19 ms·

One of the points that debates about healthy vs processed miss is that processed food is selling convenience. A bag of spinach lasts about a week, fresh meat a

One of the points that debates about healthy vs processed miss is that processed food is selling convenience. A bag of spinach lasts about a week, fresh meat a few days. Meanwhile a retort pouch of chili or curry lasts forever and doesn't even need to be refridgerated. There are unprocessed foods that last almost forever like dried lentils, rice and oats but most people don't want to eat those things (or at least not for every meal). What do poor people tend to eat? Fast food burgers and other high calorie, low cost meals that are readily available. No prep/cook time, minimal cost (at least on the surface) and hot and palatable to most. As someone who cooks all my food from raw ingrediants, that's absolutely a luxury but it's not a money expensive one, it's a time/management/availability luxury.

iagovar 6y ago
Why don't people want to eat lentils? I'm pretty lazy, and I make lentils with chorizo, potatoes, onion, carrot and a mix of vegetables and some condiments all the time. It's very easy to make, cheap and tastes fantastic with very little effort. Same with rice. It takes a little bit more to master rice, but lentils man it's the lazy meal for me. I also buy frozen vegetables that lasts who knows how much, and it tastes as good as with fresh ones. Most of spanish cuisine is cheap and more or less easy to make. I'm not really sure that processed food is cheaper. A pot of (again) lentils can last a bunch of days and costs nothing.
- casion 6y ago
  Can you expand on "very little effort". I think we may have very very different ideas of what that means.
  - iagovar 6y ago
    If you're super lazy, you just put everything in the pot, and wait. Lentils Vegetables of your choosing Maybe two potatoes One or two average sized chorizos A bit of salt A bit of olive oil (something else if olive oil is expensive in your area) A bit of cooking wine Little bit of curry If you don't have soup from previous stuff, you put one of this chicken soup pills, IDK how to translate to english, this how it looks: https://pepekitchen.com/articulo/nueva-presentacion-de-las-pastillas-de-caldo-de-pollo-avecrem/ https://pepekitchen.com/articulo/nueva-presentacion-de-las-p... Fill with water, fire and forget until it's done. You can make it way tastier and more elaborated but this is the most lazy and basic plate, and still tastes good. Well, you still have to cut stuff for a few minutes, if that's any effort.
    - vorpalhex 6y ago
      Bullion. In the US (and I think UK) there's also a dense liquid version (local brand name is "Better Than Bullion") which is quite a bit tastier imo.
      - detritus 6y ago
        *Bouillon - personally I'd prefer some bullion! :) And I don't think I've ever seen that here in the UK, although I have come across it on the internet beforehand, during a bit of a seach on OTS meat stock and such a few years back. My go-tos are the Knorr Stock Pots and Concentrated Meat stocks, which seem to have similar ingredient lists to yours.
        ianmcgowan 6y ago
        OXO cubes or Bisto would be the UK equivalent? Or they were when I was a kid..
        KineticLensman 6y ago
        UK here. Oxo cubes are still a big thing, for those of us who cook. You can get them in Beef, Chicken, Lamb and Veg flavours. Perhaps others. If I'm cooking a vegetarian meal that needs stock I use Miso paste.
        detritus 6y ago
        Sorry, yes - I meant in relation to the person I was responding to, not OP - the bouillon gloop, rather than the cubes. I'd still suggest that Oxo cubes are different beasts to the cubes up there - again, i think Knorr would be an equivalent, as un-British a brand as it is. Not a fan of Oxo - weird composition and not very nice or meaty taste, to me anyway.
    - i_am_proteus 6y ago
      A can of crushed tomatoes instead of the cooking wine also yields a good stew. :)
    - 6y ago
  - karanbhangui 6y ago
    Pressure cookers are amazing for this. I make lentil stews with 5-10 min of prep and 10 min unsupervised cook time (using Instant Pot).
  - vsef 6y ago
    You put lentils in salted water and simmer for ~30 minutes, is the basic recipe. Unclear how this could be lower effort, its similar to boiling dried pasta. Even seasoning doesn't have to require chopping, smash a piece of garlic, don't even dice, throw it in, delish. I only ever make a full 1 lb bag of dried lentils or beans at a time, what you don't eat immediately stores well in a 1 gallon zip lock bag and keeps for longer than a week. Dish out half cup at a time and hit briefly in microwave. Lentils (and split peas) are the easiest legumes since they don't even require thinking ahead. But beans with a $60 slow cooker are arguably even lower effort.
