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I don't understand why Americans buy these kind of (expensive) processed and branded food products. Why not just buy pasta, the cheese (grate it if you want) an

I don't understand why Americans buy these kind of (expensive) processed and branded food products. Why not just buy pasta, the cheese (grate it if you want) and some other seasoning, as the raw individual ingredients? From there you can add chicken and fresh herbs. If you have a modern electric pressure cooker these kind of things are super simple to make, and with glass tupperware you can store and eat it over the next several days. Or am I missing something - are these branded products somehow cheaper than these recipes? Note: I am from Ukraine.

eloff 6y ago
I eat Annie's on a regular basis. I just add meat of some kind for protein. It's the convenience factor. Same reason I love microwave burritos with greek yogurt on the side. Time is a short, I just want something quick to make that's got a decent protein content.
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ketzo 6y ago
You can buy four servings of processed mac and cheese for about $2 USD. It's insanely cheap.
incanus77 6y ago
Besides laziness, which is never in short supply here, her product is shelf stable and keeps for a long time, unlike un-dehydrated fresh cheese. Also, cost probably is a factor. Even Annie's, which is more of a "premium" brand, can be had for around 1$ US per box, which could feed two people or so as part of a meal.
- sharkweek 6y ago
  Simpler than that: (and apologies in advance for confessing to having a basic palate here) boxed mac and cheese is pretty tasty.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    I'm kinda embarrassed to admit that annie's shells with white cheddar is better than any mac and cheese I've made from scratch. and I've tried a lot of recipes.
    - sharkweek 6y ago
      Hey, take SOME credit here, you had to mix all the boxed ingredients in a pan!
  - deleted 6y ago
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dangwu 6y ago
Do you not understand why fast food exists either? It’s cheap and easy.
- ArkanExplorer 6y ago
  In my country, McDonalds is an expensive restaurant, the kind you would take your girlfriend to if you wish to make amends with her. A meal there is about twice as expensive as a traditional meal at a traditional restaurant.
  - Falling3 6y ago
    What country is that?
    - tenacious_tuna 6y ago
      Listed in OP: > Note: I am from Ukraine.
  - turtlebits 6y ago
    Don't tell me that cheap, easy, unhealthy food doesn't exist in the Ukraine. Ask yourself why that exists and your question is answered.
    - oh_sigh 6y ago
      I feel like Ukraine and Russia have a strong view towards "whole"/organic/unprocessed foods. I've been told by multiple Russian friends that basically processed food gives you cancer and it will make you crazy, and that's the reason why Americans are fat but Russians are not.
zzzeek 6y ago
we make lots of fresh pasta but annies shells and cheddar has a very unique flavor you couldn't really replicate easily and we love it also.
mulmen 6y ago
The branded/boxed food is cheap and predictable. Your "simple as" process is three times as much work and five times as many ingredients and likely more expensive. After a long day assembling F150s or getting screamed at about how hot or cold some coffee is working class Americans just want to fill their stomachs and pass out. People don't want to figure out what kind of cheese to melt. They aren't delighted by a new kind of noodle. Modern electric pressure cookers are... modern, I didn't even know these things existed five years ago. People have their habits. These specialty appliances are also expensive. They also require a lot more cleanup than a single pot.
- ArkanExplorer 6y ago
  Electric pressure cookers require less cleanup and effort than 'traditional' cooking. Just clean the pot and wipe down the lid. You don't need to monitor the progress of boiling, you just pre-set the timer. The food comes out perfectly cooked and ready to eat. In the recipe I described above, you can cook everything in one pot - just add olive oil and the chicken in the bottom - it is not even necessary to cut up the chicken. I am a bachelor and cook almost 100% of my meals using a pressure cooker now. I rarely order takeout, it is so convenient.
  - mulmen 6y ago
    > Electric pressure cookers require less cleanup and effort than 'traditional' cooking. I own one, I use it all the time. This is false. I have to remove the seal, disassemble a valve and remove some components. A pot for mac and cheese just gets tossed in the dishwasher. This is especially false when you want to grate cheese (now I have to clean a cheese grater). Electric pressure cookers do not reduce the cleanup or prep at all. It replaces one pot, everything else is the same. Compare this to boil water, dump in a box contents, wait a few minutes. Clean ONE pot and ONE spoon. Every oven/cooktop I have ever used has a timer.
    - yellowapple 6y ago
      Hell, nowadays there are plastic "instant mac" bowls that are pre-measured to cook the noodles in the microwave. 1. Add noodles 2. Fill to line with water 3. Microwave for 2:30 4. Stir 5. Microwave for 2:00 6. Stir in cheese powder + liquid (butter, milk, or water, in my order of preference) 7. Serve Only one bowl to clean.
