A Tweet Saying That Unhealthy Food Is Cheaper Sparks A Discussion In The Comments
We’ve all been told to have a balanced diet, eat fresh vegetables and fruit every day, and avoid frozen or pre-made meals to stay healthy. But a lot of people still choose fast food, because they like it or they don’t know how to cook. In addition, it’s not always that, but for some people, it’s the only food they can afford.
Twitter user Emily Porter pointed out that overweight people who still continue to eat at McDonald’s may only be able to afford this kind of food and we should be less judgmental towards them. The tweet got mixed responses and while the majority of people were sympathizing with the statement, a lot of them didn’t agree with sacrificing one’s health for an easier food option.
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A doctor on Twitter defends those eating junk food by saying that people with lower income may be unable to afford healthier options
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Emily Porter is a board-certified emergency physician, a wife and a mother that beat cancer two times in 20 years. Recently, she posted a tweet that made people divide into two camps: the ones agreeing with her and others disagreeing.
In said tweet, Dr. Porter encourages people to be more compassionate towards people who eat fast food because it could possibly be their only choice as healthier options are pricier. She compares a meal she bought at McDonalds that cost $3.25 with non-organic raspberries at Walmart that cost $8.96 for a pound.
She gives an example from her own experience when she ate a full meal from McDonald’s for $3.25 while a pound of raspberries at Walmart cost $8.96
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According to the results of a meta-analysis published in 2013 in BMJ Open, a healthier diet costs $1.48 more a day, which would add up to $540.20 a year, and for a family of four, the amount would equal to $2,160.80.
Another study done in the UK by the Institute of Economic Affairs concluded that “switching to healthier versions of many staple products can be achieved at no extra cost.“ So there isn‘t a definite answer and it probably depends on where a person lives, what supermarkets are near their homes, and other factors.
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Dr. Porter also points out that not everyone has supermarkets near their homes and can buy fresh food
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Even if making healthy food is cheaper, then Dr. Porter argues that a person who works all day wouldn’t have the energy to prepare a meal, and let’s not forget that you have to clean up afterwards. So, cooking a frozen pizza or mixing up some macaroni and cheese seems way easier, less time-consuming, and less messy when everything you want after a tiring day is to lay down.
Furthermore, cooking is a lot of work and after a long, tiring day, pre-made meals are just more convenient
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The tweet got over 25k likes, so there are definitely a lot of people who relate and are struggling with eating more healthy because fast food is just cheaper, at the same time recognizing that it is a problem.
There were other opinions, with people saying that preparing meals at home on a budget is possible and eating cheap junk food will eventually cost you more in medical bills in the future.
There are some conflicting opinions in the comments, but everyone has their reasoning
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Tell us in the comments what you think! Do you agree that junk food becomes the only option for people with a lower income, or do you know of ways to prepare an easy healthy meal while being on a budget?
I just want to add that in my opinion, this applies mostly to the US. In Germany or let's say most of Europe, I would still say, healthy food, like veggies and fruit are much cheaper. I have never paid as much for a few tomatoes and a salad as I did in the US, and this was low quality stuff at a normal grocery store. In Europe, poor people cook their own food, because it's 10.000 times cheaper than fast food and much healthier.
I know, I work in a supermarket, not even one of the high end ones, and you can buy a kilogram of raspberries for less than regular big mac meal. That's 2.2lbs for under £5. When my mother was visiting family in America , and she was shocked by the price of fruit and veg.
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Did none of you catch the part about the time and expense involved. It isn't just the cooking, it is the cleaning up, the shopping. Before you can even shop, where is the nearest grocery store? Do you have reliable transportation there? Are you taking a bus for an hour to get there? And another hour back? The entire point of this was to stop judging when you don't know, and everyone just hopped on the judgement band wagon. So you have hours devoted to shopping, and a hit or miss for transportation, you have at least an hour of prep work, if you don't want the blandest food on earth you have to add things that add flavor and all of them cost money. Unless you flavor absolutely everything with onions. Then you have the clean up time. After all this they're probably working 2 or 3 jobs just to make ends meet, likely 7 days a week. There is also laundry to handle (likely at a time consuming laundry mat). Do you just think poor people never deserve a break?