    - gavinray 6y ago
      My problem is that cooking requires you to wait between 30-70 minutes for the food, disregarding any actual work you have to put in. I don't even eat oven-cooked premade meals because pre-heating the oven and cooking it takes so long by the time it finishes I could have driven somewhere and bought + ate food already. This might sound terrible, but since I was 16 and living on my own I've never eaten food that required cooking. Came up with entire mealplans of stuff you can buy that's pretty much ready to eat. Okay, ready to get grossed out? ---------- Breakfast (~$3.00, 600kcal, 50g protein) ---------- - Eggs, cracked on a plate/bowl and put in the microwave to cook over-medium, with salsa and cheese - Greek yogurt/Cottage cheese - Oats with milk and some sort of fake sugar and flavor extract (vanilla, almond, pumpkin)/cinnamon, etc, sometimes with whey - Fresh cucumber with no/lowfat italian vinagrette ---------- Lunch/Dinner ($4.00, 500-800kcal, 60-80g protein): ---------- - 12oz Canned chicken breast + turkey chili + cheese + tortilla chips (OR) - 12oz Canned chicken breast + canned field peas & snaps + green beans For years I also only owned a single plate/bowl and spoon and eat every meal with it, then washed it and put it back when I was done to avoid having to do dishes.
      - sp332 6y ago
        Well that is a bit impatient :) But you can get close to this by picking one day a week to make a bunch of meals ahead of time. Since there's not much to do while waiting for lentils to cook, you can prep and cook other things in parallel. Should take about an hour once you get the hang of it. Stash the meals in the fridge and then you just have to warm them up when you want to eat.
  - redisman 6y ago
    It's low effort if you have something like a crockpot. If you don't then you get a lot longer series of steps.
    - notyourday 6y ago
      Crock pots are $20 in stores targeting poor people.
    - iagovar 6y ago
      Just a pot, cheapest one may be what, 5€, I mean I bet you can find something around that price in the US.
- bumby 6y ago
  I would love to be able to eat more beans and lentils because they are cheap, store well, relatively nutritious, and a fairly good alternative to meat. However, they don't sit well with my GI tract. Maybe I have a bad gut biome but the bloat keeps me from using them much
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    It could be you're not used to the fiber content. I've found swapping breakfast out for some raw oats in milk or plain yogurt helped my general digestion (but of course, everyone is different).
  - JadeNB 6y ago
    Have you looked into low-FODMAP diets? The "full Monty" is way too restrictive, but, after a while on it, my wife tried a reduced-FODMAP diet that made a huge difference for her. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/fodmap-diet-what-you-need-to-know https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi...
    - bumby 6y ago
      I had not heard of this, thank you for sharing!
      - immy 6y ago
        Also enzymes can help Aka “prebiotics”
  - jbay808 6y ago
    You might be preparing them incorrectly. Try rinsing very thoroughly and flushing the water, and/or boiling them for longer.
  - boring_twenties 6y ago
    Seconding the suggestion that you might just be unused to the amount of fiber. I had to go on a high fiber diet for medical reasons a while back. I definitely had some side effects for a while, but I had no choice but to stick with it. Eventually they went away, but the benefits stayed.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  Anecdotally, it's an association problem. I'm well off, and eat lentils and rice on the regular. So do all my equally comfortable friends, whether it's from a healthy "whole foods" kind of mentality or just an enjoyment of tasty food. When I talk about food with my family who is lower income, they often dismiss those kinds of foods as being "poor people food" even to the extent of throwing a bit of shade when I send photos of lentil dishes I've prepared. They feel that because they can afford fast food and eating out, that they should almost like a weird wealth display. Their idea of treating someone to a good meal is a trip to a slightly nicer fast food restaurant. Obviously, this is a small sample size and is tied to my family so this is likely not a comprehensive answer but it's at least my observation on the matter.
  - Tiltowait-- 6y ago
    Being of low status, avoiding markers of low status is extremely important. You're not low status, so you can freely display such markers with no fear that anyone would conclude that you're lower class. It's an amazing privilege you have to be able to do such things in public, and a little empathy towards the little people would be greatly appreciated.
