2 ms·

> The U.S. food supply is awash in cheap calories. And when you're on a tight budget or relying on benefits like SNAP (food stamps), processed foods like chips

> The U.S. food supply is awash in cheap calories. And when you're on a tight budget or relying on benefits like SNAP (food stamps), processed foods like chips and soda can set you back less than fresh produce. How is this even remotely true? Fresh produce is cheap. A 13oz bag of potato chips at Wal-Mart costs more than a 5lb bag of potatoes. An eggplant is $2.50. Dried beans are 8c an ounce. It's hard to take stuff like this seriously when the writer themselves doesn't know what it's like being poor (or even seem to do any grocery shopping)! These ideas seem pretty lame because because they all assume the only solutions are moralist ones - people are making bad choices and we need them to make better ones.

xhkkffbf 4y ago
Please don't let facts get in the way. Of course the raw materials are cheaper, especially if purchased with some care and not at some fancy, organic market. My feeling, though, is that the people making these arguments want to hide their moralism. So they talk about things like "cheap calories" and "food deserts" even those these ideas don't stand up to scrutiny. They don't want to blame the people making decisions they don't like so they want to imagine that it's because of external forces. But the fact remains that if you're smart about it, you can live well on very little. This article from 2010 describes how a hipster foodie was shocked how well he could live on food stamps, all by being a bit careful and cooking for himself. https://www.salon.com/2010/03/16/hipsters_food_stamps_pinched/ https://www.salon.com/2010/03/16/hipsters_food_stamps_pinche...
jjk166 4y ago
While the author very clearly is at least a bit out of touch (no one's living off chips and soda), the fact is that cheap calories do tend to come from unhealthy sources, particularly if they make up the bulk of your diet. For example peanut butter on white bread - super cheap and quick to make, but living off of it is going to ruin your body. The biggest issues are the hidden costs of healthy foods. When people complain about processed foods, they often forget what the point of processing the food is: making it last longer. You can buy lots of it and store it for long periods of time without much difficulty. For fresh produce you're buying smaller amounts (less discounted) and you need to buy it more frequently (more time wasted shopping, higher commuting costs). Then of course there is cooking - when you've been slaving away at a low paying job all day, the prospect of spending an hour and a half preparing something nice is extremely unappealing compared to something you can just stick in the microwave for 2 minutes. The mass produced and highly processed foods are optimized for convenience - they cook quickly and consistently with minimal effort. Honestly this more than price alone is likely the reason the nominally wealthiest nation in the world has such poor nutrition. Even at minimum wage, a half hour difference in cooking time probably dwarfs the price of the actual difference in price between two food brands for all but the most expensive options. The claim people just need to make better choices is a non-starter. Essentially no one wants to be fat and unhealthy, and all else being equal would not choose to be. But all else is not equal. Other factors are influencing the decision making process such that eating unhealthily is the lesser of two evils. If you want people to make different choices, you need to address why they are making their current choices, regardless of what those factors may be.
- tharkun__ 4y ago
  Your example of what will ruin your body is interesting. Peanut butter and white bread. But why is that going to ruin your body? Pure peanut butter is actually quite healthy. It's got lots of good fats and other nutrients. Just don't buy it salted or sugary and leave out the white bread. Put it on vegetables, made into a sauce. The vegetables can be frozen and the sauce is made in the time it takes to microwave unfreeze and 'cook' the frozen veggies. Just to counter your "microwave for 2 minutes" example. Another great, filling and healthy choice: frozen peas, microwaved, put Mayo on top, stir. And those are just to replace the quick "white bread w/ peanut butter" choice. Want something nicer, e.g. an equivalent of an unhealthy Kraft Dinner? Make Baked Beans. These are great because you can make them from healthy dried beans (cheap) and any meat you can find. If you want (can afford) bacon, that's great but any cheap meat you find works. The beans go in the oven for 8 hours at low temp w/ the meat, water, salt, pepper, some sugar to taste - as in, less than bought baked beans! - and mustard. You can leave this in the oven over night if you don't have an 8 hour stretch where you're at home otherwise but put more water. You do want to have a large bean pot for doing that ideally but it's a lifetime purchase. These baked beans you can eat all by themselves. Keep in fridge, i.e. microwave portions when needed. Add cheese on top if you like or use as a side or as filling for a burrito/quesadilla. Those 'dishes' take less than 5 minutes to make. E.g. Quesadilla you just heat up a pan while doing something else (like turning on the TV and finding a series to watch or whatever) and slapping the ingredients down in the pan. Cook for a minute or so on each side. Burrito on the other hand is microwaveable.
  - legitster 4y ago
    My favorite in college was mashed potatoes. Cheap, easy, and tasty. And come to find out later, surprisingly nutrient rich.
  - jjk166 4y ago
    That wasn't the example I gave. The issue is living exclusively off peanut butter and white bread. Specifically it is the lack of dietary variety to get a proper mix of various nutrients which is the issue. There are lots of things out there that will give you about 80% of what you need, the issue is that all the cheap options are giving you roughly the same 80%, consistently and completely filling in that gap is hard. For example iodine is critical for regulating metabolism, but most foods which contain significant amounts (like seafood) are expensive, and cheaper sources (like eggs) need to be consumed in large amounts, offsetting their low expense, and causing other issues balancing diet. If you have an iodine deficiency you don't die, but with your metabolism out of whack it is again harder to maintain your health. Now if you go to your doctor they might be able to identify an iodine deficiency and get you supplements or have you buy specialty products like iodized salt, but this reduces to the more general problem that healthcare in the US is incredibly messed up and disproportionately difficult for those in poverty to access reliably. 92% of the US population has some vitamin or nutrient deficiency. Basically, mistaking the malnutrition issue as just people not having access to a good cookbook is exactly the problem.
As_You_Wish 4y ago
Yes!!! It's so dumb that people keep saying this. I spend about $25 per month on produce and fruit per month. I must at huge platefuls of veggies every night, otherwise, all the produce will rot if I don't. Huge heaping plates. Every night. Twenty five bucks. Per month. I hear this all the time, how fast food and potato chips are inexpensive. Are people out of their pea-pickin' minds? I mean, SURE, if you are a marketing brainwashed nonthinking zombie that is convinced that you have to shop at Whole Foods where one stalk of celery costs $4,284.28. Then yeah. I shop prices HARD, and can buy a ton of food for so cheap. Inflation hurts, but not me very much. I hardly notice it. Spend 10% more, so $27.50 per month? $32/month? $35 per month? Who cares? But, no, I'm not buying a t-bone steach that was $7 a year ago and now is $22 or whatever, nope. But then again, I don't eat beef as it is super crappy thing to eat on so many fronts, including climate change. But if I DID eat beef, I still wouldn't buy it at that price, so the price increase wouldn't affect me at all, and I don't sit around crying about how unfair the price of meat is, first world problem crybabies. Waaa, waaaa. This issue sets me off, man. I get irrationally angry when people write this lie. Don't even get me started on the "food desert" lie.
black_13 4y ago

