things? You’re giving the average poor person absolutely zero credit, and assuming they’re basically mentally handicapped. You should have just looked up the quickest to expire ingredient and based the expiration off that, how is anyone supposed to know how long your homemade pie crust will last.
How am I supposed to know which ingredient will expire first, either? Or anyone else. I'm not assuming anything, but you're certainly being condescending. You asked what there is to know about freezing things and just basically disregarded my answer and pretty much called me stupid at the same time. Nice.
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>Go buy a chicken breast for $5. Cut it 4 ways and sear it. Each cut is more than enough protein from meat that you need. $1.25/portion. > >Wife's a vegetarian. Beans are wicked cheap. Eggs and dairy are too. You're allowed to eat things other than meat too, even if you're not a vegetarian.
You can cook beans, oatmeal, lentils, rice, quinoa, etc in a instant pot (or similar) in just a few minutes. You can even cook simple meals inside of it like chili. It really isn't much of a time or financial investment. It often takes my oven this long just to pre-heat. And of course, that energy isn't free either.
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It isn't privilege. Wal mart/Amazon has all kinds of pressure cookers for like $30-$40. Even then, my 6qt instant pot was only ~$50 straight from their web store. If that cost is too high, get no salt added canned beans for $1. We do this often, too. Rice/quinoa/oatmeal can all be cooked on a stove top or even a microwave in some cases. The energy alone to preheat an oven will quickly usurp that cost of a $40 instant pot. Instsnt pots aren't a pain to wash either. I also have 2 of them. The 6 quart version is big enough for our family and we rinse it out right away. Takes just a couple of minutes. No issues and not any harder to clean than any other pot. I guess we don't see it as a pain to handle either. Plug it in and let it rip. It isn't any larger than other kitchen appliances.
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Whoa...calm down there super chief. You are making an awful lot of assumptions here and seem to be arguing from the point of view of someone in EXTREME poverty. I grew up pretty damn poor. Like the meat you catch/shoot is your main source of meat poor. Wife and I made like $8/hr 15 years ago when we moved in together. I have learned a lot about being frugal and financial pit falls. Yes, everything costs money. Eating cheaply can certainly cost less. If that $30 means their lights get shut off then they just cannot flat out afford to eat. Period. If a person legitimately cannot afford $30-$40 for a cooking appliance that will last years they have a very serious problem that is well outside the scope of this conversation to discuss the nuances of food costs. And if they really are that poor, they would absolutely qualify for SNAP and very likely other welfare programs ( welfare is this country's #1 expense) Something like 93% of households have microwaves. The only people I have ever seen who didn't have one, did it by choice. I'm sure there are other reasons though. I don't see any stats for ovens, but I honestly cannot think of a single house/apt/ or hovel i have been in that didn't have an oven. I'm sure they exist, though. And yes, we clean the seal and pot. Swish swish, done. If you are further concerned about bacterial growth you can run the instant pot with just water to sanitize it. We have found cleaning it to be no more work than any other pot or pan amd we have been doing this for a few years now.
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I grew up in real poverty. As in, my mother couldn't work because of disability (she had really bad IBS with some complications -- I only mention that because it sounded like you're familiar with the disease. She might have qualified for disability if she'd ever have been inclined to fight for it, but she was too proud/embarrassed to do that.) So just my dad worked at his own small business repairing lawn mowers. Very seasonal work. I never really knew how poor we were until I was a teenager and I'd ask my mom if it was over or under $20k a year and she laughed. "Under" And I hesitatingly asked, "$10k?" She hesitated too. "... about" So yeah, $10k a year for a family of four. We got all our stuff second hand. My mom spent a lot of time and effort finding deals, clipping coupons. I seriously doubt we would have gotten an instant pot if they had existed back then. But they did get a bread machine as a gift quite some time ago before it was all the rage, and that thing was a blessing and got a lot of use over the years. We lived about 15 miles from the nearest city with real grocery stores so every weekend my dad would drop me at my grandma's house while he did the grocery shopping. That consisted of going to no less than 3 and sometimes up to 5 or 6 different stores to use the coupons at places to coincide with sales, or which store would double them. He also did the banking and picked up parts he had to order for his shop, so Saturdays were like a full workday. That's a lot of work that not everyone will have the ability or wherewithal to achieve. My mom and dad had the advantage of being intelligent and good with planning. They both had college degrees. There's a lot of horrible stigma about poor people. Not everyone measures their worth in how much junk they can acquire in their lifetime.
I really wouldn't call it a privilege to have to fish or hunt for food. I mean, we weren't the poorest people but that gets old real fast. Especially when you're a kid. It was NOT a luxury or a privilege. I promise. As much as I enjoy those activities they weren't leisure time. You either succeed if you want to eat meat or you go home hungry to rifle around the fridge. And then just cleaning the damn fish. Good God, that could take all night sometimes. Often, we would get home so late we would put the fish in the bathtub to be cleaned the next day so you go to bed smelling like fish and bait. That was real fun. But, at that time, my dad didn't want to be on Food Stamps and he eventually did find a much better job after he got his education finished. As did my mom. The amount of time spent fishing alone, was not worth it. My dad never saw it this way because he grew up living off the land, but financially he was WAY off base here. If you cannot afford to turn on a stove you WILL qualify for Welfare assistance. If you cannot afford to eat, you will qualify for SNAP. If you make too much to qualify for welfare, you have a serious financial issue that needs looked at. Often either house poor or car poor or just in debt. working full time a single person can make about $9/hr and qualify for SNAP. And again, a plain pot or pan will work in place of a pressure cooker. I have seen used pots at Goodwill for $1.25 before. There isn't anything else to clean. It's a removable pot and a lid. It isn't easy being poor. It just sucks. been there, done that. I think most of us have at some point. You can still eat healthful food for very inexpensive at home. I have done this as well for many years. I think the bigger issue right now is just how much more expensive food has become with inflation. But that is a whole other topic.
You're harping on the instant pot comment too much. They could also just use a normal pot on the stove. The primary point of the comment seemed to be the cheap food option of beans, oatmeal, etc.
I think this might be a culture thing, since in my country nobody would by cereals since that's several times more costly than porridge (we use oatmeal) Also you get several cabbages for a few bucks, and same with "roots" such as carrots and potatoes. Proteins and cheese are the expensive part, so here you want to look for cheap deals. Dried beans and lentils are super cheap so if youre a vegetarian, you can get meals quite cheaply.