    - vorpalhex 6y ago
      > Being of low status, avoiding markers of low status is extremely important. Can you expand on this some more?
      - Tiltowait-- 6y ago
        OK, we humans don't know each other, so visible status markers are very important. Status is super important to us, even if we deny it is (anyone who says so already has high status). When you display low status markers like lentils, one of two things must be true: you're high status enough to display low status symbols and obviously nobody would think less of you for it, or you're actually low status. If you're actually low status, you're displaying your low status to the world. This is humiliating. It feels horrible and we humans avoid it like we avoid being burned to death in fires. My grandmother would never eat beans & rice because she was born Cajun, and she was taught that to be Cajun was shameful and low status. Due to their cultural backwardness, lack of education, their cuisine was things they found in the swamp. They were somewhat rehabilitated by the food revival in the 90s, but when she was a girl it was bad and she avoided displaying those status markers in public.
- ryanianian 6y ago
  Most of the cheaper spanish-food staples (corn, rice, quinoa, beans, plantains) are also very high in carbohydrates which can lead to spikes in blood-sugar. And most "healthy-eating" plans advise limiting carb intake. I didn't realize how sensitive I was to the blood-sugar spikes until I went on keto which strictly limits your carb intake. I no longer get the "sugar crash" 2-3 hours after eating. My grocery bills have gone up, primarily due to no longer being able to add filers like bread, rice, and grains which TFA calls "cheapened" food. Ordering spanish (or really any) food without these fillers reveals how little "real" food most restaurants actually serve.
  - bluedino 6y ago
    You're the exception. Most other people who won't eat beans will gladly eat bread etc.
  - PoachedSausage 6y ago
    Presumably the advice is to limit refined carbohydrates rather than the natural ones in fruit and vegetables.
  - CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
    I don’t think it’s that simple. I’d say it depends a lot on how much fiber you pack with the carbs. So quick sugar like carbs like highly processed wheat flour will not give you the same spike as say some whole grain rice that has been re-heated a few times (just as an example of how different carbs can be in composition, not saying you should always prepare food like this)
tkeAmarktinClss 6y ago
I'm not sure I totally agree about time expense being greater. Consider most fresh produce is Cheaper than processed food. And it can be eaten raw (or steamed easily in a microwave) I think education is the major factor here. Commercials will tell you that fast food is cheap, despite it not being cheap. And most people aren't aware how fast you can cook potatoes in a microwave or that kale tastes fine with dressing. Edit: Potatoes are high calorie. Top with oil.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Fresh produce is only cheaper than processed food if you consistently use it before it goes bad, which requires a pretty high level of meal planning ability. I consider myself a good cook and still regularly end up having to throw away spoiled food.
- theamk 6y ago
  A person needs about 2000 calories a day. It is extremely hard to get that much from fresh produce. You will need to cook something, and that takes may more tine than microwaving a hot pocket.
  - darth_avocado 6y ago
    It is actually easy to get 2000 calories a day on cheap ingredients from fresh produce. It has to do more with dietary habits and convenience than anything else. A cup of beans and a cup of rice can cost less than a hamburger and provide you more than 800 calories while not creating long term problems for your body. A $50 instapot, and you don't even have to actively cook. But well, hamburgers are tasty because of all that salt and sugar, while rice and beans aren't.
    - bluGill 6y ago
      Rice is not produce. Beans can be, but typically you are referring to dried beans (or canned) which are not fresh produce.
umvi 6y ago
I live in a poor-ish part of Maryland. The difference between my african american and ghana immigrant neighbors is striking. The african american neighbors are extremely obese and _constantly_ eating McDonalds (I can tell from the litter I clean up in the parking lot...). My ghana immigrant neighbors on the other hand are skinny as rails and can be seen hauling 10 pound bags of rice/beans/etc. into their house. It's often overlooked, but there's more than just money that passes between generations. Simple knowledge like "how to cook with unprocessed foods" is extremely valuable information to pass on to offspring. We need to somehow tackle that if we ever plan to help people entrenched in inter-generational poverty.
