7 ms·

Who can't afford food? An egg costs like 30 cents, rice is like 20 cents a pound. Make some fried rice. Make a sandwich. The cost of great food is like $40

Who can't afford food? An egg costs like 30 cents, rice is like 20 cents a pound. Make some fried rice. Make a sandwich. The cost of great food is like $40 a month per person, with the bonus that they wouldn't be morbidly obese. Now explain why its unreasonable to expect people to eat high quality cheap food. (and no "poor people are too stupid" paternalistic arguments)

ryeights 3y ago
You must be incredibly out of touch if you think $40 a month is a reasonable budget for “great food.” 2 weeks worth of ham and cheese sandwiches alone would eat up the majority of that figure.
- ltbarcly3 3y ago
  Ham and cheese are both notoriously expensive though, and not especially healthy. One day of filet mignon would eat up the whole budget, but thats not an argument against what I said. As for out of touch, I grew up eating government peanut butter and free school lunches. Lots of years that is all I ate. Food assistance is great and we should do more, but jeff bezos hording wealth isn't causing people to starve as gp suggests, food is incredibly cheap. The idea people are starving is rediculous.
  - ryeights 3y ago
    I’m a bit confused then… what exactly do you propose the average American should put in their sandwiches—your suggestion—at a $40/mo budget? Eggs and lentils?
    - ltbarcly3 3y ago
      Anyone in the US can go to a library and borrow a cookbook for free. If you are out of ideas you can do that too.
      - derefr 3y ago
        Great, now I need to own a car and afford gas to drive 40mi to the nearest library. (More importantly, now I need to have a kitchen to cook in.) You realize that there are people who are homeless and who live in areas that don't have any support systems for homelessness (e.g. homeless shelters), right?
        charcircuit 3y ago
        Libraries can mail books to you.
        ceejayoz 3y ago
        "To: Cardboard Box under the 5th Street Bridge"?
        charcircuit 3y ago
        You can rent a mailbox if you don't have one.
        ceejayoz 3y ago
        For free?
        charcircuit 3y ago
        No, but the ingredients for what you are cooking are not going to be free either.
        ceejayoz 3y ago
        I feel like you're unclear on what poverty, homelessness, and hunger are. You have proposed that a homeless person obtain a phone, find a library that'll mail books, obtain a mailbox, have a book mailed to them, presumably pay for return postage, all so they can obtain recipes to cook on a stove they don't have with utensils they likely lack with ingredients they can't afford. Homeless people aren't in that situation because they needed someone to write down "how to make rice in a pot", nor are they likely to have discretionary income for your proposals.
    - ticviking 3y ago
      What is so bad about beans, rice and eggs with some onions and cheap canned veggies that it's insane to suggest that kind of budget?
      - ryeights 3y ago
        Nothing is objectively “bad” about that, but it is an insane stretch to call that “great food.” That is subsistence eating. Moreover—can you put beans, rice, eggs, and mixed veggies in a sandwich? Because a sandwich was one of OP’s “$40/mo” suggestions. A food budget where a simple ham and cheese sandwich is an unimaginable luxury is ridiculous to propose as a reasonable target.
        ltbarcly3 3y ago
        Why isn't it great food? People line up to get rice, veggies, and beans, onion, and chicken in a tortilla at Chipotle, but if you combine those ingredients at home you are 'subsistence eating'?
        NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
        Well you seem to be skipping over the fresh cilantro, herbs and spices, marinating time, and expert preparation found in a Chipotle. Do you understand what it takes to build and maintain a respectable and functional spice rack? Not to mention the spoilage that goes on. The rice and beans can keep long-term, but you'll need to do logistics on chicken, tortillas etc to keep fresh ones in the pipeline without wasting any, which you can't afford either. Look, I've had food boxes before. The food box is an amazing wondrous bit of charity where you can get a ton of free food just for asking. There's cereal, I've gotten big hunks of frozen meat, dry beans and rice, I've gotten bits of candy and such, lots of staples, powdered milk, canned chickpeas and spinach and you-name-it. However the food boxes only go so far. They won't cook the meals for you. They won't give you the utensils, pots and pans. You don't get any fats, oils, herbs, spices, or seasonings. they won't tell you which ingredients combine in a flavorful way. You don't get any recipes that use these ingredients and don't call for something you don't have. Now you boil some water, throw in some beans and rice plain, and cook until soft. Go ahead, throw in some string beans for vitamins, and some kind of protein. Spoil yourself! Then try to choke that down in the absence of salt, butter, or anything that might impart flavor. How long until you're going to just kill yourself?
    - userabchn 3y ago
      I live on only a bit more than that myself. I batch cook all of my meals for the week on Sunday mornings. It's simple food, all made from raw ingredients. I don't eat any sandwiches, though, since bread is usually highly processed and not cheap.
  - inglor_cz 3y ago