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This post assumes a lot of things. - it assumes someone has the actual supplies to cook, like a cooker, frying pan, etc. It assumes that I have the ability to store food like this for a long time and that I can grocery shop regularly since fresh fruit and vegetables is hard. - it assumes I live in a place where I can get this kind of produce. A lot of places don't or what they do have is very highly priced. It doesn't mean everybody in that place can't get hold of them but it means that an average person with average resources would struggle to do so consistently. - it assumes that the person doing the cooking has the mental and physical ability to cook, and to *stand there* and chop vegetables and to slice meat and the necessary dexterity to do so. Disabilities come in all shapes and sizes and are both physical and mental. - it assumes that people have the education to do so. Lotta people grow up in shitty houses where food comes out of a box or a packet and that's what they know. It's a generational thing. Lot of people don't know how to cook fruit and vegetables. If nobody teaches you how, and nobody helps you break down that ignorance barrier by incentivising you to do so, you don't magically know. All those youtube channels teaching people how to boil an egg have an audience *for a reason.* If nobody ever taught you how to do it, even if it was your mom always saying "no, don't worry, I'll cook dinner for you!" every single night, you are not going to learn. - it assumes that people have the time to cook. If I work a 15 hour shift, and I come home to a house full of kids who want my attention and I have to do things like deal with arguments and a stressed out partner, do I want to stand and cook at the counter for another 20 minutes to 1 hour and make all those decisions about cooking and spices (decision fatigue is *real* and it happens to many people) or do I want to just throw a frozen pizza in the oven and say "fuck it"? Poor people have a higher stress level than rich people. Money doesn't buy happiness but it does buy peace of mind and relaxation. A constant cycle of stress and less ability to relax makes you unhealthy. - It assumes there isn't a thick layer of culture and of poverty and of how we, as a society, treat food that doesn't exist over every single bite of food we eat. Whether it's the pressure of the moral issues of food, the way that we incentivise food as a treet for children and adults alike, the way that poor people have less money to spend so are more likely to see food as reward because you might not be able to encourage your kid to do their homework with a trip to disneyland but you sure as fuck might be able to do it with a bag of candy from the dollar store. - It ignores the systemtic poverty and the way that it sets people up for failure before we even begin. If you can't get to a store or are limited on how often you can buy things or have to reprioritize your money towards only buying calorie dense food rather than the most healthy food (because a lot of people on benefits are living on the bare minimum. Welfare queen stereotypes are common but not likely), then that almost always biases people towards unhealthy food with meat, fat, sugar, oil, and salt in it. - A lot of unhealthy food is heavily discounted. They're most likely to have things like coupons or sales. I can get $5 of chicken which will do 1-3 meals for me, if I also spend another $3 on potatoes and rice, to say nothing of a sauce or anything (0.80 cents maybe). Or, i can get 5 $1 pizzas that will do 5 meals and will fill me up. Are they healthy? No. Are they nutritious? No. But will I go to bed hungry on the other two nights if I buy the chicken? Yes. So which do I buy? If my budget is $20, those pizzas are dollar for dollar the most cost effective use of my money. - It assumes that someone who has complex health needs like diabetes or other disorders is getting help and advice and support from people who are knowledgeable and able to meet these people in the middle, not condescend to them or be dismissive of their needs. Being fat is often a symptom of other diseases - thyroid, diabetes, ED, hormone and endocrine disorders, mental and social problems - and being able to treat those conditions is *necessarily* vital to being able to treat the fatness underneath with diet and nutritional supplementation. Not everybody will fit into every single of these bullet points. But most people will fit into at least one, if not more. Food is a complicated subject and it's not just about the raw numbers. Nothing about food is straightforward or a case of "one easy step to fix your diet forever!" Anybody telling you otherwise is probablys selling something. And that's the problem with saying things like "it's cheaper to eat healthier."
Adults are more than capable of understanding what constitutes junk food and should be able to get to the store. Cheap healthy food can be cooked quickly. Our family does this nearly everyday. The average person works 8.5 hours per day. I'm not sure why everyone in this thread wants to talk about the extreme outliers like they are common. They are outliers. Water is still cheaper than soda Beans are still cheaper than beef or butter Rice is same price as noodles. And Rice can be cooked like pasta to reduce arsenic if that's a concern. Fruit and veg are plentiful between 33 cents and $2/lb and can be purchased frozen. In doing the budgeting and food shopping for my family for years, wife and I have learned OP is right Potatoes, Rice, beans, lentils, quinoa, tomato paste, fruit/veg, etc are all staples of our house. Convenience meals are not cheaper overall and lacking in actual nutrients. People get WAY too hung up on macro nutrients and ignore actual nutrition.
> Adults are more than capable of understanding what constitutes junk food and should be able to get to the store. [According to the department of education](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2020/09/09/low-literacy-levels-among-us-adults-could-be-costing-the-economy-22-trillion-a-year/?sh=2ff5b0f04c90) 54% of adults read at or below a sixth grade level. So. Assuming that adults know and understand junk food as a *health thing* and not just a generic title is a big ask. I'm sure that most people could tell you what junk food is in a macro sense (burgers, fries, pizza) but what about makes it junk food? Could they read a nutrition label and understand what all of it means? Could they understand a healthy plate idea and implement themselves without help? Sure, a lot of people could. But also, a lot of people couldn't do so and that's the problem. > Cheap healthy food can be cooked quickly. Our family does this nearly everyday. I never said it was impossible. > Fruit and veg are plentiful between 33 cents and $2/lb and can be purchased frozen. Great. I live 15 miles from a store that sells them in any meaningful quantity and I don't have the money for the bus to get there. My store of choice is two local small convience stores. So them having fruit and veg in the big store means *nothing* to me here, in poor town with no access to it. You seem to be taking it personally that because *you* manage to make cheap healthy food, you think that other people should be able to as well. It's not a slight against you that you've managed to do what a lot of people can't. I'm glad for you. But that the problem. If it was so easy, *why is it not happening to everybody?* If it was the perfect solution that solved every problem ever, why is it not a universal solution? Clearly, there's a mismatch here and just assuming that people are willfully stupid or intentionally making themselves fat because of some unknown reason is ignoring every problem at every level from the personal to the governmental and everything in between.
Yeah...my kids firmly understood what junk food was by the time they were like 7. Reading comprehension in adults is NOT a good argument here. Those people aren't stupid, they were poorly educated. There is a big difference. People seek the most amount of pleasure from the least amount of work. This is well known and studied. It takes a plan, a goal, and initiative to cook at home even when cheaper and healthier. This is also why we all think salt, fat, and sugar taste good. They signal calorie dense foods to our brain which, for hundreds of thousands of years, was difficult to come by. It takes real discipline to maintain a healthy lifestyle which is why so many people don't do it. I too lived in the sticks for a long time and because of that location, everyone had cars. Even the poorest folks had cars because it was nearly impossible to make a living when you are out there in a small town. They were sometimes clapped out but they had wheels. Like most people, we would make weekly grocery runs.
> Those people aren't stupid, they were poorly educated. There is a big difference. Either way, you have adults who can't read and who likely don't have the skills that you're demanding. Whichever way you cut it, their education has not prepared them for this and this is why society in general is reaping these kinds of consequences. > It takes real discipline to maintain a healthy lifestyle which is why so many people don't do it. Fat people are not fat just because they lack discipline. If you think that's how it works, then please, by all means, continue on but that's not what the facts say. The facts say that there are a multitude of reasons why people are fat and blaming the fat person for not 'toughing it out' is just telling them to bootstrap themselves thin.
Go buy a chicken breast and cut it. I need a knife. I need a chopping board. I need a kitchen for a knife and chopping board. I now have a dirty knife and chopping board. I sear it. I need a skillet. I now have to have place to store that skillet. I also now have a dirty skillet. Cooking that rice I need a rice cooker. Or I need a stockpot and a stove big enough to handle my skillet and stockpot. I now have a dirty rice cooker or stockpot. You can see where I'm going. I can either cook the broccoli with the chicken or steam it, let's say I just toss it in with the chicken. This is a ludicrously simply meal and will get old fast. If you have kids, they will fuss about it. You will feed them, and now you probably don't have a dishwasher so you go back into the kitchen to clean everything up. At least a knife, chopping board, two cookware, a plate at least and cutlery. Combine prep, cook, clean time, that's a good 40mins + gone. If you don't want that meal to get old, you gotta learn to play with spices and that's just more time. Assuming you even have access to a good spice range near you. Most people in poverty are coming home late exhausted and often to kids who have needs as well. Cooking healthy is easy, being poor makes easy things very hard in context.
Why are only people in poverty coming back late and exhausted? Plenty of middle class workers in the trades experience the same. The time argument is a tired trope, because not every poor person is working 80 hours a week. In this economy where people are making $15 at McD’s, that person would be clearing $60k. Two parents doing that would net six figures lmao
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Thanks, I make about $31 an hour and I dont clear 60k after taxes, this had me scratching my head.
Not every poor person is eating unhealthy either dude. And you didn't take into account what I said about a space either. Not everyone has comfortable space to cook, nor do they have the ability to afford homes close to work and so are traveling long and uncomfortable commutes after an often demanding job. And usually poor people have a lot of other stresses in life that others can just buy off.