gooseyard 6y ago
there are an enormous number of people in the US who don't know how to cook and aren't interested in learning.
psychometry 6y ago
It's the new American Dream: Working a 9-hour day at one job (or at multiple jobs), spending an hour commuting because you can't afford to live closer to work, lacking access to fresh ingredients because your house is in a food desert, and having a family to feed. Box mac and cheese is the answer.
HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
Short answer: time and effort. I'm the main mealmaker in my family. I generally like cooking, but I get tired of doing it every day. Processed stuff like Rice-A-Roni or Kraft Mac & Cheese, or frozen pizza takes single minutes of my time and only the most minimal effort and will generally be eaten without complaint. As for cost, these items are pretty cheap averaging $1 or $2 per meal for three people. Maybe add some meat for another $2. That said, ISTR that Americans pay proportionally less of their income for food than anywhere else in the world, so food, processed or not is fairly inexpensive. Yeah, I know there are other cheap, fast meals I can make starting from raw ingredients: I'm a fairly good cook. However, as I mentioned above, sometimes I simply don't feel like it.
- roland35 6y ago
  When I was a kid, I used to love Mac and cheese dinner night! Now as a parent, I love Mac and cheese night even more! I can get both kids fed in 5 minutes and everyone is happy.
- mynameisash 6y ago
  I don't disagree, but I think a lot of people have skewed perception of cost and effort in cooking. The two complaints I hear from people are generally, "But I don't know what I'm going to _want_ to eat until it's dinner time!" and "It's too hard/I don't know how to cook." I love to cook and bake, though I have the luxury of doing it when I want to. (My wife usually does most of it). I can make a batch of bread dough for three baguettes in under three minutes. Letting it rise takes no time, though it does require some foresight. Baking is only a few extra minutes of additional effort. I think I calculated that one baguette costs me about $0.17 of ingredients, almost all going toward flour, which I buy in bulk. It's also delicious - frankly, much better than anything I've bought anywhere else except for the boulangeries in France.
  - natdempk 6y ago
    Can you share a recipe for this please? I’d love to make quick and delicious baguettes!
tenacious_tuna 6y ago
> why Americans buy these kind of (expensive) processed and branded food products (1) as other commenters have mentioned, these products tend to be remarkably cheap in money (~$0.50/serving) and are shelf-stable (2) the USA has a rather poor culture around food preparation, in my experience--especially in poor households. When money and especially time/effort are in short supply, boxed meals (or fast food, etc) are absolutely essential, especially when juggling multiple jobs/kids/whatnot. Shelf-stable is an added bonus, allowing these to be stockpiled when on sale. Further, boxed mac (or canned soup, etc) are things that can be trusted to a child to make while unsupervised: again, a huge force-multiplier for busy households (parent taking kid 1 to sport, kid 2 alone at home, or kids 1&2 home alone while parent at work, etc) Even when time and other resources are available, many Americans simply aren't very interested in preparing their own food, especially not if they're a single-person household. After a day of work, with nobody to share the bounty of cooking with, it's difficult to argue putting the time/effort/creativity into a meal vs. 15 mins over the stove with some premade stuff. I say all this as someone who adores cooking, and finds it remarkably good stress-relief. I have a partner I can share dishes (and responsibility) with, and we love a variety of cuisines and being capable of making our own healthy food--but even so we also both love being able to make boxed mac for lunch every now and again. It's simple, and a hell of a lot cheaper than eating out.
primitivesuave 6y ago
My parents didn’t have much money growing up, but they would always do what you described - get the raw ingredients and make it to their own health/taste preferences. They are immigrants from India, where this is the norm for all levels of income. Many of my friends growing up had parents working multiple jobs or long hours, who wouldn’t have the time or energy to do this. I had one friend whose single mother wouldn’t come home until 10 PM, so he prepared pre-packaged meals for dinner every night. If you compare the costs, it’s ~$2-4 per meal in a box, compared to $20-30 to get all the ingredients for meal preparation. Many Americans simply don’t have this amount of cash, and food stamp programs are insufficient in allowing for healthy eating habits. With the rise of Walmart and Dollar General across America, prepackaged meals seem to be a dominant meal option (I don’t have any data on this, this is just from comparing shopping carts at Walmart vs Whole Foods).
- bluedino 6y ago
  Walmart has cheap potatoes, carrots, onion, rice, pasta. My mom mad macaroni and cheese with regular elbow noodles and a couple slices of American cheese. We added ketchup.