    "not especially healthy" Our knowledge of what is healthy is spotty at best, but plenty of countries that eat a lot of ham and cheese (France, Spain, Italy) are fairly OK health-wise, so it certainly seems to indicate that there is nothing seriously wrong about either.
- ricketycricket 3y ago
  Not to mention the fruits and vegetables required for a balanced diet. Prices for produce in my area have gone through the roof. What about the family of four, the single parent, one of the many recently let go? The cost of basic goods and services has inflated as well, meaning less money for food. Sure, maybe there are people spending way too much eating out, but food scarcity is a real problem for many. And just saying you should be able to afford it and throwing around made up $ figures doesn't solve a thing.
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
I'll take this as a teaching opportunity Here's who can't practically afford that: Someone with 3 kids working 80 hours a week in service or truck driving. Or someone that is disabled. Or someone that has severe mental health issues. There are quite a few prerequisites that you assume exist that just don't in a poor American household and the primary one that doesn't exist is time. Beyond the time you need to plan, shop, cook, clean, you need: -Motivation to do so -Pots and pans -Knowledge of cooking and nutrition -A grocery store nearby (39.5 million Americans live in food deserts) -A way to get there (Many can't afford cars or can't drive) -Working water and electricity TENS OF MILLIONS of Americans have none of the above And whereas in other countries you may live in a multi-generation home or otherwise be able to do subsistence farming, that's not really possible without land of some sort which almost no poor people in America have.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  Thank you for explaining this. Normal people who are used to cooking at home see it as no big deal to whip up a simple meal. Some of the rest of us encounter insurmountable obstacles in our own kitchens. Personally, I haven't prepared a single meal at home since last October. I've been ordering delivery at an extraordinary markup. Several bad experiences last year put me permanently off home meal preparation. I've tried all the alternatives. I'm desperate to save money; I'm desparate to eat better. I have been left with no other choice. Basically 100% of my paychecks go to fund those meals because the alternatives are absolutely intractable, due to several of the above factors.
  - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
    I appreciate your vulnerability and candor and hope that your situation improves soon
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    I'm very curious what your insurmountable obstacles and bad experiences with home meal preparation are. Most people can't imagine being unable to use the microwave or boil water.
misnome 3y ago
Congratulations, you alone in the world have had this one genius thought that nobody else has ever thought of or considered, and definitely isn’t the first thing anyone who has spent zero time learning about any of the actual problems and just wants the most shallow possible dismissal of other peoples’ problems reaches for. The entire problem is solved, everyone, crisis over.
- ltbarcly3 3y ago
  The proof that this is not a problem is the rampant obesity and lack of people actually starving.
  - valval 3y ago
    For some reason the doomers always forget that there hasn’t been a case of involuntary death from malnutrition in decades in America. The argument seems to revolve around the fact that there will always be people who are way worse off than most others. It’s not particularly more surprising than the fact that there will also always be people who are way better off than most others.
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2023-04-13/deaths-from-malnutrition-have-more-than-doubled-in-the-u-s https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2023-04-13/... > Deaths attributed to malnutrition more than doubled, from about 650 in 2018 to roughly 1,400 in 2022, according to preliminary death certificate data from the California Department of Public Health. The same trend occurred nationwide, with malnutrition deaths more than doubling, from about 9,300 deaths in 2018 to roughly 20,500 in 2022, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. > Malnutrition is particularly common among older people, especially those who are ill, low-income, homebound, or without reliable access to healthy food or medical services. It can result from not eating enough but also from poor eating habits that lead to nutritional deficiencies. The majority of deaths in California from malnutrition last year occurred in residents 85 and older.
adventured 3y ago
$1.30 per day food budget? Not accurate in the affluent world. 1400-1800 calories for an average height adult male is a reasonable floor (and that's a non-obesity scale). The $1.30 per day budget might get you around 1/3 of that calorie requirement, without solely existing on something like rice. You can get by on closer to ~$90-$120 per month, per adult, and actually bring in enough calories to not starve over time. That's a surviving floor. You can temporarily go a bit lower to scrape by ($50-$90), however that's not livable longer term, you'll suffer increasingly. If you modestly augment with various free food assistance options (not talking about SNAP), you could stretch the lower ~$50-$90 category up to something more like the $120 category consistently.