- spaceisballer 6y ago
  I think you are really getting at a very American thing that happened. Fast Food implies that it is food, but it’s certainly not nutritious food. We didn’t eat a lot of fast food growing up because we were poor, so it was a lot of casseroles or other items that had a lot of whatever we had around mixed together. High processed items are very easy to get a hold of and keep long, but what people don’t realize is that rice and beans and other dry items keep for a long time and are not expensive. So I guess what I’m getting at is that with the move to Fast Food in the US people stopped cooking. Maybe we think it’s hard, maybe we’re just lazy. I’ve really taken a look at my diet and it saves a lot of money to just cook at home (something I’ve really noticed during this social distancing) and it’s not hard. But it’s not like my parents really showed me how, I had to learn on my own. I hope fast food is a casualty of pandemic but we need to find work for those people.
- deleted 6y ago
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- baxtr 6y ago
  This. It may sound super strange but when I lived in the states my roommate of 30 something years asked me these two question: how did you cook the lovely tea yesterday? And: I loved your scrambled eggs, how did you make them? No kidding. She was very nice and we got along quite well, but that lack of basic food preparation knowledge was puzzling to me. I wonder what these people have been doing during the lockdown
darth_avocado 6y ago
> What do poor people tend to eat? Fast food burgers and other high calorie, low cost meals that are readily available. No prep/cook time, minimal cost (at least on the surface) and hot and palatable to most. I think it is a uniquely western problem. I know for a fact that for most of Asia and Africa, and even South America, cheap food doesn't include processed food. In fact, foods like lentils and rice tend to be a major parts of the diet. This is usually supplemented with some form of local crop (veggies or otherwise) or easily accessible wildlife (or farmed animals and birds).
- bluGill 6y ago
  The poor in western nations would still qualify as rich by world standards. However it is still the case that they are barely getting by, often with many objectively worse parts of life compared to the middle class elsewhere who live on less.
  - darth_avocado 6y ago
    That is absolutely correct.
  - gscott 6y ago
    As long as I can go to Wendy's and for $4 get a double stack, frys, 4 nuggets, and a soda I feel rich!
- justin66 6y ago
  The popularity and purchase of fast food are growing at a very steady rate in countries like China. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5129322/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5129322/ A more recent assessment would give a similar growth rate to the one cited in the paper (~13% annually), but for the last six months, COVID 19 has put a damper on things. > This is usually supplemented with some form of local crop (veggies or otherwise) or easily accessible wildlife (or farmed animals and birds). Since you're talking about "easily accessible wildlife," please keep in mind that urbanization in Asia and Africa is a big thing.
notyourday 6y ago
> What do poor people tend to eat? Fast food burgers and other high calorie, low cost meals that are readily available. No prep/cook time, minimal cost (at least on the surface) and hot and palatable to most. Poor people in urban America eat vegetables, pasta, meat sauce, rice, beans, chicken. That's why grocery stores targeting poor people (ethnic markets) make whole foods selection of actual food look like a store in the USSR. Junk food is what people who are not poor enough to cook and not rich enough to buy everything in wholefoods eat.
KineticLensman 6y ago
> processed food is selling convenience Yes. I've noticed a tendency for people to buy 'meals' rather than ingredients. I have relatives who look in my well-stocked larder and say "But there's nothing to eat!". They buy wholly prepared meals that just need reheating, and their idea of a complex meal is to put some diced chicken in a casserole with a jar of curry sauce bought in a supermarket.
LatteLazy 6y ago
Exactly. My current housemates are vegetarian, they make great food from scratch. But the only reason they can do that is because they shop every other day for fresh produce. And they have a shit tonne of experience in the kitchen. I do OK in the kitchen, but I have no idea what to put with artichoke or how to make soup from scratch without a receipie. Unless you have been taught both skills and how tk mix ingredients, it's just easier to pick up a packet of something and microwave it.