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sjg007 6y ago
My kids don't like cheese. Instant Mac has no cheese as we like to say.
rhmw2b 6y ago
Where I live in the US any kind of fresh herbs except for maybe parsley and cilantro costs more than a box of mac and cheese. My kids eat it occasionally (maybe once a month) because they like it, it's cheap, and takes about 10 minutes to make. Still, >90% of what we eat is home made from scratch. I don't know anyone who eats processed foods for the majority of their diet, though I'm sure some people out there do.
oivey 6y ago
For one, you can’t make mac and cheese with just pasta, cheese, and seasoning. The cheese won’t melt correctly. You need to make a roux or use a modern method like incorporating evaporated milk or sodium citrate. Lack of knowledge of how to cook is a big reason why people buy this stuff, on top of convenience.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  Pasta and cheese that isn't in a sauce is pretty good too.
- bluedino 6y ago
  This is where Velveeta comes in
- rng_civ 6y ago
  I've gotten some pretty good results just using the left over pasta-water with some flour. AFAIK, the cheese I'm using doesn't have anything particularly special (some cheap hard cheddar). I don't even grate it, just chop it up a little before adding it to the water.
  - oivey 6y ago
    Flour is the key component in a roux. The only difference is cooking the flour in some butter to remove the raw flavor. FYI, that combination is called a béchamel sauce. Edit: actually béchamel had some milk also, but yeah
Falling3 6y ago
One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet is shelf-stability. Even if you love to cook, it's nice knowing you have a backup sitting in the pantry just in case you're feeling tired or don't have a chance to go shopping.
yellowapple 6y ago
Having come from a working class American family (one which considered even Kraft, let alone Annie's, a luxury), it's the intersection of four aspects: 1. Cheap; yeah, pasta is cheap either way, but real cheese (at least the sort that'd actually be decent in mac and cheese) often ain't 2. Non-perishable; this means we could buy in bulk and not have to worry so much about shelf life, further amplifying Aspect #1 3. Quick; if you just came home from a long day at work, you're not likely to have the energy to prepare some elaborate home-cooked meal every night, so the trusty 'ol blue box it is 4. Easy; one of the first things I learned how to cook when I was growing up was packaged mac and cheese (be it Kraft or some generic brand) - all the ingredients except for water (and, optionally, milk/butter) are right there in the box These four aspects are applicable for a lot of prepackaged food here in the US. Even if you do add other ingredients (milk/butter to Kraft Dinner, ground beef to Hamburger Helper, etc.), having most of it already ready to go - and cheaply at that - is a godsend for any working class family. And sure, this didn't mean we always ate the prepackaged stuff (my stepmom and stepdad both happened to enjoy cooking from scratch on various occasions, and sometimes it is indeed cheaper to go scratch-made than prepackaged), but it was indeed a staple.
- Swizec 6y ago
  > Quick; if you just came home from a long day at work, you're not likely to have the energy to prepare some elaborate home-cooked meal every night, so the trusty 'ol blue box it is Mac&cheese is quick. Even from raw ingredients. Maybe this is cultural, but growing up in Europe with a single-mom who worked 2 jobs ... we had homecooked meals only. Store-bought pre-packaged stuff was too expensive and unhealthy. Takes about 20min to cook a nice weekday meal based on whatever's in the fridge. You pack the fridge on weekends.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    so first of all, there's really no way mac and cheese is healthy unless you serve it with a side of brussels sprouts. it's comfort food. aside from that, I think there must be some regional price differences here. a box of annie's mac and cheese is like $1.50, which goes down if you buy in bulk. if you're fancy you can add a pad of butter and/or some whole milk, but otherwise that's $1.50 to feed two people. an 8oz block of cheddar cheese is already $2 at target, and you still have to buy the pasta, milk etc. mac and cheese is a surprisingly expensive food to cook at home though. I could definitely make a rice and beans for less money.
deathanatos 6y ago
> I don't understand why Americans buy these kind of (expensive) processed and branded food products. Why not just buy pasta, the cheese (grate it if you want) and some other seasoning, as the raw individual ingredients? My SO has a delicious home-made mac and cheese. It was really hard to find the cheese at Safeway; there were nights I check multiple Safeways. It is just white American. (But not "American" cheese, which is yellow, and has a completely different taste.) As another commenter mentions, you need the right cheese, as it needs to melt correctly. My understanding is that this is the presence of emulsifiers that cause the cheese to melt correctly, which white American has. My understanding is that, actually, cheese does not, and white American is technically called "cheese product" because it is has emulsifiers mixed it. (So it's not technically cheese anymore.) (Which is weird, because my understanding for parm in other recipes is opposite: that the cheap parm often doesn't melt correctly b/c it is usually adulterated with cellulose (e.g., wood pulp / plant matter). So I might not have this completely correct. But then, wood pulp is likely also not an emulsifier.) (We also sometimes cut it with ham, and that is also surprisingly out of stock often. (The small sized ones; I can't use a giant/full sized ham as it would rot.))