xhkkffbf 4y ago

Please don't let facts get in the way. Of course the raw materials are cheaper, especially if purchased with some care and not at some fancy, organic market. My feeling, though, is that the people making these arguments want to hide their moralism. So they talk about things like "cheap calories" and "food deserts" even those these ideas don't stand up to scrutiny. They don't want to blame the people making decisions they don't like so they want to imagine that it's because of external forces. But the fact remains that if you're smart about it, you can live well on very little. This article from 2010 describes how a hipster foodie was shocked how well he could live on food stamps, all by being a bit careful and cooking for himself. https://www.salon.com/2010/03/16/hipsters_food_stamps_pinched/ https://www.salon.com/2010/03/16/hipsters_food_stamps_pinche...

jjk166 4y ago

While the author very clearly is at least a bit out of touch (no one's living off chips and soda), the fact is that cheap calories do tend to come from unhealthy sources, particularly if they make up the bulk of your diet. For example peanut butter on white bread - super cheap and quick to make, but living off of it is going to ruin your body. The biggest issues are the hidden costs of healthy foods. When people complain about processed foods, they often forget what the point of processing the food is: making it last longer. You can buy lots of it and store it for long periods of time without much difficulty. For fresh produce you're buying smaller amounts (less discounted) and you need to buy it more frequently (more time wasted shopping, higher commuting costs). Then of course there is cooking - when you've been slaving away at a low paying job all day, the prospect of spending an hour and a half preparing something nice is extremely unappealing compared to something you can just stick in the microwave for 2 minutes. The mass produced and highly processed foods are optimized for convenience - they cook quickly and consistently with minimal effort. Honestly this more than price alone is likely the reason the nominally wealthiest nation in the world has such poor nutrition. Even at minimum wage, a half hour difference in cooking time probably dwarfs the price of the actual difference in price between two food brands for all but the most expensive options. The claim people just need to make better choices is a non-starter. Essentially no one wants to be fat and unhealthy, and all else being equal would not choose to be. But all else is not equal. Other factors are influencing the decision making process such that eating unhealthily is the lesser of two evils. If you want people to make different choices, you need to address why they are making their current choices, regardless of what those factors may be.

