Because parents don't want to be a parent and learn how to cook proper meals for their kids. They'd rather go grab a bag of frozen chicken nuggets, a box of Kraft mac & cheese, and a bag of frozen french fries and run them all through the microwave to feed to their spoiled brats (who, in turn, throw a fit if you try to feed them anything else).
Pretty much all pre-packaged convenience food in the US is crammed FULL of salt, fat, and carbs, and it totally horrible for you. It's also, paradoxically, some of the least expensive food you can buy, so it's not uncommon for those in the lower income brackets who live on government subsidies to buy said lower-priced foods with their handout.
My wife worked at a grocery store in her younger years. She said it wasn't uncommon to see welfare queens come rolling through the checkout with cartloads of soda, chips, and frozen heat-and-eat foods in addition to blowing their stipend on other extravagant items they wouldn't be able to afford otherwise, such steaks. I know the rules have changed somewhat in more recent years and prevent them from buying some of that stuff, so they just double down on the things they can buy with it.
That being said: I'm not saying that every person on welfare/foodstamps is the same. I know there are a lot of people out there that are making the best of a bad situation. It's just a damn shame when the ones that are abusing the system give those who are using it properly a bad name.
It's also, paradoxically, some of the least expensive food you can buy, so it's not uncommon for those in the lower income brackets who live on government subsidies to buy said lower-priced foods with their handout.
This myth needs to die. There is much cheaper, much healthier food out there. It's just that nobody will eat it any more.
What did poor people used to eat? Big vats of beans, legumes, rice, or other staples. Organ meat. Pork and chicken skin. All very nutritious, all very cheap. But even the poorest American wouldn't be caught dead eating chitlins or tripe these days. They'd literally rather starve. The only people eating yesterday's poverty food are immigrants who haven't been softened up by the rat utopia yet.
On a straight cash basis, you are correct. If you're looking to feed a family of 4 on frozen dinners, your paying (looking at my grocery store's website) about $10 for the meal ($2-$3 per meal). If instead you take $20 (so 2 dinners worth), you could instead get a 5 lb whole chicken, a 4 lb bag of potatoes, and 2 lbs of dried beans, and you'd still have $5 left over for other stuff. And that should have no issues feeding your family 2 dinners.
I think a big part of the "cost", though, is not just the financial costs but rather the time costs to prep it. Yeah, cooking up beans, chicken and potatoes is not especially difficult but it does take time. And I think more than just snobbishness (though, there's some of that - a lot of people will scoff at chicken and beans when they have an option for steak), its that many people just don't want to put in the time to soak the beans, cook the chicken, mash the potatoes, etc. when instead they can just stick the TV dinner trays in the microwave.
And it's not just a cooking knowledge thing (though I know a ton of people who are terrified to do anything in the kitchen), but a laziness thing - just look at things like Grubhub, Uber Eats, etc. Their whole business model pretty much comes down to "oh, you don't want to go down the street to get takeout, so pay me to do it for you", and last year Grubhub was apparently averaging 623,000 orders per day.
last year Grubhub was apparently averaging 623,000 orders per day
Holy shit. That's amazing.
As kid, we would sometimes have pizza delivered to the house. As an adult, I don't think I've ever gotten a food delivery.
I was using grubhub to order food for pickup from a few restaurants (non-native English speakers, hard to order over phone), but then one of the owners told me that Grubhub takes 20% of the receipt for just placing an order online. That's insane.
Company I started 15 years ago developed an online ordering solution for restaurants that worked with our point of sale system. At the time it was mostly pizza places and a few coffee shops that were early adopters. Online ordering itself allowed more orders to be processed quicker with lower error rates than over phone. But we were fools and only charged a monthly fee to use our solution instead of a per order charge.
Our local grocery store has steamer bags of chicken, seafood, veggies, potato's. Grab, come home, put in oven for 25 minutes and done. Usually get two meals out of it and works out to be about $3/person per meal. Less if you just do the meat and then fix a baked potato to go with it.