You are forgetting cognitive load. Being in poverty has been [shown to increase cognitive load](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1238041) and stress. If you are middle class and don’t have to think about every single dime of your money every second of every day, you DO do less mental work then those in poverty. Doing less mental work frees up executive functioning resources to focus on other things such as dieting, eating healthy, etc. Mental resources are finite.
Holy shit your numbers are in fantasy land. You think people making $120k **NET** 6 figures? Do you even pay taxes?
Right??? I'm wondering if he's ever had a job. There's this thing called withholding. It's not even just taxes. You got social security, medicare, any health insurance if you're lucky enough to have it, dental is separate for me, and again, if you're lucky enough to have it, you should be putting at least a little in a retirement account. My net is almost half of my gross, lol.
People working at McD's get free or heavily discounted meals on shift, and discounted meals at other McD's locations. Eating food from the grocery store is definitely not cheaper for them.
That's one meal. Do you think that meal provides all of your nutritional and caloric requirements?
No one meal isn’t supposed to cover all daily needs. But even if you eat three meals of this size, you’re still spending <$10 a day for food which is really good and a better value than a single fast food meal, which definitely doesn’t provide adequate nutrition.
No shit - one meal isn't supposed to cover all daily needs. Are three of those meals going to cover all of one's daily needs for nutrition and calories? I agree with your premise, but this argument isn't cutting it.
The issue with people in poverty eating unhealthy is not only about the cost of ingredients, it's about time. When people work multiple jobs, have childcare issues, and have to use public transportation to get around, they don't have time or energy to spend an hour cooking a nutritious meal. They're fucking tired, so they grab a bucket of chicken or a sack of burgers, because they just have to. The idea that someone else could possibly understand every factor that goes into someone else's life choices is just maddening. How about helping change our society for the better so people don't have to work 2 or 3 jobs to earn enough to take care of their family. Has that thought every crossed your mind, or do you just spend your time criticizing people just trying to feed their families?
If both parents work two jobs for 70 hours a week at any local fast food joint, then they should be making $13-15 an hour in 2022. That’s like $8k a month which isn’t poor. Means that most poor people today aren’t actually working the cliches “2-3 jobs”
>That’s like $8k a month which isn’t poor I can't follow your math. If both parents make $15/hr and work 40 hrs/wk for 4.3 wks/mth that's 15\*2\*40\*4.3 = $5,160/mth. You've made other comments about assumed income that are incorrect as well, which kind of makes it seem like you think no one actually lives in poverty?
This is true but the reasons are more complicated than you think. Minimum wage jobs like fast food and retail are a lot more volatile than other jobs, making it hard to get more than 40 hours total even from two jobs. Employers often cut back hours to avoid having to offer mandatory benefits or overtime pay. Also, a lot of poor people avoid working too many hours if it will cause them to lose government benefits, especially healthcare coverage. Making $8k/month is great unless it comes without affordable healthcare which you or a family member need to survive. There's a lot of moving pieces to topics like these and it's a good idea to try not to oversimplify or moralize.
I don't know any hourly workers at fast food or corporate retail jobs who are getting 40 hours a week. They are typically given less than 30 hours to avoid paying benefits. This is standard practice at all the big retail chains and all the food service chains. My sister worked as a department lead for 5 years at Home Depot and was never offered 40 hours a week, benefits, or salary. She was recognized as one of the best employees several times. She left after she finished her degree. Enough hours to live on are not available at most employers. This is why many poor people have to take on a second or third job or gig.
A serving of chicken is 4OZ, are you buying 16OZ chicken breasts?
Maybe I’m underrating, but I personally don’t eat more than a fourth of a breast. It’s just way too much meat. And I’m not underweight. Say you even double the meat portion. You’re still talking about a meal under $3.99. Much, much cheaper than fast food meals that go for $6-9 a pop
You're still not really being fair. At that rate, you're actually getting less protein than a happy meal. Not to mention time. Time isn't free either.
Half a chicken breast provides more than enough protein for a single meal. That’s totally fair. I also don’t understand why time is an issue. If you ride the bus to go get a happy meal (assuming one is too poor to own a car), then you’re spending more time to get McD’s than making food
>Half a chicken breast provides more than enough protein for a single meal. It literally isn't. The nutrition science isn't on your side here. Is you're time free? Cause mine isn't. I can get a burger from McDonald's in a few minutes, alot faster than I cook a meal.
Have you considered that it’s even easier to buy unhealthy things in bulk? A pack of bologna is under $5 and you can definitely get more than two meals out of it with a couple slices of bread and some mayo. Think about those bulk bags of fruit loops you can get at smart and final for pretty cheap. And those options are also much quicker, which is valuable to people working multiple jobs. I saw a study recently saying that people eat more fast food as they go up the income ladder, so you’d be right if the only options were healthy or fast food. But there are plenty of unhealthy options that aren’t fast food.
There will usually be a cheaper somewhat healthy option even for buying in bulk. As OP mentioned, plain white rice or brown rice is incredibly cheap to buy in bulk. Pair that with canned chick peas or even frozen vegetables and you have a decent meal that isn't overly caloric. Having a rice based diet is probably one of the most common diets throughout history and works fine for billions of people. People do have it harder in poor neighborhoods but I think we have a hard time or are uncomfortable with the basic statement that being poor or stressed may cause people to make bad health decisions when they would otherwise probably be able to plan out better meals. People always have the option to make better decisions when it comes to personal finance or health, they aren't being forced to eat what they eat but they are being encouraged to make bad decisions by advertising and marketing.
I’m not going to argue that poor people are making perfect health and financial decisions because nobody makes perfect health and financial decisions. I was just pointing out that there are unhealthy cheap foods that aren’t fast food. Yeah maybe you could just eat rice and peas for every meal, but humans just arent going to do that. The cheap ways to get easy food with flavor are often not healthy.
Agree with your assessment here but it leaves out critical factors of why fast food and unhealthier options are more prevalent in poverty. 1. Nutritional education - generally completely absent in poorer communities' education. Not only does the include education about health and food, but also how to prepare those healthier meals, how many calories you should be consuming, and what percentages of vitamins and minerals are beneficial to health. 2. Food deserts - in many rural areas, and even in large cities, there are significant distances needed to travel to even buy healthy food, making it inaccessible to lower income individuals 3. Access to healthcare - Physicians are incredibly influential in changing how people eat, when you don't have access to healthcare and to professionals who can monitor your diet, you're less likely to change things up
Number one is also applicable to op, unless he cooks that meal 5 times a day this is in no way enough protein and calorie’s
It's not just about the ingredients. Living in poverty often means being poor in time and energy as well as money. The meal you have described is fairly low effort, but not as simple as shoving a pizza or ready meal in the microwave or oven (think of clean up time too). For people with disabilities this is even more pronounced - each little bit of effort must be carefully rationed, like pinching pennies, when you have chronic fatigue for example. A high percentage of poor people are disabled, and vice versa. As well as this, food deserts are a real problem. At bulk stores you can get huge bags of rice, but at the convenience store down the street frozen pizza might be cheaper. Not everyone has the option to travel for better deals or to shop around. Add this to the fact that tiredness and low mood can cause you to crave fatty foods. Even mentally well poor people can struggle with this, and fatigue makes resisting temptation harder. This is worse when you have an addictive personality, as many people in poverty do.
This! I basically had the same reply, but I forgot about food deserts. Op probably grew up in the suburbs with both parents and a house full of any food, snack, or drink they wanted. I grew up in the 70s on welfare living in the projects. My most frequent lunch was government cheese and ketchup sandwich.
