3 ms·

This is a well known problem. Healthy food is just too f-ing expensive. If anyone is looking for a billion dollar idea, try making a healthy tasty affordable f

by hristov 17y ago

This is a well known problem. Healthy food is just too f-ing expensive. If anyone is looking for a billion dollar idea, try making a healthy tasty affordable fast food chain. And no subway does not count, it tastes like cardboard. The biggest problem with the healthy fast food chain is supply of fresh produce. One of the main reasons bad food is so much cheaper is simply because it lasts longer and thus can handle the long nationwide supply chains that are currently prevalent. But that is the exact type of problem that should be solvable with present technology. You could connect all the small farmers in an area in some kind of online market and allow them to sell produce directly to restaurants at weekly or daily auctions or even sell contracts for future delivery of produce. Thus, the restaurants can have a way to get their supplies cheaply and reliably and directly from the farmer.

randallsquared 17y ago
try making a healthy tasty affordable fast food chain. Well, there's Sub-- And no subway does not count, it tastes like cardboard. Oh. Well, that points out the real problem, then. People have different tastes. It isn't that there are no tasty, healthy, affordable fast food places, but that you don't like healthy affordable fast food. ;)
- forinti 17y ago
  I bet that all proper food tastes like cardboard after you've become accustomed to high-sugar and high-sodium junk food.
  - hughprime 17y ago
    Subway tastes bad because it is junk food. Make me a sandwich with decent quality bread (not the spongy, sugary stuff at Subway), some nice roast beef (freshly sliced off a hot roast directly out of the oven), some decent-quality cheese (I could go nuts here but I'll spare you the cheese snobbery) and fresh vegetables that haven't been sitting around in a tray all morning, and... well, _that's_ what a sandwich is supposed to be like.
hughprime 17y ago
Where do people keep getting this idea that healthy food is expensive? Do they live in areas substantially different from mine? At my local supermarket most fruits and vegetables cost between $1 and $2.50 a pound. A whole head of lettuce is, like, a buck. Rice costs almost nothing. A potato costs... I dunno, but it's not much.
- randallsquared 17y ago
  You can almost always find frozen dinner meals at some local supermarket for about a dollar each. Perparation is "partially open box; throw in microwave for X minutes". That's it. If you want more food with slightly more prep time, there are lots of box dinners that are a dollar or less, but require margarine, a gigantic tub of which is two dollars, and will keep for many weeks in the fridge. I agree about rice, but at a minimum you'll also need egg, meat, and soy sauce. ;) Anyway, speaking from experience, the amount of rice I make creeps up week to week, so I end up making three cups plus a breast of chicken and two eggs, for example, even though that's way more than I ought to be eating. Since I cook for two or three, usually, you can double or triple that for what I actually prepare. I can eat very cheaply and still eat healthy food, but unless I spend lots of time cooking, I tend to get bored very quickly with what I'm eating, and since I try to optimize so I spend less time cooking, I end up spending far more than I would strictly need to.
- rdouble 17y ago
  Do they live in areas substantially different from mine? Probably. The article is talking about how poor people are fat. At grocery stores in poor neighborhoods, healthy stuff is significantly more expensive, or simply does not exist. For instance, a can of black beans at the ghetto grocery store by my apartment near Bushwick costs twice as much as it does at the Whole Foods in Union Square. Produce is rarely available, and when it is, it's almost spoiled.
  - hughprime 17y ago
    For what it's worth, the "local supermarket" I was talking about is on the border of Oakland, and the area is so ghetto that they keep not only the liquor and razor blades, but also the toothbrushes and condoms, in locked cabinets. I see plenty of fat people there.

by hristov 17y ago

randallsquared 17y ago

try making a healthy tasty affordable fast food chain. Well, there's Sub-- And no subway does not count, it tastes like cardboard. Oh. Well, that points out the real problem, then. People have different tastes. It isn't that there are no tasty, healthy, affordable fast food places, but that you don't like healthy affordable fast food. ;)

forinti 17y ago
I bet that all proper food tastes like cardboard after you've become accustomed to high-sugar and high-sodium junk food.
- hughprime 17y ago
  Subway tastes bad because it is junk food. Make me a sandwich with decent quality bread (not the spongy, sugary stuff at Subway), some nice roast beef (freshly sliced off a hot roast directly out of the oven), some decent-quality cheese (I could go nuts here but I'll spare you the cheese snobbery) and fresh vegetables that haven't been sitting around in a tray all morning, and... well, _that's_ what a sandwich is supposed to be like.

hughprime 17y ago

Where do people keep getting this idea that healthy food is expensive? Do they live in areas substantially different from mine? At my local supermarket most fruits and vegetables cost between $1 and $2.50 a pound. A whole head of lettuce is, like, a buck. Rice costs almost nothing. A potato costs... I dunno, but it's not much.

randallsquared 17y ago
You can almost always find frozen dinner meals at some local supermarket for about a dollar each. Perparation is "partially open box; throw in microwave for X minutes". That's it. If you want more food with slightly more prep time, there are lots of box dinners that are a dollar or less, but require margarine, a gigantic tub of which is two dollars, and will keep for many weeks in the fridge. I agree about rice, but at a minimum you'll also need egg, meat, and soy sauce. ;) Anyway, speaking from experience, the amount of rice I make creeps up week to week, so I end up making three cups plus a breast of chicken and two eggs, for example, even though that's way more than I ought to be eating. Since I cook for two or three, usually, you can double or triple that for what I actually prepare. I can eat very cheaply and still eat healthy food, but unless I spend lots of time cooking, I tend to get bored very quickly with what I'm eating, and since I try to optimize so I spend less time cooking, I end up spending far more than I would strictly need to.
rdouble 17y ago
Do they live in areas substantially different from mine? Probably. The article is talking about how poor people are fat. At grocery stores in poor neighborhoods, healthy stuff is significantly more expensive, or simply does not exist. For instance, a can of black beans at the ghetto grocery store by my apartment near Bushwick costs twice as much as it does at the Whole Foods in Union Square. Produce is rarely available, and when it is, it's almost spoiled.
- hughprime 17y ago
  For what it's worth, the "local supermarket" I was talking about is on the border of Oakland, and the area is so ghetto that they keep not only the liquor and razor blades, but also the toothbrushes and condoms, in locked cabinets. I see plenty of fat people there.