Also consider that a bag of chips is about $4, a tub of ice cream is $7, a 12-pack of Coke is $5. Not buying these things is free. Next time you’re at the grocery store, find some fat people and look at what they have in their shopping carts.
Some years ago I decided to stop drinking soda and having my coffee without sugar. I've lost 8 pounds without any other change.
Coke is addictive trash, no value other then making you fat.
I honestly can't wrap my head around the people doing things like grubhub or eating out regularly. Yeah it takes time to cook but I can 100% guaranteed whip up something that's far cheaper, healthier. and just as or more delicious than whatever I could get from a restaurant. And the thing is the more you practice the quicker you get with the dish you're cooking.
Yeah there can be extenuating circumstances but that's not the people eating out so damn much.
Maybe it's just my economic background is showing 🤣
Nothing against the idea of eating out, but imo it's just way too much money down the drain for anything but special occasions
This myth needs to die. There is much cheaper, much healthier food out there. It's just that nobody will eat it any more.
Oh, no argument there. When I was living solo back in college and barely scraping by paycheck to paycheck I was buying bags of rice, beans, and the "use it today or freeze it" pounds of ground beef or chicken quarters at the store, along with the spices to make dirty rice or red beans and rice. I survived on that stuff for years. It was monotonous as hell, but I knew it was nutritious and it'd keep me alive.
But I had a few advantages over a lot of people on government assistance:
I had half a clue about nutritional value.
I had half a clue about the value of a dollar (since it was coming out of my pocket and not from Uncle Sam).
My mom actually taught me how to cook when I was a kid, and drilled it into my head that it wasn't going to be my wife or girlfriend's responsibility to feed me.
Most of the people you see out there on government assistance that are buying up convenience food are either too uneducated to know about food values, too uneducated to know how to cook, and/or too lazy to learn or care about either. They'd rather just grab their bag of chips and 2-liter, and throw a TV dinner in the microwave than take the time to cook a meal.
Because parents don't want to be a parent and learn how to cook proper meals for their kids. They'd rather go grab a bag of frozen chicken nuggets, a box of Kraft mac & cheese, and a bag of frozen french fries and run them all through the microwave to feed to their spoiled brats (who, in turn, throw a fit if you try to feed them anything else).
Pretty much all pre-packaged convenience food in the US is crammed FULL of salt, fat, and carbs, and it totally horrible for you. It's also, paradoxically, some of the least expensive food you can buy, so it's not uncommon for those in the lower income brackets who live on government subsidies to buy said lower-priced foods with their handout.
My wife worked at a grocery store in her younger years. She said it wasn't uncommon to see welfare queens come rolling through the checkout with cartloads of soda, chips, and frozen heat-and-eat foods in addition to blowing their stipend on other extravagant items they wouldn't be able to afford otherwise, such steaks. I know the rules have changed somewhat in more recent years and prevent them from buying some of that stuff, so they just double down on the things they can buy with it.
That being said: I'm not saying that every person on welfare/foodstamps is the same. I know there are a lot of people out there that are making the best of a bad situation. It's just a damn shame when the ones that are abusing the system give those who are using it properly a bad name.
This myth needs to die. There is much cheaper, much healthier food out there. It's just that nobody will eat it any more.
What did poor people used to eat? Big vats of beans, legumes, rice, or other staples. Organ meat. Pork and chicken skin. All very nutritious, all very cheap. But even the poorest American wouldn't be caught dead eating chitlins or tripe these days. They'd literally rather starve. The only people eating yesterday's poverty food are immigrants who haven't been softened up by the rat utopia yet.
Even our poor and homeless are entitled snobs.
On a straight cash basis, you are correct. If you're looking to feed a family of 4 on frozen dinners, your paying (looking at my grocery store's website) about $10 for the meal ($2-$3 per meal). If instead you take $20 (so 2 dinners worth), you could instead get a 5 lb whole chicken, a 4 lb bag of potatoes, and 2 lbs of dried beans, and you'd still have $5 left over for other stuff. And that should have no issues feeding your family 2 dinners.