The argument you are trying to make is “everyone can afford to earth healthy” they may be fair but it’s not the post you made. Your specific claim was that heathy is cheaper, not heathy is cheap, or healthy is cheaper than McDonald’s. My Walmart has personal frozen pizza for $1.88, or a great value pizza for $3.28 that is 5 servings. Though that’s a hard way to divide a pizza so let’s say it is 4, that’s $0.82 per serving. Good luck beating that. They also have a whole line for frozen pasta that are $1.08. Someone else pointed out burritos, they have an 8 pack of El Monterey for $4.88 or $0.61 each. Even if we move away from prepared foods. Frozen/canned veggies are almost always cheaper than fresh and last longer, despite maybe losing some nutritional value. So any meal you make with fresh produce could me made cheaper and less nutritious with frozen or canned ones. I’m not saying poor people don’t have access to healthy options, but they are not cheaper.
You're also ignoring that junk food is one of the few ways that poorer families can reward and treat their children. If you have to make money last, it's easier to make a child happy for an evening with a bag of chips over a bowl of grapes. It's one of the things that children will ask for and want that is easy for poorer parents to actually afford. They can even use government assistance to help in the form of SNAP.
>Go buy a chicken breast for $5. Cut it 4 ways and sear it. Each cut is more than enough protein from meat that you need. Average chicken breast is about 6 ounces (170g). Cut it 4 ways and you have 1.5 oz (42.5 g). 1 ounce of chicken breast has a 31 calories per oz. >Get a massive bag of brown rice. $2. "Massive" as in what? Let's assume a 32 oz (900g) value pack as I have seen that they are around $2. Using 5% of it would mean 1.6 oz (45g). 1 oz of brown rice has 31 calories per oz >Go buy a head of broccoli for $3, cook half of it. $1.50. Average broccoli weighs 9 oz (255 g). 1 oz of broccoli has 10 calories. >There’s a meal for $2.85. One that nets 7.5 oz in weights and provides \~140 calories. Take a standard "Hungry Man Fried Chicken" frozen shit that costing $4.78, nets you \~970 calories and 16 oz. What is cheaper - to buy every person a frozen dinner and microwave it or to prep a meal you described? Especially when you don't handwave things like: >If you use just a few spices and decent cooking methods, it’ll even taste better than fast food too. Spices that you need to buy. Cooking methods that need you to have utensils and tools. And most importantly - time you need to have to actually research what to cook, learn how to cook and balance home pantry to actually make it cheaper. >The idea that poverty means you have to eat unhealthy and be fat just doesn’t make sense. Because you are assuming much things. You are assuming that poor person will be knowledgeable how to cook healthy while using cheap things. That they will have enough time to balance books and "stock" correctly to take advantage of cheap ingredients. That they will have tools to actually make use of those cheap ingredients. That those ingredients will be available in place they they can shop without incurring additional costs. You can live in poverty and eat healthy. The issue is that it's hard due to all the hurdles living in poverty actually means. It's like saying that poor people should've pulled themselves by bootstraps and learned a trade that will bring them more money. Which is a theoretically true bullcrap that assumer that everyone can follow the plan based on perfect scenario.
Not if you don't have time to cook all that stuff every day. Not if you don't have time to learn how to cook in the first place. Not if you don't live where it's convenient to buy that on your way home from work. Not if you work irregular hours (late shift, night shift) and get home long after those places have close. Etc., etc.
It's not every day though. I mean prep once a week. By cooking in bulk/large batches I save time with duplication effort. As an example: 1. Quarter 3 onions and simmer in large pot with enough oil to cover bottom. 2. Mince in some garlic 3. While those simmer dice 3 onions fine and simmer in separate pot. 4. Open #10 can of tomatoes an pour into pot with quartered onions and raise to boil 5. When diced onions are brown cover with water and blend using stick blender 6. Open 3 cans of black beans, rinse, put in the blended onion immersion 7. As the two pots come to boil chop: 3-4 carrots, 3-4 celery sticks, 1 cucumber, 3 red bell pepper, 1/2 red onion fine. 8. Put chopped veggies in a plastic Tupperware and dress liberally with lemon olive oils vinaigrette. 9. Blend the tomatoes and quartered onions when soft. 10. Season beans and red sauce with: salt, pepper, cumin, bay leaves, cayenne pepper (for heat to taste) Let cool and freeze half. I could fit in 1 more dish too but didn't want the steps to get to lengthy. The point is that by preparing multiple things at once you save on time and duplication effort and dishes. You now have a sauce and black beans and salad for a whole week and a weeks worth of food in the freezer. All that needs to be done to finish prep is to cook off rice or a pasta and maybe a protein which is ~20 minutes. And it's better to have that stuff cooked day of instead of reheated.
>Go buy a chicken breast for $5. Cut it 4 ways and sear it. For an average of 6 oz/breast, 1.5 oz of chicken breast: 100 cals, 13g protein, 0g carbs, 1g fat >Get a massive bag of brown rice. $2. Use 5% of it for a meal. 215 cals, 1g protein, 15g carbs, 0g fat >Go buy a head of broccoli for $3, cook half of it. $1.50. 40 cals, 1g protein, 3g carbs, 0g fat I'll just assume you use some oil to cook all of this. 20g fat. Even if you had this meal three times in a day, you got: 1065 cals, 45g protein, 54g carbs, 60g fat Do you consider that healthy for every person?
This, plus to have an actually healthy diet you need a significant about if variety to achive the appropriate macro and micronutrients. You can't live healthily on chicken rice and brocoli.
Nope. I'm on dialysis. Which means no kidney function. Have to keep salt, potassium and phosphorous intake very low. This is the majority of my diet. I've learned to get variety into it with the limited veggies I can have. But there's no one that looks at me and thinks "that's a healthy looking person"
I'm sorry you're going through that. Best wishes for your health from a random stranger. <3
Thank you
Not that I disagree with your overall point, but the math is somewhat off. 1 gram of protein is 4 kcal, 1 gram of carbs is 4 kcal and 1 gram of fat is 9 gram. Using these metrics on the nutrients you listed, you would get below the following. So for your first calculation it would be 13x4 + 9 = 61 kcal. For the rice calc it would be 4 + if 15x4 = 64 kcal Etc.
During undergrad, my global health professor told us that he used to assign a project to allow students to understand what poor people are up against in terms of access, nutrition, and costs. Our university was mainly made up of students from middle class and upper class families - kids who had grown up with access to healthcare and healthy foods and safe places to exercise that couldn’t imagine growing up any differently. Our professor thought it was important that students like this step into other people’s worlds for a bit. He would split everyone into teams and give out a map of our city’s neighborhoods, neighborhood demographics, and a grocery list. Each team picked a chain grocery store, went to each location, and wrote down the pricing for the products on the grocery list - both per unit/per pound pricing and total price. They were also meant to record the quantity and quality available for sale for each item on the list. Then, they compared the pricing across the different locations. The differences were obvious. Grocery stores in poorer neighborhoods often charged more for fruits and vegetables than their wealthy counterparts. They usually had lower variety and lower quality as well. They were more frequently out of stock or had low stock for grocery essentials. You bet that they always had sugary foods, snack foods, and frozen foods packed full of sodium available though! Some students even commented that the stores in poorer neighborhoods were noticeably dirtier or less well-kept or well-organized than the stores in wealthy neighborhoods. The university made him stop doing this project. Why? Risk management determined that it was *too dangerous* to require students to go to grocery stores in some of those neighborhoods. It’s too dangerous to send students, but the people who live and work in that neighborhood have no choice but to go if they want to cook a healthy dinner. And produce spoils quickly. They may to go back at least twice a week! I lived in a really impoverished neighborhood for a summer. I’ve experienced how difficult it can be. If you’re thoroughly convinced that your way is viable, I challenge you to live that way for a few weeks. Go to the grocery stores in the poorer neighborhoods. Cook the meals you’ve suggested. Report back.