iagovar 6y ago

Why don't people want to eat lentils? I'm pretty lazy, and I make lentils with chorizo, potatoes, onion, carrot and a mix of vegetables and some condiments all the time. It's very easy to make, cheap and tastes fantastic with very little effort. Same with rice. It takes a little bit more to master rice, but lentils man it's the lazy meal for me. I also buy frozen vegetables that lasts who knows how much, and it tastes as good as with fresh ones. Most of spanish cuisine is cheap and more or less easy to make. I'm not really sure that processed food is cheaper. A pot of (again) lentils can last a bunch of days and costs nothing.

casion 6y ago
Can you expand on "very little effort". I think we may have very very different ideas of what that means.
- iagovar 6y ago
  If you're super lazy, you just put everything in the pot, and wait. Lentils Vegetables of your choosing Maybe two potatoes One or two average sized chorizos A bit of salt A bit of olive oil (something else if olive oil is expensive in your area) A bit of cooking wine Little bit of curry If you don't have soup from previous stuff, you put one of this chicken soup pills, IDK how to translate to english, this how it looks: https://pepekitchen.com/articulo/nueva-presentacion-de-las-pastillas-de-caldo-de-pollo-avecrem/ https://pepekitchen.com/articulo/nueva-presentacion-de-las-p... Fill with water, fire and forget until it's done. You can make it way tastier and more elaborated but this is the most lazy and basic plate, and still tastes good. Well, you still have to cut stuff for a few minutes, if that's any effort.
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    Bullion. In the US (and I think UK) there's also a dense liquid version (local brand name is "Better Than Bullion") which is quite a bit tastier imo.
    - detritus 6y ago
      *Bouillon - personally I'd prefer some bullion! :) And I don't think I've ever seen that here in the UK, although I have come across it on the internet beforehand, during a bit of a seach on OTS meat stock and such a few years back. My go-tos are the Knorr Stock Pots and Concentrated Meat stocks, which seem to have similar ingredient lists to yours.
      - ianmcgowan 6y ago
        OXO cubes or Bisto would be the UK equivalent? Or they were when I was a kid..
        KineticLensman 6y ago
        UK here. Oxo cubes are still a big thing, for those of us who cook. You can get them in Beef, Chicken, Lamb and Veg flavours. Perhaps others. If I'm cooking a vegetarian meal that needs stock I use Miso paste.
        detritus 6y ago
        Sorry, yes - I meant in relation to the person I was responding to, not OP - the bouillon gloop, rather than the cubes. I'd still suggest that Oxo cubes are different beasts to the cubes up there - again, i think Knorr would be an equivalent, as un-British a brand as it is. Not a fan of Oxo - weird composition and not very nice or meaty taste, to me anyway.
  - i_am_proteus 6y ago
    A can of crushed tomatoes instead of the cooking wine also yields a good stew. :)
  - 6y ago
- karanbhangui 6y ago
  Pressure cookers are amazing for this. I make lentil stews with 5-10 min of prep and 10 min unsupervised cook time (using Instant Pot).
- vsef 6y ago
  You put lentils in salted water and simmer for ~30 minutes, is the basic recipe. Unclear how this could be lower effort, its similar to boiling dried pasta. Even seasoning doesn't have to require chopping, smash a piece of garlic, don't even dice, throw it in, delish. I only ever make a full 1 lb bag of dried lentils or beans at a time, what you don't eat immediately stores well in a 1 gallon zip lock bag and keeps for longer than a week. Dish out half cup at a time and hit briefly in microwave. Lentils (and split peas) are the easiest legumes since they don't even require thinking ahead. But beans with a $60 slow cooker are arguably even lower effort.
  - gavinray 6y ago
    My problem is that cooking requires you to wait between 30-70 minutes for the food, disregarding any actual work you have to put in. I don't even eat oven-cooked premade meals because pre-heating the oven and cooking it takes so long by the time it finishes I could have driven somewhere and bought + ate food already. This might sound terrible, but since I was 16 and living on my own I've never eaten food that required cooking. Came up with entire mealplans of stuff you can buy that's pretty much ready to eat. Okay, ready to get grossed out? ---------- Breakfast (~$3.00, 600kcal, 50g protein) ---------- - Eggs, cracked on a plate/bowl and put in the microwave to cook over-medium, with salsa and cheese - Greek yogurt/Cottage cheese - Oats with milk and some sort of fake sugar and flavor extract (vanilla, almond, pumpkin)/cinnamon, etc, sometimes with whey - Fresh cucumber with no/lowfat italian vinagrette ---------- Lunch/Dinner ($4.00, 500-800kcal, 60-80g protein): ---------- - 12oz Canned chicken breast + turkey chili + cheese + tortilla chips (OR) - 12oz Canned chicken breast + canned field peas & snaps + green beans For years I also only owned a single plate/bowl and spoon and eat every meal with it, then washed it and put it back when I was done to avoid having to do dishes.
    - sp332 6y ago
      Well that is a bit impatient :) But you can get close to this by picking one day a week to make a bunch of meals ahead of time. Since there's not much to do while waiting for lentils to cook, you can prep and cook other things in parallel. Should take about an hour once you get the hang of it. Stash the meals in the fridge and then you just have to warm them up when you want to eat.