I do flavor everything with onions. And dry spices, they are pretty cheap and last very long. Fresh ginger and garlic are also pretty cheap (OK, they are expensive, but you need a very little of them). On the other hand, there are many condiments that are super expensive. But I see your point. Not everyone has enough time to play around in a kitchen.
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15 dollars of beans and rice can feed a family far longer than 15 dollars at McDonald's. Its also more nutritionally balanced. Add eggs on the side for a heartier meal. No, eating beans and rice is not fun all the time. But it goes further and will not make you sick like eating McDonald's "food" will eventually. If you find just beans and rice are not satiating, try adding some avocado oil (expensive, so use sparingly. but super heart healthy)
Try and add SPICES - the magic ingredient that will turn ol' same pinto beans into Mexican food, Peruvian food, German food, Polish food and much more.
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Did the person tweeting about Costco and Sam's Club forget that they require a paid membership to shop there?
Of course they did...the same as the poster who keeps insisting that the poverty stricken simply pull out their pressure cookers to cook their dried foods! So many take for granted and dont even think about the luxuries they have and assume all others have them too....
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Having actually BEEN homeless & destitute, I can assure you that it's a pretty straightforward question: what is going to fill my empty belly for the least money? Yeah, fast food isn't particularly nutritious - but that takes a lot longer to be felt than hunger pangs. Cooking bulk foods (rice, beans, etc) is all well and good - assuming you have someplace to cook, something to cook in and with, and a way to keep leftovers or ingredients.
I've been in shared houses where it was impossible to do any of this. Your food vanished - you made leftovers? Too bad, they've taken it. You can't get another house, because this is the only one you can afford. Don't even think about refrigerator space. And, by the way, there's nowhere to cook because your flatmates have the kitchen permanently trashed...if you're up for working, coming home, and cleaning a smashed place EVERY night...
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The person who mentioned buying a rotisserie chicken at Costco or Sam's forgot that a person has to pay a fee to use those stores
I may get down voted for this and apologize if it offends anyone, but I am particularly annoyed with the comments about working a full day and then having to cook. I work 10 hours a day with a half hour commute each way. I still cook at home every day. Do I always want to? No. But I choose health over convenience.
Now make it 10 hours of work and 1.5 hours of commute each way. Plus house chores. Your health will decline if don't have any rest; healthy food barely has a say in this.
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It dilutes your entire message when you start off with an unfair comparison. Why would you compare the price of raspberries to a fast food meal? Raspberries are one of the most expensive fruits you can buy. How about a can of beans and a banana (around $1.25). Ok, I know, that's not very appetizing. So how about a can of white beans, tomatoes, pasta and olive oil. That's less than $5 for 2 - 3 servings worth. If you need something quick and on the go, then a packet of shelf-stable tuna or salmon salad with crackers and an apple. Still less than $4
The meal might be less than $5, but can you afford the $24 up front to buy the tomatoes, beans, pasta, olive oil, apple, banana, crackers, and fish for a week? Some people can't. Been there, done that.
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I just wanna call out the commenter ignorantly suggesting regular coke is healthier than diet "carbonated chemicals in a can". Can we PLEASE stop perpetuating this crap? It's like the vaccine-autism thing - IT WON'T DIE and it just keeps getting restated. S T O P I T
Yep, regular (sugared) coke is the healthiest drink ever invented... no additives... just pure organic natural unicorn strawberry juice.
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only in america, burgers etc are cheaper than homemade food. Here in greece the average homemade portion of food costs 2 to 5 euros to buy and make. fast food costs 2-3 times as much
Mewton keeps talking about beans and lettuce. Apparently that's all she needs to function. I'm assuming she's vegetarian, since she hasn't mentioned any meat in all of her MANY posts in this thread. So just take into consideration that her "diet" only works if you don't eat any meat AFAIK.
Load More Replies... The environmental cost of McDonald's food, however, is extremely high. We all will pay that with interest.
