4 ms·
Cheap, gross pizza is a thing, and you just have to pick it up. IIRC a Costco combination pizza will provide enough calories for a largish adult for two days, a
by asark 7y ago
Cheap, gross pizza is a thing, and you just have to pick it up. IIRC a Costco combination pizza will provide enough calories for a largish adult for two days, and is $10. No oven, no kitchen, no gadgets, no cooking required. It'll even probably still be fine to eat day two without refrigeration. Ditto all sorts of other dirt-cheap gross pizza joints, not just Costco. Math works out almost as good. Or cheap frozen pizza on clearance (talking like Totinos or store brand here, not even anything as fancy as Freschetta) if you got a freezer and an oven.
It's also incredibly unhealthy if you ate it regularly, but hey. Cheap, tasty-enough calories hitting every "food group" from the good ol' pyramid. Though arguably not fruit, I guess.
[EDIT] I'm always confused when folks talk about healthy, fresh food being a slam-dunk price win over bad food. I can only assume they are not familiar with what's actually out there, in the bad food universe, and are just looking at how expensive full-price Frosted Flakes are or whatever. I find it damn hard to compete with $5/day/person like that Costco pizza, without resorting to a bachelor's rice-n-beans-n-whichever-veggies-were-about-to-go-bad diet.
- autoexec 7y agoCostco pizza is great, but poor people don't shop at stores that make you pay just to shop there. They don't buy in bulk because even when it would be cheaper in the long run they don't have the money for the investment or the space to store what isn't being used. Often they don't live in areas where a costco is even anywhere near them. Those in food deserts don't even get regular stores. When time is factored in (prep time, clean up and number of shopping trips required) bad food is unquestionably less expensive.
- ericd 7y agoRice, beans/lentils, basic veggies, eggs, milk, and chicken are all cheaper than the gross pizza you're describing, and much healthier. Throw in some spices, and it'll taste better, too.
- asark 7y agoSure, the Costco pizza's just an example because I happened to be contemplating their calorie-including menu while standing in the grocery checkout line the other day. That's expensive junk food and happens to actually have some vitamins in it, hidden amongst the grease and fat and colon cancer. Check out pop tarts for some real WTF junk food cheapness. Neighborhood of 10,000 calories in a box of 48 "pastries" (24 2-packs), depending on the flavor. Around $11 if you don't catch it on sale and buy the real deal instead of an off brand. Zero prep (can optionally heat, don't have to, microwave's about as good as a toaster so equipment's flexible if one or the other's broken or missing) and keeps forever. I'm not advocating junk food, mind you. I just don't get why people say it's expensive and so poor people must only be saving time with it, at best. Sure, it can be expensive, if you're running around buying name-brand potato chips or something. It can also compete with bargain-hunter, ultra-penny-pinching healthy cooking, though, on a strictly price basis, while conferring other benefits (health not among them). Depends on what you buy. Incidentally, the canonical junkfood-diet meat to accompany rice and beans is hot dog, not chicken. Easier to cook, comes pre-ruined so you can't accidentally ruin it during cooking, competitive with even very cheap chicken on price, keeps much longer.
- ericd 7y agoHeh I mean I know it can be cheap. I think people just mean that the way many people do it isn't - McDonalds, Coke, chips, etc. But yeah, my freshman year roommate lived off of pop tarts for the whole year, since they were so cheap. He got saving on them down to an art, with coupons and timing bulk buys. He developed a pretty terrible chronic illness at some point later on, probably not related, but I've always wondered. Good tip on the hotdog, that actually sounds kinda tasty.