- redisman 6y ago
  It's low effort if you have something like a crockpot. If you don't then you get a lot longer series of steps.
  - notyourday 6y ago
    Crock pots are $20 in stores targeting poor people.
  - iagovar 6y ago
    Just a pot, cheapest one may be what, 5€, I mean I bet you can find something around that price in the US.
bumby 6y ago
I would love to be able to eat more beans and lentils because they are cheap, store well, relatively nutritious, and a fairly good alternative to meat. However, they don't sit well with my GI tract. Maybe I have a bad gut biome but the bloat keeps me from using them much
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  It could be you're not used to the fiber content. I've found swapping breakfast out for some raw oats in milk or plain yogurt helped my general digestion (but of course, everyone is different).
- JadeNB 6y ago
  Have you looked into low-FODMAP diets? The "full Monty" is way too restrictive, but, after a while on it, my wife tried a reduced-FODMAP diet that made a huge difference for her. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/fodmap-diet-what-you-need-to-know https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi...
  - bumby 6y ago
    I had not heard of this, thank you for sharing!
    - immy 6y ago
      Also enzymes can help Aka “prebiotics”
- jbay808 6y ago
  You might be preparing them incorrectly. Try rinsing very thoroughly and flushing the water, and/or boiling them for longer.
- boring_twenties 6y ago
  Seconding the suggestion that you might just be unused to the amount of fiber. I had to go on a high fiber diet for medical reasons a while back. I definitely had some side effects for a while, but I had no choice but to stick with it. Eventually they went away, but the benefits stayed.
vorpalhex 6y ago
Anecdotally, it's an association problem. I'm well off, and eat lentils and rice on the regular. So do all my equally comfortable friends, whether it's from a healthy "whole foods" kind of mentality or just an enjoyment of tasty food. When I talk about food with my family who is lower income, they often dismiss those kinds of foods as being "poor people food" even to the extent of throwing a bit of shade when I send photos of lentil dishes I've prepared. They feel that because they can afford fast food and eating out, that they should almost like a weird wealth display. Their idea of treating someone to a good meal is a trip to a slightly nicer fast food restaurant. Obviously, this is a small sample size and is tied to my family so this is likely not a comprehensive answer but it's at least my observation on the matter.
- Tiltowait-- 6y ago
  Being of low status, avoiding markers of low status is extremely important. You're not low status, so you can freely display such markers with no fear that anyone would conclude that you're lower class. It's an amazing privilege you have to be able to do such things in public, and a little empathy towards the little people would be greatly appreciated.
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    > Being of low status, avoiding markers of low status is extremely important. Can you expand on this some more?
    - Tiltowait-- 6y ago
      OK, we humans don't know each other, so visible status markers are very important. Status is super important to us, even if we deny it is (anyone who says so already has high status). When you display low status markers like lentils, one of two things must be true: you're high status enough to display low status symbols and obviously nobody would think less of you for it, or you're actually low status. If you're actually low status, you're displaying your low status to the world. This is humiliating. It feels horrible and we humans avoid it like we avoid being burned to death in fires. My grandmother would never eat beans & rice because she was born Cajun, and she was taught that to be Cajun was shameful and low status. Due to their cultural backwardness, lack of education, their cuisine was things they found in the swamp. They were somewhat rehabilitated by the food revival in the 90s, but when she was a girl it was bad and she avoided displaying those status markers in public.
ryanianian 6y ago
Most of the cheaper spanish-food staples (corn, rice, quinoa, beans, plantains) are also very high in carbohydrates which can lead to spikes in blood-sugar. And most "healthy-eating" plans advise limiting carb intake. I didn't realize how sensitive I was to the blood-sugar spikes until I went on keto which strictly limits your carb intake. I no longer get the "sugar crash" 2-3 hours after eating. My grocery bills have gone up, primarily due to no longer being able to add filers like bread, rice, and grains which TFA calls "cheapened" food. Ordering spanish (or really any) food without these fillers reveals how little "real" food most restaurants actually serve.
- bluedino 6y ago
  You're the exception. Most other people who won't eat beans will gladly eat bread etc.
- PoachedSausage 6y ago
  Presumably the advice is to limit refined carbohydrates rather than the natural ones in fruit and vegetables.
- CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
  I don’t think it’s that simple. I’d say it depends a lot on how much fiber you pack with the carbs. So quick sugar like carbs like highly processed wheat flour will not give you the same spike as say some whole grain rice that has been re-heated a few times (just as an example of how different carbs can be in composition, not saying you should always prepare food like this)