dekhn 6y ago
mac and cheese is made witha cheese sauce- it's not just grated cheese. You have to make a flour/butter emulsion and make a cheese sauce from that. I grew up eating mac & cheese and didn't even realize it was just elbow noodles and cheese sauce.
goodolusa_ 6y ago
It’s interesting seeing all these comments. I grew up poor in Chicago. My mom left when I was one and my dad raised me by himself - truck and forklift driver. Not once have I ever had fast food. We never ate highly processed foods, ever. You think that Europeans don’t also have lots of kids and are poor? They still make fresh food. I find processed food disgusting and it’s incredibly unhealthy. People don’t cook because it’s obviously not a priority. But if you look at the impacts of eating crappy food, one might change their mind.
dang 6y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26596627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26596627.
sneak 6y ago
A lot of sibling comments are talking about shelf stability, which only tells part of the story. > From there you can add chicken and fresh herbs. Due to the car-centric nature of the US, where it is really common to be over 2km from a market, and a trip to the market requires a) driving there, b) parking, c) driving back, the average USian visits the supermarket less frequently than people in other countries because it's more time and resource intensive. This results in larger trips (shopping carts occur in 100% of markets, and also Costco is a thing) and more processed foods with preservatives due to increased time between trips requiring longer shelf life. Fresh herbs, unprocessed cheese, non-shitty bread, et c - these are way more common in societies that visit the store every 48h (or sometimes even every 24h if there's a bakery on the corner of your block that you pass on foot every day) as opposed to the USA where you might only go to the market every 5-14 days. Just one more way in which the religion- and racism-motivated US shift to single family detached homes and suburbs cratered the population density and took neighborhoods, sidewalks/walking, camaraderie, local exploration, and fresh groceries along with it as collateral damage.
- quantumwannabe 6y ago
  Stop it with the blind nationalism. You've clearly never been to an American grocery store. Literally everything you describe is available at Walmart (fresh herbs, unprocessed cheese, non-shitty bread), and more expensive grocery stores have even more variety and higher quality.
  - sneak 6y ago
    I've been to Wal-mart, Trader Joes, Whole Foods, Kroger, Meijer, Safeway, and many others many, many times, as I was born and raised in the USA and didn't even visit anywhere else until I was nearly 30. I don't think that you and I are talking about the same things when we say "unprocessed cheese" or "non-shitty bread". Wal-mart has, in the scheme of cheese and bread available on earth, an absolutely abysmal selection - this remains so even when compared against the US more widely. Part of this is Wal-mart's focus on a very limited number of suppliers that have many different brands/logos. Even the mozzarella balls in brine sold in the "fancy" grocery stores are full of adulterants and other things you'd never find in quality cheese. The "fresh" bread from the bakery is lower in preservatives than the bagged stuff, but is nowhere near "good". The worst bakery in any major city in Europe has bread an order of magnitude better than any chain grocery store's "fresh bread" bakery section. (That's not nationalism: you can pick any of a dozen countries to compare.) ...and in many places in the US, that's the only/best available within a 20-30 minute drive. Food deserts (another growing problem) are even worse. US grocery stores are very bright and shiny and have many different brands available, but the hidden structure is that almost all of those widely available come from a vanishingly small number of conglomerated suppliers, oftentimes using processes or ingredients that are banned in other countries on safety and health concerns. Even the "quality" (aka fancily packaged, more expensive) stuff comes from the same conglomerates and suffers the same problems.
r00fus 6y ago
> I don't understand why Americans buy these kind of (expensive) processed and branded food products. Why not just buy pasta, the cheese (grate it if you want) and some other seasoning, as the raw individual ingredients? Same reason we don't all run OpenWRT on our home routers - yes, it's objectively better and possibly cheaper but most of us don't have the time to prepare the meals ALL the time. For us, the kids prefer it (even over homemade), and once a week we let them make it themselves for lunch. Done and done.