tharkun__ 4y ago
Your example of what will ruin your body is interesting. Peanut butter and white bread. But why is that going to ruin your body? Pure peanut butter is actually quite healthy. It's got lots of good fats and other nutrients. Just don't buy it salted or sugary and leave out the white bread. Put it on vegetables, made into a sauce. The vegetables can be frozen and the sauce is made in the time it takes to microwave unfreeze and 'cook' the frozen veggies. Just to counter your "microwave for 2 minutes" example. Another great, filling and healthy choice: frozen peas, microwaved, put Mayo on top, stir. And those are just to replace the quick "white bread w/ peanut butter" choice. Want something nicer, e.g. an equivalent of an unhealthy Kraft Dinner? Make Baked Beans. These are great because you can make them from healthy dried beans (cheap) and any meat you can find. If you want (can afford) bacon, that's great but any cheap meat you find works. The beans go in the oven for 8 hours at low temp w/ the meat, water, salt, pepper, some sugar to taste - as in, less than bought baked beans! - and mustard. You can leave this in the oven over night if you don't have an 8 hour stretch where you're at home otherwise but put more water. You do want to have a large bean pot for doing that ideally but it's a lifetime purchase. These baked beans you can eat all by themselves. Keep in fridge, i.e. microwave portions when needed. Add cheese on top if you like or use as a side or as filling for a burrito/quesadilla. Those 'dishes' take less than 5 minutes to make. E.g. Quesadilla you just heat up a pan while doing something else (like turning on the TV and finding a series to watch or whatever) and slapping the ingredients down in the pan. Cook for a minute or so on each side. Burrito on the other hand is microwaveable.
- legitster 4y ago
  My favorite in college was mashed potatoes. Cheap, easy, and tasty. And come to find out later, surprisingly nutrient rich.
- jjk166 4y ago
  That wasn't the example I gave. The issue is living exclusively off peanut butter and white bread. Specifically it is the lack of dietary variety to get a proper mix of various nutrients which is the issue. There are lots of things out there that will give you about 80% of what you need, the issue is that all the cheap options are giving you roughly the same 80%, consistently and completely filling in that gap is hard. For example iodine is critical for regulating metabolism, but most foods which contain significant amounts (like seafood) are expensive, and cheaper sources (like eggs) need to be consumed in large amounts, offsetting their low expense, and causing other issues balancing diet. If you have an iodine deficiency you don't die, but with your metabolism out of whack it is again harder to maintain your health. Now if you go to your doctor they might be able to identify an iodine deficiency and get you supplements or have you buy specialty products like iodized salt, but this reduces to the more general problem that healthcare in the US is incredibly messed up and disproportionately difficult for those in poverty to access reliably. 92% of the US population has some vitamin or nutrient deficiency. Basically, mistaking the malnutrition issue as just people not having access to a good cookbook is exactly the problem.

As_You_Wish 4y ago

Yes!!! It's so dumb that people keep saying this. I spend about $25 per month on produce and fruit per month. I must at huge platefuls of veggies every night, otherwise, all the produce will rot if I don't. Huge heaping plates. Every night. Twenty five bucks. Per month. I hear this all the time, how fast food and potato chips are inexpensive. Are people out of their pea-pickin' minds? I mean, SURE, if you are a marketing brainwashed nonthinking zombie that is convinced that you have to shop at Whole Foods where one stalk of celery costs $4,284.28. Then yeah. I shop prices HARD, and can buy a ton of food for so cheap. Inflation hurts, but not me very much. I hardly notice it. Spend 10% more, so $27.50 per month? $32/month? $35 per month? Who cares? But, no, I'm not buying a t-bone steach that was $7 a year ago and now is $22 or whatever, nope. But then again, I don't eat beef as it is super crappy thing to eat on so many fronts, including climate change. But if I DID eat beef, I still wouldn't buy it at that price, so the price increase wouldn't affect me at all, and I don't sit around crying about how unfair the price of meat is, first world problem crybabies. Waaa, waaaa. This issue sets me off, man. I get irrationally angry when people write this lie. Don't even get me started on the "food desert" lie.

black_13 4y ago