tkeAmarktinClss 6y ago

I'm not sure I totally agree about time expense being greater. Consider most fresh produce is Cheaper than processed food. And it can be eaten raw (or steamed easily in a microwave) I think education is the major factor here. Commercials will tell you that fast food is cheap, despite it not being cheap. And most people aren't aware how fast you can cook potatoes in a microwave or that kale tastes fine with dressing. Edit: Potatoes are high calorie. Top with oil.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Fresh produce is only cheaper than processed food if you consistently use it before it goes bad, which requires a pretty high level of meal planning ability. I consider myself a good cook and still regularly end up having to throw away spoiled food.
theamk 6y ago
A person needs about 2000 calories a day. It is extremely hard to get that much from fresh produce. You will need to cook something, and that takes may more tine than microwaving a hot pocket.
- darth_avocado 6y ago
  It is actually easy to get 2000 calories a day on cheap ingredients from fresh produce. It has to do more with dietary habits and convenience than anything else. A cup of beans and a cup of rice can cost less than a hamburger and provide you more than 800 calories while not creating long term problems for your body. A $50 instapot, and you don't even have to actively cook. But well, hamburgers are tasty because of all that salt and sugar, while rice and beans aren't.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Rice is not produce. Beans can be, but typically you are referring to dried beans (or canned) which are not fresh produce.

umvi 6y ago

I live in a poor-ish part of Maryland. The difference between my african american and ghana immigrant neighbors is striking. The african american neighbors are extremely obese and _constantly_ eating McDonalds (I can tell from the litter I clean up in the parking lot...). My ghana immigrant neighbors on the other hand are skinny as rails and can be seen hauling 10 pound bags of rice/beans/etc. into their house. It's often overlooked, but there's more than just money that passes between generations. Simple knowledge like "how to cook with unprocessed foods" is extremely valuable information to pass on to offspring. We need to somehow tackle that if we ever plan to help people entrenched in inter-generational poverty.