ryeights 3y ago

You must be incredibly out of touch if you think $40 a month is a reasonable budget for “great food.” 2 weeks worth of ham and cheese sandwiches alone would eat up the majority of that figure.

ltbarcly3 3y ago
Ham and cheese are both notoriously expensive though, and not especially healthy. One day of filet mignon would eat up the whole budget, but thats not an argument against what I said. As for out of touch, I grew up eating government peanut butter and free school lunches. Lots of years that is all I ate. Food assistance is great and we should do more, but jeff bezos hording wealth isn't causing people to starve as gp suggests, food is incredibly cheap. The idea people are starving is rediculous.
- ryeights 3y ago
  I’m a bit confused then… what exactly do you propose the average American should put in their sandwiches—your suggestion—at a $40/mo budget? Eggs and lentils?
  - ltbarcly3 3y ago
    Anyone in the US can go to a library and borrow a cookbook for free. If you are out of ideas you can do that too.
    - derefr 3y ago
      Great, now I need to own a car and afford gas to drive 40mi to the nearest library. (More importantly, now I need to have a kitchen to cook in.) You realize that there are people who are homeless and who live in areas that don't have any support systems for homelessness (e.g. homeless shelters), right?
      - charcircuit 3y ago
        Libraries can mail books to you.
        ceejayoz 3y ago
        "To: Cardboard Box under the 5th Street Bridge"?
        charcircuit 3y ago
        You can rent a mailbox if you don't have one.
        ceejayoz 3y ago
        For free?
        charcircuit 3y ago
        No, but the ingredients for what you are cooking are not going to be free either.
        ceejayoz 3y ago
        I feel like you're unclear on what poverty, homelessness, and hunger are. You have proposed that a homeless person obtain a phone, find a library that'll mail books, obtain a mailbox, have a book mailed to them, presumably pay for return postage, all so they can obtain recipes to cook on a stove they don't have with utensils they likely lack with ingredients they can't afford. Homeless people aren't in that situation because they needed someone to write down "how to make rice in a pot", nor are they likely to have discretionary income for your proposals.
  - ticviking 3y ago
    What is so bad about beans, rice and eggs with some onions and cheap canned veggies that it's insane to suggest that kind of budget?
    - ryeights 3y ago
      Nothing is objectively “bad” about that, but it is an insane stretch to call that “great food.” That is subsistence eating. Moreover—can you put beans, rice, eggs, and mixed veggies in a sandwich? Because a sandwich was one of OP’s “$40/mo” suggestions. A food budget where a simple ham and cheese sandwich is an unimaginable luxury is ridiculous to propose as a reasonable target.
      - ltbarcly3 3y ago
        Why isn't it great food? People line up to get rice, veggies, and beans, onion, and chicken in a tortilla at Chipotle, but if you combine those ingredients at home you are 'subsistence eating'?
        NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
        Well you seem to be skipping over the fresh cilantro, herbs and spices, marinating time, and expert preparation found in a Chipotle. Do you understand what it takes to build and maintain a respectable and functional spice rack? Not to mention the spoilage that goes on. The rice and beans can keep long-term, but you'll need to do logistics on chicken, tortillas etc to keep fresh ones in the pipeline without wasting any, which you can't afford either. Look, I've had food boxes before. The food box is an amazing wondrous bit of charity where you can get a ton of free food just for asking. There's cereal, I've gotten big hunks of frozen meat, dry beans and rice, I've gotten bits of candy and such, lots of staples, powdered milk, canned chickpeas and spinach and you-name-it. However the food boxes only go so far. They won't cook the meals for you. They won't give you the utensils, pots and pans. You don't get any fats, oils, herbs, spices, or seasonings. they won't tell you which ingredients combine in a flavorful way. You don't get any recipes that use these ingredients and don't call for something you don't have. Now you boil some water, throw in some beans and rice plain, and cook until soft. Go ahead, throw in some string beans for vitamins, and some kind of protein. Spoil yourself! Then try to choke that down in the absence of salt, butter, or anything that might impart flavor. How long until you're going to just kill yourself?
  - userabchn 3y ago
    I live on only a bit more than that myself. I batch cook all of my meals for the week on Sunday mornings. It's simple food, all made from raw ingredients. I don't eat any sandwiches, though, since bread is usually highly processed and not cheap.
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  "not especially healthy" Our knowledge of what is healthy is spotty at best, but plenty of countries that eat a lot of ham and cheese (France, Spain, Italy) are fairly OK health-wise, so it certainly seems to indicate that there is nothing seriously wrong about either.
ricketycricket 3y ago
Not to mention the fruits and vegetables required for a balanced diet. Prices for produce in my area have gone through the roof. What about the family of four, the single parent, one of the many recently let go? The cost of basic goods and services has inflated as well, meaning less money for food. Sure, maybe there are people spending way too much eating out, but food scarcity is a real problem for many. And just saying you should be able to afford it and throwing around made up $ figures doesn't solve a thing.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