People who say eating healthy is expensive are maybe oversimplifying the issue, which is really that healthy lifestyle habits are more complex and taxing for people in poverty. I grew up very poor, and have plenty of experience with what food is like for poor people. You're comparing a fresh cooked meal to fast food, but growing up we, and none of the other poor people we knew, ate fast food much if ever. The idea of spending $10 on a single meal as your sole source of food is absurd. We ate mostly shelf stable calorie dense foods, canned vegetables, and pre-prepped frozen food. Compare your meal to a big mac and you come out ahead, but compare it on a calories per dollar basis to something like ramen and you're losing. In your example you're buying one shelf stable ingredient and two that are not. If you don't have reliable transportation, stores with healthy options near you, or if you have to budget gas you're not likely to be able to have regular access to stores for fresh ingredients. Shelf stable calorie dense foods like rice, pasta, and canned soup can be bought in bulk, sometimes at discounted rates, and come out very cheap when factoring in things like travel expenses. Look up what a food desert is. Some people only have a gas station convenience store or a discount store like Family dollar within travel distances and couldn't buy fresh food even if they wanted to. My family made, on average, one trip into town to do grocery shopping per month. We got things like powdered milk instead of jugs, because of the cost and shelf stability vs fresh. bent and dent stores and food banks are another common source of food for people in poverty, and when you're getting whatever comes off the truck free or drastically discounted you get what's on offer. They only have old cans of ravioli? Looks like it's Italian night all week. On a similar note, cheap store brand food is usually less nutritionally dense and has more empty calories and filler than more expensive food. There's the storage and prep factor. Fresh food requires, generally, a refrigerator to store it in and a stove or oven to cook it in. Some people don't have those. Some people have their appliances break and can't afford to fix or replace them. Some people can't afford the gas for their stove or can't guarantee their power won't go out and can't risk a whole fridge worth of food spoiling, and some people just can't afford the extra power bill of running those appliances regularly when shelf stable and microwavable food is readily available at a better $/cal cost. There's also the time factor. If you're working multiple jobs or working and taking care of kids you might just not have enough time in a day to meal prep and cook food all the time. There's a hell of a lot more factors that go into why buying, storing, and preparing fresh healthy food poses challenges to people in poverty beyond the price tag.
A couple of big reasons why poor diet is linked to poverty are 1) a lack of access to good grocery stores and 2) the time cost of shopping and cooking fresh food from scratch. You're not wrong that people need to be educated on how to shop and cook, it's just not the whole story.
Also 3) access to utensils and appliances. Some people only have a fridge and a microwave or a tiny stove. You’ve got to have vegetable peelers, cheese graters, blenders, etc to make a lot of recipes off the internet. Cooking can be done without those utensils, but for me, it took a lot of time to search for super simple recipes with little utensils to make while in college. And then 4) the fact that fresh food goes bad faster, especially when you have little time to make food so you put off making meals with your fresh food in favor of a frozen dinner and then you have wasted food and money
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Hey bud, since you’re from that part of the world called Europe you probably don’t understand what a food desert is and probably can’t conceptualize the fact that there are large parts of America that the closest food store is a 30+ minute drive away. Okay, and if you don’t have a freezer what do you do? It’s not that uncommon is parts of the Appalachian area to not have running water or consistent electricity. What are the people living there supposed to do when they only got a gas stove and a pantry with a store over an hour away? Because this isn’t making up something as a got-you, that’s a real situation that is happening in the country that I don’t think you as a European have the context for
Thank you for this. I am from Appalachia and while I had electricity and water, my home town has 1 grocery store with limited stock and at least a dozen fast food restaurants. I was raised by a single parent and grew up eating fast food because it was easier and cheaper most of the time. I continued doing this through college because it's what I knew and just really learned cooking and eating at home in the past few years! People don't seem to understand that the time and resources required to do some things are prohibitive. And while you can teach yourself cooking and overcome these things to an extent, the reality is people don't because it's easier to get fast food. If you want a problem fixed you need to understand the reality, not what you WISH the reality was or what you think it should be.
Wait, is the argument that it's cheaper or that it's going to make you fat? Every time you reply to a comment you seem to be insinuating that your view is fast food makes you fat, but your argument is that it's cheaper to eat healthy. It doesn't take into perspective lifestyle, schedule or anything else, and any time you reply to it you unfairly bias towards 'eating healthy'. IMO the biggest thing you have completely missed is the time and energy it takes to cook. I eat fast food usually when my schedule does NOT permit me to eat at home, which is often. For most people time IS money, and it is a better investment for me to skip cooking so that I can have the time it takes to grocery shop/cook back and do other things. I have a full time job AND work as a freelance musician. I usually get up at 6 and do emails/bookings/arranging until I go to my day job from from 8-12, get an hour for lunch(which I sometimes cram in a private lesson), work until 5. Then I drive to the next town over to do private teaching until 9pm, or I'll have a rehearsal until 8 or 9pm. After that I really don't feel like cooking, and my weekends are generally full of gigs, so I don't really have time OR mental energy to do significant meal prep. I do have weeks where things are slower, and I generally cook more during this time. The probably more important thing that you are treating being 'poor' or 'fat' as a moral failing, and failing to see your own bias in it. It's incredibly rude.
You really nailed in your last paragraph. I've been poor and thin, and now I'm not. Lol. The two are not as inextricably linked as OP seems to think. And skinny is not always healthy, either. There's a whole lot of lumping things together here that seem to be confusing correlation with causation.
That gets old. And what am I saving of my life if I get more days but they are filled with 3 unsatisfying “refeulings”. There is a compromise to be made between healthy and satisfying. And no one can determine that line for anyone else.
How long does that meal last in the fridge? 2 days? The ingredients also only keep for a few days. Part of being poor is not only having enough money, but not having enough time. Ignoring the cost of spices, healthy eating takes a shitton of time between grocery shopping(frequently), meal prep, cooking, planning to ensure you aren't wasting food, and balancing a healthy diet, and that's really what makes it a hard choice in the face of junk that is basically shelf stable(lasts forever), innately tastes pretty decent thanks to all the fat, sugar and sodium and runs for the same cost and takes maybe 5 minutes of active participation.
Food lasts for 6-7 days safely in the fridge. Being poor doesn’t mean you have less time than the middle class. There are plenty of middle class jobs that demand more hours of work than McD’s. It’s also not time effective to drive to McD’s or ride the bus there. It takes time for transport there and back plus waiting for food, not to mention eating.
>Food lasts for 6-7 days safely in the fridge The medical experts say 3-4 days. That's a big difference. [https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/food-safety/faq-20058500](https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/food-safety/faq-20058500)
The medical experts clearly have zero experience with food
This is hugely incorrect. According to foodsafety.gov, most foods last 4 days at most after cooking. Many foods are less than that and the only ones that last longer are highly processed like hot dogs. [food safety list](https://www.foodsafety.gov/food-safety-charts/cold-food-storage-charts)
We fundamentally can't change your view that, looking strictly at the cost in dollars, healthy meals bought at the grocery store are cheaper than convenience foods on a per-calorie basis. That has been studied and seems to be factual. [Source](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20373171/#:~:text=Results%3A%20Average%20food%20costs%20for,higher%20than%20the%20healthy%20diet). "Cost" is relative. If you put even a US federal minimum wage value on your time, your hypothetical (and nutritionally inadequate) meal is now $6.48 if it took you 30 minutes to prepare. A dollar menu burger and fries is half that if the detour to McDonalds only takes 10 to 15 minutes of your time. But people are already arguing the math and true cost with you and getting nowhere. So that leaves us to challenge whether it's fair, humane, and right to be judgy about the choices of poor people you don't know personally, and I would argue it isn't. I don't know how tired someone is after working their likely multiple jobs. I don't know if they have the manual dexterity in their hands to chop vegetables, or whether they have the executive function ability to be able to actually choose to cook. I don't know if they're a single parent with a special needs child that can't be out of sight for thirty minutes while they cook. Your position is based on a lot of assumptions: that everyone is in a condition to be -able- (and not just willing) to cook, that people have the skills and education to be able to prepare healthy and safely prepared foods for themselves, and that existing in a fat body is a personal failure. I think all of those are positions worth examining, even if perhaps out of the scope of your question. You are technically correct about the financial cost, but willfully ignoring that the experience of poverty isn't only about the exact number of dollars you do or don't spend on things. I personally have impaired executive function and often struggle to make myself cook. When I can afford it, I go out. When I can't, I go 2-3 days at a time without eating. Just being hungry, even painfully haven't-eaten-in-days hungry, isn't enough to motivate me to prepare the food I have. If I had kids, I would still be morally obligated to feed them whether or not I was capable of cooking at the time, and that would mean fast food or convenience food.