spaceisballer 6y ago
I think you are really getting at a very American thing that happened. Fast Food implies that it is food, but it’s certainly not nutritious food. We didn’t eat a lot of fast food growing up because we were poor, so it was a lot of casseroles or other items that had a lot of whatever we had around mixed together. High processed items are very easy to get a hold of and keep long, but what people don’t realize is that rice and beans and other dry items keep for a long time and are not expensive. So I guess what I’m getting at is that with the move to Fast Food in the US people stopped cooking. Maybe we think it’s hard, maybe we’re just lazy. I’ve really taken a look at my diet and it saves a lot of money to just cook at home (something I’ve really noticed during this social distancing) and it’s not hard. But it’s not like my parents really showed me how, I had to learn on my own. I hope fast food is a casualty of pandemic but we need to find work for those people.
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baxtr 6y ago
This. It may sound super strange but when I lived in the states my roommate of 30 something years asked me these two question: how did you cook the lovely tea yesterday? And: I loved your scrambled eggs, how did you make them? No kidding. She was very nice and we got along quite well, but that lack of basic food preparation knowledge was puzzling to me. I wonder what these people have been doing during the lockdown

darth_avocado 6y ago

> What do poor people tend to eat? Fast food burgers and other high calorie, low cost meals that are readily available. No prep/cook time, minimal cost (at least on the surface) and hot and palatable to most. I think it is a uniquely western problem. I know for a fact that for most of Asia and Africa, and even South America, cheap food doesn't include processed food. In fact, foods like lentils and rice tend to be a major parts of the diet. This is usually supplemented with some form of local crop (veggies or otherwise) or easily accessible wildlife (or farmed animals and birds).

bluGill 6y ago
The poor in western nations would still qualify as rich by world standards. However it is still the case that they are barely getting by, often with many objectively worse parts of life compared to the middle class elsewhere who live on less.
- darth_avocado 6y ago
  That is absolutely correct.
- gscott 6y ago
  As long as I can go to Wendy's and for $4 get a double stack, frys, 4 nuggets, and a soda I feel rich!
justin66 6y ago
The popularity and purchase of fast food are growing at a very steady rate in countries like China. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5129322/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5129322/ A more recent assessment would give a similar growth rate to the one cited in the paper (~13% annually), but for the last six months, COVID 19 has put a damper on things. > This is usually supplemented with some form of local crop (veggies or otherwise) or easily accessible wildlife (or farmed animals and birds). Since you're talking about "easily accessible wildlife," please keep in mind that urbanization in Asia and Africa is a big thing.

notyourday 6y ago

> What do poor people tend to eat? Fast food burgers and other high calorie, low cost meals that are readily available. No prep/cook time, minimal cost (at least on the surface) and hot and palatable to most. Poor people in urban America eat vegetables, pasta, meat sauce, rice, beans, chicken. That's why grocery stores targeting poor people (ethnic markets) make whole foods selection of actual food look like a store in the USSR. Junk food is what people who are not poor enough to cook and not rich enough to buy everything in wholefoods eat.

KineticLensman 6y ago

> processed food is selling convenience Yes. I've noticed a tendency for people to buy 'meals' rather than ingredients. I have relatives who look in my well-stocked larder and say "But there's nothing to eat!". They buy wholly prepared meals that just need reheating, and their idea of a complex meal is to put some diced chicken in a casserole with a jar of curry sauce bought in a supermarket.

LatteLazy 6y ago

Exactly. My current housemates are vegetarian, they make great food from scratch. But the only reason they can do that is because they shop every other day for fresh produce. And they have a shit tonne of experience in the kitchen. I do OK in the kitchen, but I have no idea what to put with artichoke or how to make soup from scratch without a receipie. Unless you have been taught both skills and how tk mix ingredients, it's just easier to pick up a packet of something and microwave it.