For those of you who don't understand the hot water and ketchup packets, if you mix ketchup in hot water you get what is known as "hobo tomato soup" which is basically a terrible version of hot ketchup
Thank you. I didn't understand that part, and was going to post the question.
Load More Replies... I think one of the biggest issues with people being able to cook healthier meals from is education on how to do it. If you are feeding your family from places like McDonalds, people can say you should be cooking at home and it's unhealthy, but how are you actually going to do it? My mum worked full time and we had homemade meals every night, however this was only possible because she had a bunch of recipes for dinners she could make quickly, and cheaply. She also did not work on a Saturday, so could make a big batch of things like bolognese or stews, which would be frozen and then adapted into different meals during the week. Healthy eating isn't just about salad and fruit, making it at home vastly reduces things like salt and sugar that are packed into fast foods. There should be more resources that people can turn to for support on how to cook, and quick recipes so they can learn, rather than just be shamed and told what they are doing is wrong.
With all due respect- there's still a lot of judgment in these comments. About the time to cook, etc. In regards to the comparison between raspberries & fast food- her point was clearly that fresh produce is expensive. My biggest issue with a lot of these comments is this: in impoverished urban areas in the US, people live in food deserts. Grocery stores are more often in wealthier areas. If you don't have a car, those stores are hard to get to. And public transportation takes a lot more time than a car. Not to mention carrying the groceries, the food is more expensive. Corner stores don't always carry the variety of food..The US needs more initiatives to get proper grocery stores in those areas, & to bring fresh produce to them. There are some, but not nearly enough
Thank you for mentioning the time it takes to get anywhere on public transportation. I remember when I was single and living in Raleigh, NC, there were times my car was in the shop and I had to take the bus to work or the store. Raleigh’s not a huge metropolis. It’s more like a medium-ish sized town. If you’re driving and hit every red light at rush hour, it can take 30 minutes to cross town or use the bypass, more if traffic’s bad or there was an accident. It could take a couple hours or more by bus; waiting for the right bus, changing busses and waiting for the next one, getting passed by if the bus is full, etc, etc, etc. More waiting than traveling. That’s why you see people outside the grocery store waiting for a taxi—-an expense they then have to add onto their grocery bill—-because they have too many bags of groceries (those plastic bags are not very big, and the handles cut into your hands if they’re heavy) to manage on the bus.
Load More Replies... One thing that hasn’t been mentioned is that some folks are so poor that Dollar Menu meal may be the only full meal they get per day. And don’t start praising free lunches at school, especially if they’re in a cash-strapped school. Even back in the day when I was a kid in public school, the lunches weren’t necessarily all that delicious or healthy—-some looked downright nasty. Luckily, my parents were better off than many, so I actually had the option of brown-bagging it. Some kids rely on those lunches, and breakfasts if the school offers them, for the bulk of their nutrition. Their parent(s) however, probably only have that one McDonalds meal per day, unless they work in food service and get a complimentary lunch. If they’re homeless—-though some homeless people do work—-it can take forever to beg or scrounge for that dollar. So don’t go judging people making the best of their difficult situation. What they have to go through every day would probably kill the most judgmental of you.
Maybe they should start taxing these types of food. BTW, you don't need to eat organic shït to eat well. You can grow vegetables in your own home using a plastic bottle, you don't even need that much space! Meat is RIDICULOUSLY CHEAP in the U.S. as it's rice, pasta and chicken. I understand the struggles of living on a tight budget, but that's never an excuse to neglect your kids and feed them junk everyday.
Which vegetables can you grow in a plastic bottle?! And if you don't need much space for these plastic bottle veggies then I'm guessing we're talking micro portions. I'm in the UK, not an American but please, enough of slagging off Americans. There are serious issues with food deserts there that most of us in Europe don't fully understand. People also ignore other aspects of poverty like not having things like crock pots or pressure cookers because of the cost, or for too many people not a proper stove or oven. For those using food banks in the UK most of the food isn't perishable because they can't keep fresh fruit and vegetables or dairy products. There are real difficulties that ignorant onlookers don't see or prefer to ignore. Maybe if we helped those suffering food poverty by helping them with proper cooking facilities and utensils, basic food cupboard essentials, and for many, lessons in how to cook we'd help, but yeah, let's just judge instead.