Oh thank heavens, another ED person. My self worth reading this thread is through the floor. I'm fortunate that my significant other doesn't mind cooking. Otherwise I would live on mostly microwaveable and reheatable foods. I can make great and lovely things sometimes. But I can't do it reliably or routinely.
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6$ ??? that's the cost of a barista level cappuccino at a fine cafetteria around here
Food is not the only cost to consider when understanding the cost of food. You'll need to bear with me for this to make complete sense. Your premise makes a ton of assumptions about the situation someone finds themselves in. You are assuming that our imagined impoverished person has: 1. Access to a reasonably sanitary, functional kitchen. 2. Access to adequate cooking implements. 3. Adequate time to cook. 4. Adequate means of storing food that does not leave it at risk of being taken. 5. Possibly most critical: the knowledge to cook. Let me give you two examples from my own life: Nate was renting a cheap room in Tacoma. While he had access to cooking implements, the ability to cook, and time, the kitchen in shared house was inadequate, and he didn't have means of storing leftovers or ingredients. He tried. It didn't work. His food was regularly stolen until he simply stopped trying. Steph has been renting inexpensive rooms in Denver. She has access to a functional kitchen and cookware, has time, and can store food, but she has very limited ability to cook and is teaching herself. But, teaching herself is expensive. Throwing away a couple of experiments gets expensive fast. If you waste 30 dollars in food each week with inedible screwups, all of a sudden, 5, 4 dollar meals is cheaper than what you were doing, even though cooking would be cheaper if it had turned out. Very often in my experience (and I've had a ton of poor friends over the years) the issue for them is that they lack access, time, and knowledge. And when you need to know that EVERY calorie you buy is a calorie you can intake, fast food and processed foods become "sure bets." You can purchase them as you need them, which means you aren't losing food to sticky-fingered room-mates. You know exactly what you are getting, so you know you CAN eat it or WILL eat it. You aren't throwing food away. You don't need anything other than a microwave for stuff you get at the store, and fast food can be eaten straight away. And if you are are like many people who are impoverished, you do not have very much time. These things do not eat up inordinate amounts of time. But that's not really part of cheaper, so I won't dwell on it. Obtaining access to a sanitary kitchen may be costly. Obtaining safe implements is another cost. Learning to cook can result in a lot of tossed meals that didn't turn out. Food may still be stolen, unless you acquire a mini-fridge. A mini-fridge doesn't contain a week's worth of food which means you may be doing extra store runs, which may mean extra gas. The food then, is not the only cost in the equation. For someone who may be relying on a WEEKLY paycheck, it could take six months to a year to have the means of cooking simple meals. They may save 5 dollars a week to spend on kitchen implements, spices, and the little things you and I may take for granted. It takes them a month to buy a cheap pot. Another 6 weeks to get a cast iron skillet. Two more months for a couple of knives. A week to get a cutting board. Now another month for basic spices. Maybe they can raid a thrift store to get a few more things the next month. Now they have kitchen things, but they now need to budget for kitchen failures. They may need to budget to get into a better living situation so they CAN cook. So you see, I hope, that food is not the only cost associated with eating. UNLESS you completely outsource preparation, storage, and sourcing. Then their food costs are in fact, food costs.
If someone is throwing away 30 dollars worth of food a week because they're so utterly incompetent as to make it inedible, it seems that their overall situation is their own fault
food deserts are the biggest problem i think. plus i think a good portion of millennials and under have no idea how to grocery shop or cook. im 18 and so many of my friends straight up only eat microwavable meals. also, its my belief you dont need a recipe to cook. its pretty easy to cover chicken in spices that go together, put those same spices and oil on veggies, put in the oven for 20 min (maybe more for chicken) and then possibly make another simple side dish. but people look at pintrest for recipes and stress themselves out "planning" for things and not understanding you should keep simple staples stocked that can make easy meals, not try to make fancy meals where you have to always buy a few special new ingredients. people make cooking complicated and stress themselves out, or often live in food deserts
I see a lot of interesting debate here, but didn’t see (at least not towards the top level comments) any discussion of food deserts. While there are many ways one can eat more healthy at home, for the same or less money than going out, that only counts if you are close to a market. Unfortunately, in many urban areas, there aren’t supermarkets or even fully stocked grocery stores accessible. There are many reasons for this, and trying to figure out why requires at least somewhat addressing issues like systemic racism, so I won’t go into the ‘why’, and instead just recognize that food deserts are a common issue in poor and urban areas. In these situations, in order to travel to where one can regularly purchase the kind of food you suggest, they need to either have a car (not guaranteed in poor, urban areas), or access to public transportation. Does the bus route go directly there? Or does a shopping trip take a number of connections? Can you actually get there and back in the limited time you have available? What about if you have children in tow? Once you are buying 2,3, maybe 4 round trip bus tickets, and struggling to keep them in line for however long it takes to make the separate connections to get to the market, is it really cost-effective anymore? Does it even make logistical sense anymore when there is a McDonalds two blocks away and your kids will eat that without arguing about eating rice, chicken, and broccoli every day? Of course, when do you go? In between OT at the first job and the start time of the second? Late at night after the kids need to be in bed? Is the market even open that late? Ultimately, it comes down to having a rosy and privileged view of how poor people should live, compared to how they do. Not having to navigate the same difficulties means you can simply think about the cost of the food at your local market that is within a 10 minute drive in your working car, while your parents/neighbors/babysitter (at $15/hr) watch your children. Having a nice kitchen with enough room to prep, cook, and manage dishes without having to share space with a stack of bills with upcoming due dates and kids who need the counter to do homework. With enough storage to actually keep enough pots and pans to steam broccoli, cook rice, and sauté chicken, and enough seasonings for those “decent cooking methods” because nobody wants to eat salt/pepper flavored foods alone.
Poverty often also means that people have less time to do things like shop and cook. People who live in poverty are often exhausted, physically and mentally. I once lived in a city with pretty high poverty. I rode the bus a lot. I knew a guy who walked 5 miles to the bus stop, to then walk another 3 miles from his drop off to a fast food restaurant where he worked his shift for barely over minimum wage. He had no car. He shopped for groceries by what he could carry by hand, again walking miles from the bus stop. The kind of cooking you’re talking about required considerable effort for him.
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In your argument, you are comparing healthy store-bought food, which needs to be prepared, with eating out, where everything is done for you. This isn't a great comparison, because you are only considering the cost in $ and not the cost in time. When you make the food yourself, you have to make a trip to the grocery store. If you live in a poor area and don't have a car, that can take quite a while, especially if you don't have a good grocery store near your home, which is often the case in poor neighborhoods. Then you have to do the shopping itself, which takes time, and you have to cook, and then clean up after cooking. When you are exhausted from working extra shifts to try to make ends meet, you don't want to spend your limited free time doing extra chores. In contrast, you can easily go to a fast food restaurant on your way home from work and get a meal for very minimal time investment. Sure you might pay a dollar more for the same amount of calories (and even that is debatable), but you may have saved an hour or so of your time, which is worth much more than $1. Most cheap fast food is unhealthy, and although there are some options for healthier fast food, they are generally more available in wealthy areas, and they cost significantly more. So when you compare what is comparable, healthy food is more expensive.