eloff 6y ago

I eat Annie's on a regular basis. I just add meat of some kind for protein. It's the convenience factor. Same reason I love microwave burritos with greek yogurt on the side. Time is a short, I just want something quick to make that's got a decent protein content.

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ketzo 6y ago

You can buy four servings of processed mac and cheese for about $2 USD. It's insanely cheap.

incanus77 6y ago

Besides laziness, which is never in short supply here, her product is shelf stable and keeps for a long time, unlike un-dehydrated fresh cheese. Also, cost probably is a factor. Even Annie's, which is more of a "premium" brand, can be had for around 1$ US per box, which could feed two people or so as part of a meal.

sharkweek 6y ago
Simpler than that: (and apologies in advance for confessing to having a basic palate here) boxed mac and cheese is pretty tasty.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  I'm kinda embarrassed to admit that annie's shells with white cheddar is better than any mac and cheese I've made from scratch. and I've tried a lot of recipes.
  - sharkweek 6y ago
    Hey, take SOME credit here, you had to mix all the boxed ingredients in a pan!
- deleted 6y ago
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dangwu 6y ago

Do you not understand why fast food exists either? It’s cheap and easy.

ArkanExplorer 6y ago
In my country, McDonalds is an expensive restaurant, the kind you would take your girlfriend to if you wish to make amends with her. A meal there is about twice as expensive as a traditional meal at a traditional restaurant.
- Falling3 6y ago
  What country is that?
  - tenacious_tuna 6y ago
    Listed in OP: > Note: I am from Ukraine.
- turtlebits 6y ago
  Don't tell me that cheap, easy, unhealthy food doesn't exist in the Ukraine. Ask yourself why that exists and your question is answered.
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    I feel like Ukraine and Russia have a strong view towards "whole"/organic/unprocessed foods. I've been told by multiple Russian friends that basically processed food gives you cancer and it will make you crazy, and that's the reason why Americans are fat but Russians are not.

zzzeek 6y ago

we make lots of fresh pasta but annies shells and cheddar has a very unique flavor you couldn't really replicate easily and we love it also.

mulmen 6y ago

The branded/boxed food is cheap and predictable. Your "simple as" process is three times as much work and five times as many ingredients and likely more expensive. After a long day assembling F150s or getting screamed at about how hot or cold some coffee is working class Americans just want to fill their stomachs and pass out. People don't want to figure out what kind of cheese to melt. They aren't delighted by a new kind of noodle. Modern electric pressure cookers are... modern, I didn't even know these things existed five years ago. People have their habits. These specialty appliances are also expensive. They also require a lot more cleanup than a single pot.

ArkanExplorer 6y ago
Electric pressure cookers require less cleanup and effort than 'traditional' cooking. Just clean the pot and wipe down the lid. You don't need to monitor the progress of boiling, you just pre-set the timer. The food comes out perfectly cooked and ready to eat. In the recipe I described above, you can cook everything in one pot - just add olive oil and the chicken in the bottom - it is not even necessary to cut up the chicken. I am a bachelor and cook almost 100% of my meals using a pressure cooker now. I rarely order takeout, it is so convenient.
- mulmen 6y ago
  > Electric pressure cookers require less cleanup and effort than 'traditional' cooking. I own one, I use it all the time. This is false. I have to remove the seal, disassemble a valve and remove some components. A pot for mac and cheese just gets tossed in the dishwasher. This is especially false when you want to grate cheese (now I have to clean a cheese grater). Electric pressure cookers do not reduce the cleanup or prep at all. It replaces one pot, everything else is the same. Compare this to boil water, dump in a box contents, wait a few minutes. Clean ONE pot and ONE spoon. Every oven/cooktop I have ever used has a timer.
  - yellowapple 6y ago
    Hell, nowadays there are plastic "instant mac" bowls that are pre-measured to cook the noodles in the microwave. 1. Add noodles 2. Fill to line with water 3. Microwave for 2:30 4. Stir 5. Microwave for 2:00 6. Stir in cheese powder + liquid (butter, milk, or water, in my order of preference) 7. Serve Only one bowl to clean.

gooseyard 6y ago

there are an enormous number of people in the US who don't know how to cook and aren't interested in learning.

psychometry 6y ago

It's the new American Dream: Working a 9-hour day at one job (or at multiple jobs), spending an hour commuting because you can't afford to live closer to work, lacking access to fresh ingredients because your house is in a food desert, and having a family to feed. Box mac and cheese is the answer.

HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago

Short answer: time and effort. I'm the main mealmaker in my family. I generally like cooking, but I get tired of doing it every day. Processed stuff like Rice-A-Roni or Kraft Mac & Cheese, or frozen pizza takes single minutes of my time and only the most minimal effort and will generally be eaten without complaint. As for cost, these items are pretty cheap averaging $1 or $2 per meal for three people. Maybe add some meat for another $2. That said, ISTR that Americans pay proportionally less of their income for food than anywhere else in the world, so food, processed or not is fairly inexpensive. Yeah, I know there are other cheap, fast meals I can make starting from raw ingredients: I'm a fairly good cook. However, as I mentioned above, sometimes I simply don't feel like it.

roland35 6y ago
When I was a kid, I used to love Mac and cheese dinner night! Now as a parent, I love Mac and cheese night even more! I can get both kids fed in 5 minutes and everyone is happy.
mynameisash 6y ago
I don't disagree, but I think a lot of people have skewed perception of cost and effort in cooking. The two complaints I hear from people are generally, "But I don't know what I'm going to _want_ to eat until it's dinner time!" and "It's too hard/I don't know how to cook." I love to cook and bake, though I have the luxury of doing it when I want to. (My wife usually does most of it). I can make a batch of bread dough for three baguettes in under three minutes. Letting it rise takes no time, though it does require some foresight. Baking is only a few extra minutes of additional effort. I think I calculated that one baguette costs me about $0.17 of ingredients, almost all going toward flour, which I buy in bulk. It's also delicious - frankly, much better than anything I've bought anywhere else except for the boulangeries in France.
- natdempk 6y ago
  Can you share a recipe for this please? I’d love to make quick and delicious baguettes!

tenacious_tuna 6y ago

> why Americans buy these kind of (expensive) processed and branded food products (1) as other commenters have mentioned, these products tend to be remarkably cheap in money (~$0.50/serving) and are shelf-stable (2) the USA has a rather poor culture around food preparation, in my experience--especially in poor households. When money and especially time/effort are in short supply, boxed meals (or fast food, etc) are absolutely essential, especially when juggling multiple jobs/kids/whatnot. Shelf-stable is an added bonus, allowing these to be stockpiled when on sale. Further, boxed mac (or canned soup, etc) are things that can be trusted to a child to make while unsupervised: again, a huge force-multiplier for busy households (parent taking kid 1 to sport, kid 2 alone at home, or kids 1&2 home alone while parent at work, etc) Even when time and other resources are available, many Americans simply aren't very interested in preparing their own food, especially not if they're a single-person household. After a day of work, with nobody to share the bounty of cooking with, it's difficult to argue putting the time/effort/creativity into a meal vs. 15 mins over the stove with some premade stuff. I say all this as someone who adores cooking, and finds it remarkably good stress-relief. I have a partner I can share dishes (and responsibility) with, and we love a variety of cuisines and being capable of making our own healthy food--but even so we also both love being able to make boxed mac for lunch every now and again. It's simple, and a hell of a lot cheaper than eating out.

primitivesuave 6y ago

My parents didn’t have much money growing up, but they would always do what you described - get the raw ingredients and make it to their own health/taste preferences. They are immigrants from India, where this is the norm for all levels of income. Many of my friends growing up had parents working multiple jobs or long hours, who wouldn’t have the time or energy to do this. I had one friend whose single mother wouldn’t come home until 10 PM, so he prepared pre-packaged meals for dinner every night. If you compare the costs, it’s ~$2-4 per meal in a box, compared to $20-30 to get all the ingredients for meal preparation. Many Americans simply don’t have this amount of cash, and food stamp programs are insufficient in allowing for healthy eating habits. With the rise of Walmart and Dollar General across America, prepackaged meals seem to be a dominant meal option (I don’t have any data on this, this is just from comparing shopping carts at Walmart vs Whole Foods).

bluedino 6y ago
Walmart has cheap potatoes, carrots, onion, rice, pasta. My mom mad macaroni and cheese with regular elbow noodles and a couple slices of American cheese. We added ketchup.