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Instead of rasberries ...buy potatoes? I'm sure they're not that expensive anywhere? Cheaper cuts of meat are usually tastier the expensive ones. Take 2 hours on a saturday and pre-cook for a week. I know fast food is cheap, and it is tasty (as is anything unhealthy) but it is NOT cheaper than real food.
It's sad to read "have kids willing to eat whatever you make" I live in Italy and in school my two kids (2 years and 5 years old) have balanced menu..every two weeks they have pizza for lunch ( 1 day) ..they have vegetables, fish, meat, eggs, fruits and I pay less than 3 € each lunch. They never eat at school fried chicken..French fries or chocolate milk as in USA ( I've seen many tv programs showing what they serve at school canteen and it's terrible) . I think it's a problem that starts here.. you'll never eat healthier at home if at school you eat trash food, you don't have to buy raspberries or fancy foods but you can prepare healthy lunch with Very few ingredients and not too expensive (yesterday I prepared dinner with 2 carrots, 2 zucchini , oil, soy sauce and chicken.. without frying anything..)
EXACTLY. On the other hand, in the USA, zucchini cost an arm. I think the problem cannot be dealt the same way in northern America and in Europe.
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after my parents divorced, my siblings and i lived with our mum (dad was not interested). my mum worked 3 jobs to provide for us, and never had time to cook. i was 10 at the time and could do simple meals. we had a lot of goolash (which i hate), mac n cheese, soups, and stews. any time she was home, she was trying to catch some sleep before having to go to the next job. we were lucky enough to live in a suburb and have a vehicle, so we were lucky in that. i'm sure there are a lot of people who had it worse than we did. i try not to judge anyone because i don't know their circumstances. i think we should all be like this.
In the U.S. we get packets of coupons saving 1/2 off, 3/4 off some foods at grocery stores and some restaurants. The coupons are ALWAYS for junk food. I've never seen a single coupon for healthy food, ever. If you talk about calories per dollar, junk food is the winner for poor people. Agree that things like beans and rice are even cheaper but then dealing with logistics is harder -- when you're poor you're often trying to get a quick meal in between your 3 jobs.
The grocery store that is most convenient for me to get to often has very steep sales on certain things, but they are usually things which are terrible to eat in quantity (mac and cheese, peanut butter, chips, cheese, etc.) and never has produce on sale. I noticed that was influencing my buying and I had to quit going there. I now go to a smaller store where the only things that are ever on sale are in-season produce, which is not a bad thing!
Load More Replies... Love the person commenting about rotisserie chicken at Costco or Sams. The membership fee to these stores is my grocery budget for a week. Am I supposed to not eat for a week so I can enter the land of cheap chicken? You can tell some people have never been poor.
Preach. From the mouths of people who've never known real food insecurity, here comes a bunch of impractical solutions & suggestions!
Load More Replies... When I was really broke and living somewhere I could afford to...I didn't have access to the ability to STORE food. The kitchen was always trashed - there were 7 other people living there, most of whom were delighted if you cleaned - but they weren't going to. I had no transport, so you'd walk for at LEAST half an hour carrying any groceries. It was quite possible to work a long day, walk home, and find that you had literally nowhere to cook. Other people would eat your food (goodbye refrigerator!). Anything you had to cook was going to be a challenge. If you could eat cheap, out, you avoided people stealing your food, and it made it heaps easier to carry. (That said, you can go a long way on adding bok choi or other greens to 2 min noodles.)
Exactly. When i was in germany working 70-75h a week for 600 euros a month I was renting a tiny room in a small apartment where two people couldnt use the kitchen at the same time. I barely had any place to store food and least a car to go to cheap supermarkets. I only had a bike and a day and a half free a week to do groceries and cook for the entire week.
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I like how the people complaining have ignored the very clear points about food deserts and being time/energy poor.