I think a big part of the "cost", though, is not just the financial costs but rather the time costs to prep it. Yeah, cooking up beans, chicken and potatoes is not especially difficult but it does take time. And I think more than just snobbishness (though, there's some of that - a lot of people will scoff at chicken and beans when they have an option for steak), its that many people just don't want to put in the time to soak the beans, cook the chicken, mash the potatoes, etc. when instead they can just stick the TV dinner trays in the microwave.
And it's not just a cooking knowledge thing (though I know a ton of people who are terrified to do anything in the kitchen), but a laziness thing - just look at things like Grubhub, Uber Eats, etc. Their whole business model pretty much comes down to "oh, you don't want to go down the street to get takeout, so pay me to do it for you", and last year Grubhub was apparently averaging 623,000 orders per day.
Holy shit. That's amazing.
As kid, we would sometimes have pizza delivered to the house. As an adult, I don't think I've ever gotten a food delivery.
I was using grubhub to order food for pickup from a few restaurants (non-native English speakers, hard to order over phone), but then one of the owners told me that Grubhub takes 20% of the receipt for just placing an order online. That's insane.
Company I started 15 years ago developed an online ordering solution for restaurants that worked with our point of sale system. At the time it was mostly pizza places and a few coffee shops that were early adopters. Online ordering itself allowed more orders to be processed quicker with lower error rates than over phone. But we were fools and only charged a monthly fee to use our solution instead of a per order charge.
Our local grocery store has steamer bags of chicken, seafood, veggies, potato's. Grab, come home, put in oven for 25 minutes and done. Usually get two meals out of it and works out to be about $3/person per meal. Less if you just do the meat and then fix a baked potato to go with it.
Also consider that a bag of chips is about $4, a tub of ice cream is $7, a 12-pack of Coke is $5. Not buying these things is free. Next time you’re at the grocery store, find some fat people and look at what they have in their shopping carts.
Some years ago I decided to stop drinking soda and having my coffee without sugar. I've lost 8 pounds without any other change. Coke is addictive trash, no value other then making you fat.
I cringe at those price. Only buying on discount and giving up some stuff that's just too expensive saves 30% - 50% of grocery spending.
For example, 200g bag of chips at $1, half a galon ofnice cream $4, and a 24 crate of coke $8.5 ( instead of a box of 12 ).
Also not overeating saves a fortune. No fatties, one dosen't have to eat the whole bag in a sitting. Use the kitchen scale and mesure your portion.
Disgraceful.
I honestly can't wrap my head around the people doing things like grubhub or eating out regularly. Yeah it takes time to cook but I can 100% guaranteed whip up something that's far cheaper, healthier. and just as or more delicious than whatever I could get from a restaurant. And the thing is the more you practice the quicker you get with the dish you're cooking.
Yeah there can be extenuating circumstances but that's not the people eating out so damn much.
Maybe it's just my economic background is showing 🤣
Nothing against the idea of eating out, but imo it's just way too much money down the drain for anything but special occasions
Oh, no argument there. When I was living solo back in college and barely scraping by paycheck to paycheck I was buying bags of rice, beans, and the "use it today or freeze it" pounds of ground beef or chicken quarters at the store, along with the spices to make dirty rice or red beans and rice. I survived on that stuff for years. It was monotonous as hell, but I knew it was nutritious and it'd keep me alive.
But I had a few advantages over a lot of people on government assistance:
I had half a clue about nutritional value.
I had half a clue about the value of a dollar (since it was coming out of my pocket and not from Uncle Sam).
My mom actually taught me how to cook when I was a kid, and drilled it into my head that it wasn't going to be my wife or girlfriend's responsibility to feed me.
Most of the people you see out there on government assistance that are buying up convenience food are either too uneducated to know about food values, too uneducated to know how to cook, and/or too lazy to learn or care about either. They'd rather just grab their bag of chips and 2-liter, and throw a TV dinner in the microwave than take the time to cook a meal.