deleted 6y ago

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sjg007 6y ago

My kids don't like cheese. Instant Mac has no cheese as we like to say.

rhmw2b 6y ago

Where I live in the US any kind of fresh herbs except for maybe parsley and cilantro costs more than a box of mac and cheese. My kids eat it occasionally (maybe once a month) because they like it, it's cheap, and takes about 10 minutes to make. Still, >90% of what we eat is home made from scratch. I don't know anyone who eats processed foods for the majority of their diet, though I'm sure some people out there do.

oivey 6y ago

For one, you can’t make mac and cheese with just pasta, cheese, and seasoning. The cheese won’t melt correctly. You need to make a roux or use a modern method like incorporating evaporated milk or sodium citrate. Lack of knowledge of how to cook is a big reason why people buy this stuff, on top of convenience.

maxerickson 6y ago
Pasta and cheese that isn't in a sauce is pretty good too.
bluedino 6y ago
This is where Velveeta comes in
rng_civ 6y ago
I've gotten some pretty good results just using the left over pasta-water with some flour. AFAIK, the cheese I'm using doesn't have anything particularly special (some cheap hard cheddar). I don't even grate it, just chop it up a little before adding it to the water.
- oivey 6y ago
  Flour is the key component in a roux. The only difference is cooking the flour in some butter to remove the raw flavor. FYI, that combination is called a béchamel sauce. Edit: actually béchamel had some milk also, but yeah

Falling3 6y ago

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet is shelf-stability. Even if you love to cook, it's nice knowing you have a backup sitting in the pantry just in case you're feeling tired or don't have a chance to go shopping.

yellowapple 6y ago

Having come from a working class American family (one which considered even Kraft, let alone Annie's, a luxury), it's the intersection of four aspects: 1. Cheap; yeah, pasta is cheap either way, but real cheese (at least the sort that'd actually be decent in mac and cheese) often ain't 2. Non-perishable; this means we could buy in bulk and not have to worry so much about shelf life, further amplifying Aspect #1 3. Quick; if you just came home from a long day at work, you're not likely to have the energy to prepare some elaborate home-cooked meal every night, so the trusty 'ol blue box it is 4. Easy; one of the first things I learned how to cook when I was growing up was packaged mac and cheese (be it Kraft or some generic brand) - all the ingredients except for water (and, optionally, milk/butter) are right there in the box These four aspects are applicable for a lot of prepackaged food here in the US. Even if you do add other ingredients (milk/butter to Kraft Dinner, ground beef to Hamburger Helper, etc.), having most of it already ready to go - and cheaply at that - is a godsend for any working class family. And sure, this didn't mean we always ate the prepackaged stuff (my stepmom and stepdad both happened to enjoy cooking from scratch on various occasions, and sometimes it is indeed cheaper to go scratch-made than prepackaged), but it was indeed a staple.

Swizec 6y ago
> Quick; if you just came home from a long day at work, you're not likely to have the energy to prepare some elaborate home-cooked meal every night, so the trusty 'ol blue box it is Mac&cheese is quick. Even from raw ingredients. Maybe this is cultural, but growing up in Europe with a single-mom who worked 2 jobs ... we had homecooked meals only. Store-bought pre-packaged stuff was too expensive and unhealthy. Takes about 20min to cook a nice weekday meal based on whatever's in the fridge. You pack the fridge on weekends.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  so first of all, there's really no way mac and cheese is healthy unless you serve it with a side of brussels sprouts. it's comfort food. aside from that, I think there must be some regional price differences here. a box of annie's mac and cheese is like $1.50, which goes down if you buy in bulk. if you're fancy you can add a pad of butter and/or some whole milk, but otherwise that's $1.50 to feed two people. an 8oz block of cheddar cheese is already $2 at target, and you still have to buy the pasta, milk etc. mac and cheese is a surprisingly expensive food to cook at home though. I could definitely make a rice and beans for less money.

deathanatos 6y ago

> I don't understand why Americans buy these kind of (expensive) processed and branded food products. Why not just buy pasta, the cheese (grate it if you want) and some other seasoning, as the raw individual ingredients? My SO has a delicious home-made mac and cheese. It was really hard to find the cheese at Safeway; there were nights I check multiple Safeways. It is just white American. (But not "American" cheese, which is yellow, and has a completely different taste.) As another commenter mentions, you need the right cheese, as it needs to melt correctly. My understanding is that this is the presence of emulsifiers that cause the cheese to melt correctly, which white American has. My understanding is that, actually, cheese does not, and white American is technically called "cheese product" because it is has emulsifiers mixed it. (So it's not technically cheese anymore.) (Which is weird, because my understanding for parm in other recipes is opposite: that the cheap parm often doesn't melt correctly b/c it is usually adulterated with cellulose (e.g., wood pulp / plant matter). So I might not have this completely correct. But then, wood pulp is likely also not an emulsifier.) (We also sometimes cut it with ham, and that is also surprisingly out of stock often. (The small sized ones; I can't use a giant/full sized ham as it would rot.))