A lot of supermarkets move out of "poor" areas, citing high crime (as opposed to hiring security guards). When the doc says that 15 miles outside of Austin is a grocery desert, she's not kidding (I live there). Instacart is a good option - IF you can pay the higher costs. So if my only choices were the convenience store and McDs, yeah, I'd go to McDs. NOT being able to there is a privilege I didn't even know I had until I was unemployed for six months. (I also dumpster-dove behind the grocery store, but no grocery store, no option.)
Someone complained that comparing it against raspberries isn't comparable as they're not a substantial meal. That is exactly the point, you can buy a whole fast food meal for the price of a small healthy snack.
20 worth of McDonald's vs 20 worth of meat/rice/lettuce. Fast food is not cheap, it's just easier.
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I eat healthy - my friend doesn't. We did many road trips together in the US. My food bills were easy double his. He had microwave stuff, donuts, etc, I got veggies and fruits and meat/fish whatever. It's extremely expensive in the US to eat healthy. And the quality in supermarkets isn't that good.
Add to this that well over half of McDonalds & Walmart workers are on food stamps and take it in conjunction with the burden on the medical system, McDonald and Walmart are funded by taxpayers. That's right, your taxes paying to buy the Walton family and McDonalds shareholders another summer home or private jet. Making people billionaires while they kill and maim the astoundingly sad quality of life of those who actually work 40+ hrs a week making them rich.
Food insecurity is such a massive, multifaceted & complex issue. You have regional cost, cultural influence, affordability vs. availability. The truth is while fast food & junk food cost more in the long run, they're often cheaper in the right now. A box of pasta & bag of beans might cost the same but the amount of prep & planning is vastly different. It boils down to the outlook of entire societies like how in Europe fresh produce & whole meats are affordable & available as a general rule vs the US where people get furious if milk costs more than 3$ a gallon. The cost of those low cost items & convenience foods is farming also being done on a commercial scale making it difficult to have and afford it in all regions. Farmers grow what sells so soybeans, corn for corn syrup, potatoes, etc making the healthier foods more exclusive & more expensive. These industries are meeting a demand we set as a general society. If we collectively changed our diets, the industry would follow.
Food deserts are a real problem here. Supermarkets and farmers' markets don't want to go into the poor neighborhoods, so discount chains like Family Dollar and convenience stores are the only easy source for food. None of those places sell produce of any kind.
who get 3 meals with one chicken? i have 3 kids. if i'm lucky after we eat the chicken maybe we get enough bit of chicken to make a chicken nood soup with the bones. and usually where we are we pay 12-15 buck for a cooked chicken. same with fruits. i only buy what's cheap. sometime we can get 2x 1 pound straberry for 6$. and those aren't local... we are in the east canada coast. those come from california or mexico usually. local strawberries are too expensive. my kids eat all of then in one sitting!
Time is a factor. People, shopping, traveling to the shops, cooking the food, cleaning up, all takes time. Poor people are usually time-poor as well as broke. If you are living on minimum wage, you have to work long hours to live. You also have to live somewhere cheap, which often means far from your job, and you probrably can't afford to run a car, so you're taking the bus, and usually changing busses. If you are working a 10 hour shift, and you take the bus and have to change and it's 2 hours each way, and you sleep 8 hours, that leaves you 2 hours total for housework, bathing, laundry, shopping, cooking and eating, spending time with your kids, making them do their homework, seeing them clean and dressed and fed. Where is the time to go shopping and fix healthy meals? It's not just food - exercise, studying, extra-curricular activities for the kids, all of that disappears because there just is not enough time in a day, because everything is harder, and takes longer, when poor.
Cheap food: Potatoes, carrots, onion, garlic, apples, root vegetables such as celeriac, beets. rice, pasta, beans, lentils, basic oats, neutral canned tomatoes, canned mais (corn?). Try to aim seasonal, by meat if you need on sale.. Spices- salt, pepper, curry, paprika, dried herbs, cumin, coriander etc.. Don't by them in a major supermarket, get them in a random place like a dollar store. You can make so much cheap food and so many different dishes with that. People should be "braver" and try cooking dishes inspired by other countries. Make a stew, a curry, spaghetti sauce,. And if your short on time due to working 12 hour shifts.. Plan ahead., cook dishes that can keep for 2-3 days on a stove or freeze if you can. Ask for help if possible. It is really not impossible at all. Now, if you want to eat MC-D sometimes that is ok, yes it "fills" but not really in the long run.