I'll take this as a teaching opportunity Here's who can't practically afford that: Someone with 3 kids working 80 hours a week in service or truck driving. Or someone that is disabled. Or someone that has severe mental health issues. There are quite a few prerequisites that you assume exist that just don't in a poor American household and the primary one that doesn't exist is time. Beyond the time you need to plan, shop, cook, clean, you need: -Motivation to do so -Pots and pans -Knowledge of cooking and nutrition -A grocery store nearby (39.5 million Americans live in food deserts) -A way to get there (Many can't afford cars or can't drive) -Working water and electricity TENS OF MILLIONS of Americans have none of the above And whereas in other countries you may live in a multi-generation home or otherwise be able to do subsistence farming, that's not really possible without land of some sort which almost no poor people in America have.

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
Thank you for explaining this. Normal people who are used to cooking at home see it as no big deal to whip up a simple meal. Some of the rest of us encounter insurmountable obstacles in our own kitchens. Personally, I haven't prepared a single meal at home since last October. I've been ordering delivery at an extraordinary markup. Several bad experiences last year put me permanently off home meal preparation. I've tried all the alternatives. I'm desperate to save money; I'm desparate to eat better. I have been left with no other choice. Basically 100% of my paychecks go to fund those meals because the alternatives are absolutely intractable, due to several of the above factors.
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  I appreciate your vulnerability and candor and hope that your situation improves soon
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  I'm very curious what your insurmountable obstacles and bad experiences with home meal preparation are. Most people can't imagine being unable to use the microwave or boil water.

misnome 3y ago

Congratulations, you alone in the world have had this one genius thought that nobody else has ever thought of or considered, and definitely isn’t the first thing anyone who has spent zero time learning about any of the actual problems and just wants the most shallow possible dismissal of other peoples’ problems reaches for. The entire problem is solved, everyone, crisis over.

ltbarcly3 3y ago
The proof that this is not a problem is the rampant obesity and lack of people actually starving.
- valval 3y ago
  For some reason the doomers always forget that there hasn’t been a case of involuntary death from malnutrition in decades in America. The argument seems to revolve around the fact that there will always be people who are way worse off than most others. It’s not particularly more surprising than the fact that there will also always be people who are way better off than most others.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2023-04-13/deaths-from-malnutrition-have-more-than-doubled-in-the-u-s https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2023-04-13/... > Deaths attributed to malnutrition more than doubled, from about 650 in 2018 to roughly 1,400 in 2022, according to preliminary death certificate data from the California Department of Public Health. The same trend occurred nationwide, with malnutrition deaths more than doubling, from about 9,300 deaths in 2018 to roughly 20,500 in 2022, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. > Malnutrition is particularly common among older people, especially those who are ill, low-income, homebound, or without reliable access to healthy food or medical services. It can result from not eating enough but also from poor eating habits that lead to nutritional deficiencies. The majority of deaths in California from malnutrition last year occurred in residents 85 and older.

adventured 3y ago

$1.30 per day food budget? Not accurate in the affluent world. 1400-1800 calories for an average height adult male is a reasonable floor (and that's a non-obesity scale). The $1.30 per day budget might get you around 1/3 of that calorie requirement, without solely existing on something like rice. You can get by on closer to ~$90-$120 per month, per adult, and actually bring in enough calories to not starve over time. That's a surviving floor. You can temporarily go a bit lower to scrape by ($50-$90), however that's not livable longer term, you'll suffer increasingly. If you modestly augment with various free food assistance options (not talking about SNAP), you could stretch the lower ~$50-$90 category up to something more like the $120 category consistently.