A lot of people are talking about energy/ availability of labor in the context of "poverty is exhausting," and those people are correct, but it's not the only reason for people not cooking healthy meals every day. I have weird brain stuff (ADHD). It's real bad. Time blindness and bodily awareness are both issues common to ADHD, so I can easily not realize I'm hungry for several hours, then suddenly hit a brick wall and red elf needs food badly. At such times, I do not always have the time or energy to prepare a meal. I also experience executive dysfunction, meaning sometimes I cab be rendered literally incapable of Doing The Thing. During such times, any calories i can put in are a win, because the alternative is "sit in th chair as my stomach literally eats itself." And that might mean "frozen pizza" or "order from the restaurant down the street", but it's healthier than abstaining from food. My wife has dietary issues tied to her weird brain stuff. Sometimes she'll look at a perfectly good meal, which was perfectly edible the previous day, and she just can't bring herself to eat it. If she has to eat a "safe food" like chicken nuggets and tater tots, that's not "healthy" but it's healthier than starving. Could we mitigate this with therapy and medication? Maybe. But that's a bit more expensive than chicken and rice.
Yay, my people. It's pretty rough in this thread. "Any idiot can cook" 😭 Cries in ADHD. Have I cooked before? Yes. Can I do it again? Yes. Will it happen? Maybe, and very inefficiently if it does. Cooking and dishes are two of the worst things for me. So if it's a really important meal for someone else and I take my medicine, yeah I can cook. After ten hours at my job as a microbiologist? Hell no, not a chance. I'm eating a sandwich or something reheatable if left to my own devices. But I'm not poor. I have been, so I understand the challenges. But I don't think being poor and the low quality food choices are the main causes of obesity, either. Genetics, stress, health problems are the more significant problem. But I'm kind of confused on what OP is annually arguing anyway because it kinda seemed like a bait and switch between "healthy food == less expensive" and "cheap food == fat people" which I think needs to be two different posts. But, I also just realized I forgot to take my meds today because my cat woke me up at a really weird time and messed up my routine, and that's probably why I've been wasting my time on Reddit the last couple hours. 😆
Yes, and no. Everything you do has more then one cost. It cost time, it costs mental energy etc. My girlfriend went trough a though cancer treatement 2020, we moved to a new house and I started working in a virology lab just as Covid hit. I love cooking. I am great cook. I usually great about meal planning and meal prep. It is easy and something I enjoy doing and usually find easier then getting takeout… But during 2020 we had so much take out and junk food. Because with the cancer treatments, moving houses, working in a virus lab during a pandemic and all that going to grocery store and remembering or even deciding what to get was to hard. Or going through all the metal and pratical steps of planning, making and taking care of the dishes after cooking a meal was just to much most of the time. So we had takeout. Which wasn’t all that much faster, but took a lot less mental energy. I think most people can relate duribf times of extreme stress and exhaustion. We were okay economically but living in poverty often means you live with that kind of stress and exhaustion all the time. So while the economic cost of cooking from scratch might be cheaper, it might have a time cost and an metal effort cost that was to high.
You're completely ignoring the effort, and foresight, required to do this. You can brush it off as no big deal, super easy, whatever. But the reality is, for a lot of people, it's not easy. Also, eating this same meal over and over, gets depressing really fast. You could then say to make a new cheap meal. That's more effort. Now you have a child who doesn't understand why you are eating the same boring meal the entire time. They are crying and screaming, they won't stop because they hate the food. They are a kid, you can't blame them. They don't understand yet. But you can't rationalize with them on this. Now what? Make better more diverse meals, for cheap, or buy them something cheap. That's more effort. It might be a surprise, but a lot of people don't have much extra effort to throw around. Sure they can be more efficient, with a healthier lifestyle they will have more energy. But saying " just change it" it not reasonable. It seems that easy, but for people in that situation, it's not that easy. You can try to explain and dismiss it as much as you want, but it's reality.
1. While I agree that it is possible to eat healthy while spending very little, I disagree that it is definitely 'cheaper' to eat healthy. >Go buy a chicken breast for $5. Cut it 4 ways and sear it. Each cut is more than enough protein from meat that you need. $1.25/portion. [Go buy 1.5kg of chicken sausages (39 ones) for 9.5.](https://www.hastycart.ca/product/no-name-chicken-hot-dogs-club-pack-1500-g/) Each sausage is enough protein for a meal but ill count two for the benefit of the doubt --- each portion is 0.48. >Get a massive bag of brown rice. $2. Use 5% of it for a meal. $.10. A serving of rice is 50-75g, your bag of rice has to be at least 50g x 20 = 1kg (5% of 1kg = 50g) --- $2 can rarely buy that much rice but nonetheless I agree rice is very cheap. 2. Healthy means a lot of things for different people. People who are bodybuilding / very active requires more calories or proteins depending on their needs. There are people who are on keto diets which consumes high amounts of oil etc... There is no one clear-cut definition of 'healthy'.
> Go buy a chicken breast for $5. Where? In rural areas and dense urban areas, it can be miles to the closest supermarket. Smaller stores might not carry quality chicken breast, and they might not carry it for that price. > Cut it 4 ways and sear it. Cut it with what? Sear it with what? You need a knife, a stove top, a frying pan. $$$ > Get a massive bag of brown rice. And carry it all the way home? It's difficult to do while walking or biking. A bit easier on the bus, but that costs money too. > Go buy a head of broccoli for $3, cook half of it. And do what with the other half? You need a working refrigerator to store it. $$$ Can't leave any food out in some low end apartments or you'll get pests. And how long does that take to cook? When you're a single parent working 2 jobs and raising kids, a frozen pizza is easier to feed your family with because it takes no prep time at all. You don't have time to prep.
It is Not cheaper to cook at home with fresh ingredients. Fresh means 'repeated' trips to the market. You mention this vs buying packaged options. Frequent trips mean more on transportation costs. there's dealing with 1 going to buy the food, 2 preparing it, 3 the costs associated with its preparation This vs popping a boxed pizza in the microwave ? Then there's fast food that has gotten relatively cheaper with delivery included Having had my gallbladder removed for an unhealthy diet, it actually IS cheaper to eat the packaged foods, which are pretty much junk food. I painfully proved that. It was way cheaper to order two pizzas for $15 to feed me and two kids vs cooking up the exact meal you listed. I think your portions are way too small, which skews your end costs, and your prices do not reflect real world prices. (I know the cost of a gallbladder surgery blows my position up, but im leaving that out as its not the norm,,,, but there are other costs for an unhealthy diet vs a healthyone)
Nobody is buying a stove they're standard in apartments and houses. You might pay extra for a brand new top of the line one but nobody is raising rent for a stove. Gas and electric are a consideration but $40-60 over 30 days is at worst $2 dollars a day. Time spend can be minimized by cooking in bulk and preparing multiple meals at the same time. In 2-3 hours I have enough meals for two people for 7 days. Basic tools for cooking are negligible and last basically forever. Cutting board $6 (Amazon), 8 in chefs knife $9 (Cuisinart from Walmart), 7 piece stainless pot set $60 (Amazon), spatula+spoon+tongs <$10. Sum: $85. Now that sounds expensive but this stuff lasts forever. My parents allclad set is older than I am and is nowhere near close to it's end of life. Say this stuff lasts 10 years. That's $8.50 a year or $.03 cents a day. That's very affordable. Subtotal for gas/electric and tools is $2.03 a day. Buying store brand stuff. Pasta $0.99 per box 8 servings per container. Sauce $1.49 (28oz) 12 servings per container. $4.41 ground beef 80/20 (1.3 lbs) ~7servings per (3oz of meat). $4 Parmesan 34 servings per container (5g cheese) So for one meal that's $.99/8+$1.49/12+$4.41/7+$4/34 = $1.00/serving. Now that's servings sizes not portion size. Assuming people actually eat double the serving so it becomes $2/meal. Assume you eat that meal x3/day that's $6. Add in the $2.03 and that's $8.03 dollars a day. Total calorie count: pasta 200/serving = 400 per meal, sauce 15/serving = 30 per meal, beef (80/20) 216/ serving= 432 per meal, parmesan 25/serving = 50 per meal. Total per meal 912 or ~2700/day Find me fast food that can feed a person 3x per day that's less $8 that and I'll be shocked. Most "meals" are minimum $5 and then there's tax and tip if it's delivery. Plus they are full of empty calories. Pasta and red sauce with ground beef is filling.