dekhn 6y ago

mac and cheese is made witha cheese sauce- it's not just grated cheese. You have to make a flour/butter emulsion and make a cheese sauce from that. I grew up eating mac & cheese and didn't even realize it was just elbow noodles and cheese sauce.

goodolusa_ 6y ago

It’s interesting seeing all these comments. I grew up poor in Chicago. My mom left when I was one and my dad raised me by himself - truck and forklift driver. Not once have I ever had fast food. We never ate highly processed foods, ever. You think that Europeans don’t also have lots of kids and are poor? They still make fresh food. I find processed food disgusting and it’s incredibly unhealthy. People don’t cook because it’s obviously not a priority. But if you look at the impacts of eating crappy food, one might change their mind.

dang 6y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26596627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26596627.

sneak 6y ago

A lot of sibling comments are talking about shelf stability, which only tells part of the story. > From there you can add chicken and fresh herbs. Due to the car-centric nature of the US, where it is really common to be over 2km from a market, and a trip to the market requires a) driving there, b) parking, c) driving back, the average USian visits the supermarket less frequently than people in other countries because it's more time and resource intensive. This results in larger trips (shopping carts occur in 100% of markets, and also Costco is a thing) and more processed foods with preservatives due to increased time between trips requiring longer shelf life. Fresh herbs, unprocessed cheese, non-shitty bread, et c - these are way more common in societies that visit the store every 48h (or sometimes even every 24h if there's a bakery on the corner of your block that you pass on foot every day) as opposed to the USA where you might only go to the market every 5-14 days. Just one more way in which the religion- and racism-motivated US shift to single family detached homes and suburbs cratered the population density and took neighborhoods, sidewalks/walking, camaraderie, local exploration, and fresh groceries along with it as collateral damage.

quantumwannabe 6y ago
Stop it with the blind nationalism. You've clearly never been to an American grocery store. Literally everything you describe is available at Walmart (fresh herbs, unprocessed cheese, non-shitty bread), and more expensive grocery stores have even more variety and higher quality.
- sneak 6y ago
  I've been to Wal-mart, Trader Joes, Whole Foods, Kroger, Meijer, Safeway, and many others many, many times, as I was born and raised in the USA and didn't even visit anywhere else until I was nearly 30. I don't think that you and I are talking about the same things when we say "unprocessed cheese" or "non-shitty bread". Wal-mart has, in the scheme of cheese and bread available on earth, an absolutely abysmal selection - this remains so even when compared against the US more widely. Part of this is Wal-mart's focus on a very limited number of suppliers that have many different brands/logos. Even the mozzarella balls in brine sold in the "fancy" grocery stores are full of adulterants and other things you'd never find in quality cheese. The "fresh" bread from the bakery is lower in preservatives than the bagged stuff, but is nowhere near "good". The worst bakery in any major city in Europe has bread an order of magnitude better than any chain grocery store's "fresh bread" bakery section. (That's not nationalism: you can pick any of a dozen countries to compare.) ...and in many places in the US, that's the only/best available within a 20-30 minute drive. Food deserts (another growing problem) are even worse. US grocery stores are very bright and shiny and have many different brands available, but the hidden structure is that almost all of those widely available come from a vanishingly small number of conglomerated suppliers, oftentimes using processes or ingredients that are banned in other countries on safety and health concerns. Even the "quality" (aka fancily packaged, more expensive) stuff comes from the same conglomerates and suffers the same problems.

r00fus 6y ago

> I don't understand why Americans buy these kind of (expensive) processed and branded food products. Why not just buy pasta, the cheese (grate it if you want) and some other seasoning, as the raw individual ingredients? Same reason we don't all run OpenWRT on our home routers - yes, it's objectively better and possibly cheaper but most of us don't have the time to prepare the meals ALL the time. For us, the kids prefer it (even over homemade), and once a week we let them make it themselves for lunch. Done and done.