> why is that not possible now? Well we don't have massive communal dining halls or poorhouses. I think you underestimate the extreme poverty of food even for

> why is that not possible now? Well we don't have massive communal dining halls or poorhouses. I think you underestimate the extreme poverty of food even for people in 1924 who had access to a communal kitchen. Average nutrition in 1924 was not good. It was likely significantly worse than it is now. People were on average several inches shorter and life expectancy at birth in 1924 was less than 60 in the USA and the UK. The life expectancy for, say, a 24 year old in 1924 would be lower still. People did "stay alive", but they died young of diseases, many of them worsened by chronic malnutrition. Kids were literally severely malnourished in the USA until the national school lunch program was launched in the 40s, and the UK was only a bit ahead, providing breakfasts and sometimes lunches for kids from 1906 onwards, and then full school meals in the 40s. Adult malnutrition was rampant in the USA of the 1930s. You are comparing 2024 with a romantic fiction, when the issue is what are the options in 2024. The era of abundant cheap food, enough time to cook it, labour-saving devices and parents who were not both working is short, and it spans about 30 years from 1940 in the USA, and less in the UK due to rationing. We don't have that life anymore. It would be better to engineer a culture of street food in the UK and USA, because that leads to more healthy food options for vastly more people (as well as catering efficiency and less food waste)