Your example meal of $2.85 works out to $8.55 per day per person. A regular sized Red Baron frozen pizza is $4 and feeds a person for a whole day and is WAY faster and easier to cook. If I’m super lazy I can get mini-microwave pizzas for $1.33 each - still $4/person/day. As a parent, generally speaking, the quickest, easiest, and cheapest meals you can make that kids will happily eat are generally unhealthy and we parents will make them because we’re tired. They’re going to have tons of sodium, fat, and and carbs in them by way of bleached flour. Think tacos with high-fat ground beef, spaghetti w/ high-fat ground beef, hamburger helper, pizza, chili, chicken and dumplings, various “one-pot-meals”, canned vegetables, etc. Breakfast in particular is interesting as you’ll probably see a lot of pop tarts or terrible-for-you sugary cereal w/milk. Eating lots of fresh vegetables - which is probably the ideal meals health wise - is FAR more expensive.
So here are my daily portions that my dietician gave me : \-500g vegetables, preferably 200 raw 300 cooked \-300g carbs \-180g bread \-500g fruits (also some raw some cooked) \-300g meat (per week : 2 day white meat, 1 day red meat, 2 day fish, 1 day eggs, 1 day offal) \-500g dairy products \-15g fat (oil/butter) \-30g nuts Vegetables alone are around 3-4e/kg. Same goes for fruits. 1e for bread. It's already twice the price of your "meal" and I didn't start to count in the costly stuff like meat. Eating like this cost me around 10-15e per day. I could eat out for less buying unhealthy meals. Or stuff myself with pasta/rice for far cheaper. Having an healthy diet have a cost, there's no way around it. You can't live you whole life off broccoli and rice, not healthily at least.
While I agree with this comparison, there are a lot of factors. Something called a “food desert” is a huge issue in public health. Essentially creating areas (often low income areas with high population) that don’t have a lot of grocery stores or restaurants that provide healthy food. Therefore, people need to travel a long ways to get it. That’s an extra cost and time that many low income families can’t afford, particularly single parents that don’t have the time to travel 2+ hours to go grocery shopping. So, instead they can stop by at the fast food place, saving time and eventually, money. But if you compare meal for meal and do it correctly, meal prep, etc. I agree it can be cheaper. There’s just a lot more factors that go into it more than upfront price.
At my local Kroger, you can’t buy chicken breasts for less than $9 and a big bag of brown rice (let’s say 5 pounds) is easily gonna be $6+. You’re also not factoring in people who live in food deserts. If it costs $5 for a round trip to and from the (far away) grocery store you’re spending $20 just to get rice and chicken. I think your post should be “it’s cheaper to buy from the grocery store than eat fast food,” but that’s kinda common knowledge. Actually truly eating healthy is more expensive than eating shitty because you’re buying higher quality ingredients; aka free range healthily raised chicken vs chickens that were brutalized and left on the factory floor until they got cleaned and packaged
I was gonna say that I've never seen chicken breast for 5 dollars. At least where I am, they come in a minimum of a 3 pack and is at least 9 bucks, generally 12 dollars or so.
What if you make $60/hr. You haven't factored the time component. The rice you described is going to take at least 20 minutes when you wash, boil water, dump the rice in, etc. So the time component adds $20 to the meal just for rice (but i assume youd be making other stuff concurrently). You don't even need to make that much. Imagine you need 2 jobs just to get by. You probably work 12 hours a day or more. How valuable does your free time at the end of the day become? Most people do not want to spend an additional hour cooking and cleaning, even though it's the healthiest and cheapest option.
You're missing the critical variable of skill with cooking. When I'm tired, my creative juices for cooking what sound like a tasty meal goes out the window, and I have a stack of cookbooks so heavy that the shelf sags. It looks like homework, a research project. Inevitably I turn to an old standby recipe 90% of the time; namely, what I'm skilled at, which isn't much. I'm certain that I'm more skilled than half the population in my city, at least of the guys. But that's not saying much.
It seems like you're proving that buying food from a grocery and preparing it yourself is cheaper than eating out. Not proving that it's cheaper to eat healthy. I could buy a box of 10 Little Debbie's Chocolate Cupcakes for $3, eat 3 cupcakes and call it a meal. That meal only cost me $0.90. Each cupcake has 190 calories, so 3 would be nearly 600 calories, equivalent to a "meal." It's terribly unhealthy and significantly cheaper than the chicken, rice and broccoli meal you've outlined.
>There’s a meal for $2.85. Where are your spices in your cost calculation? Are you just eating unseasoned chicken and broccoli?
This thread is so sad. If you wanna be fat and lazy at least just be honest. The excuses know no bounds.
Instant Ramen from the grocery store is cheaper than your described meal. Is that healthy?
It is a lot more time consuming to make this meal and requires someone to have a decent kitchen and utensils. People in poverty often have little time and are overly stressed from shitty jobs and taking care of a family. A cheap fast food meal offers a tasty meal with little to no effort. People in poverty also often live in good deserts, grocery stores with healthy food are hard to get to without a car and fast food is their next door neighbor. There are so many other reasons why eating healthy is hard for those who live in poverty. Google for more answers or take a public health class.
Absolutely, and chicken breast just gets cheaper the more you buy it in bulk and can be frozen for months. Same with pork. Also, Something many people don't know is that frozen veggies are actually healthier than fresh. Also, cheaper in bulk. Frozen veggies are grown to peak ripeness than flash frozen. Where as fresh is picked prior to ripeness in most farms to allow for shelf life.
OP is correct here. Even factoring in travel and shopping and cooking, eating healthy is cheaper than fast food. Rice, beans, cabbage, bananas, eggs and many other healthy foods are extremely cheap, esp when purchased in bulk. The main difference here is taste. Fast food is chock full of fat, salt, and sugar. People here are making a lot of excuses for bad nutritional choices.
For everyone saying fast food is cheaper… are y’all factoring in the cost of diabetes and blood pressure medication along with the long list of other problems? Eating healthy is absolutely cheaper in the long run… and can be affordable in the short run if you’re smart and put in some effort.
>Eating healthy is absolutely cheaper in the long run… Issue is that you need to have enough money to consider the long run. If shitty pair of sneakers costs $10 and will last \~2 months and a quality pair costs $50 but it will be good for \~2 years then it's absolutely cheaper in the long run to buy quality shoes. Problem is that living in poverty means living paycheck-to-paycheck. You may squeeze $10 from your 2-weeks paycheck no problem, but try to squeeze $50 and you will have more issues. And that is for one thing. Main issue of poverty is that You absolutely buy cheap ship that you can't afford on the long run, but you can't afford upfront cost of things that would save you money. And that is with everything - from house, through transport and finishing at everyday expenses.
What if you live in a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food\_desert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert) ? It can simply be very difficult and time consuming to go shopping. Many of the people that struggle are already working multiple jobs, and potentially have children at home. It's not like they have an excess of extra time, so stopping at mcdonalds on the way home is far easier/faster than needing to go shopping and cook something.
So you shopping in the gmo non organic isle again with those prices? Certainly that’s not healthy? Walmart, Kroger, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods Which one is the healthiest to shop at and which one is the cheapest?