This is such an interesting concept. I never thought of it this way. Of course, I'm not one of those people who judges eating habits, i'm a picky eater myself.
I had the reverse problem when I was broke--there wasn't any fast food in my part of town, but we had a small grocery store. I had some second-hand pots and pans that I bought at Salvation Army, so I'd get frozen stuff and cheap foods and I'd cook. I'm not a great cook, but I could keep myself alive. And I couldn't afford the bus, so my "exercise" was walking downtown to work, always in a hurry due to my bad habit of over-sleeping. It was tough, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
What do you mean what do I think? If this is American based, done deal. Of course cheaper food is the go to. We have a mcdonalds on every street corner. And every grocery, just like EVERY OTHER BUSINESS IN AMERICA, is a business first and the people running it don't give a rats ass about anyone. They care about their business.
I'm privileged and I know it. I've been getting my produce delivered to my doorstep for over a year now. It's all from farms around where I live. It's less expensive than Whole Foods too. I also have a huge farmers market produce stands in front of peoples houses that grow fresh fruit and vegetables and at least 4 grocery stores less than 10 min drive in every direction. A home w everything I need plus more and I still want to eat fast food after a long day of work and errands. I was poor for a short time growing up and I remember my mom crying bc all we had were eggs and lettuce to eat until she got a new job. It's got to be so hard.
I worked at a school cafeteria.... We had fresh lunches. Yes, there was the occasional crap pizza, chalupas, and chicken patties... Yuck... But I also made fresh, chili, spaghetti sauce, sloppy joes, fresh baked chicken/turkey. I was truly amazed at the recipes and to this day, I still use some of those recipes at home..... Just smaller amounts
Dunno about US, but in Russia fast food chains are usually more expensive than more or less healthy stuff (for example, I can buy a fast food meal for 300-350 roubles, it is about 4 dollars, or a frozen veggie mix for 150 roubles which is less than 2 dollars). But there are two nuisances. First, you need to cook it anyway, sometimes I just don't have time to go home and re-freeze it in a microwave. Second, not all stores have this kind of profucts and big fast food chains at least have quality standarts and often it is just safer to go a Burger King or McDonalds.
It's the same in the Country I am from (Not USA) but not in the Country I currently live, which is great. One Burger King meal here is almost 15 Euro. I can buy ingredients for two-three dinners with that. It's one of the few things the Government here has right. Junk food should be more expensive
It's almost always cheaper and easier to go with natural food. You can cook eggs or potatoes in the microwave, in a frying pan, in the oven, or by boiling in a matter of minutes. The cost and effort... negligible. Think carrots instead of imported berries. Also, Walmart delivers.
**Walmart delivers if you pay a delivery fee or monthly fee and place a minimum $35 order.
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I believe BOTH make very good points! There's a lot of *pressure* when you're poor to do something like fast food that is different than other classes, mcds knows this. It is harder in many ways, but also being poor, you may not have the education or energy to research just why fast food too frequently is bad and think of what the long term effects may be. Or perhaps there is subtle nuance where maybe you try to do healthy but get mcds just a bit too frequently and miscalculate how much of an impact it has. (Like that it's made to be addictive) There's also misinformation... It's a burger, right? It has lettuce tomato and meat, they might think surely this is a good meal? Maybe more calories are not bad for kids if they're always hungry? It's understandable if someone thinks these things at first. Honestly food science is pretty complex. So I don't believe we should "snub" people we don't know, we don't know their situation. That said, my other point:
That said, my other point: being a parent is hard but you have to be able to do it. Once you notice fast food is making your kids hungrier and if it's at the amount that will become a problem, as parents we should try to find a healthiER alternative, even a not the best option is better than the worst. Whatever that option turns out to be by god kids you'll eat it because we don't have the money to indulge what you want all the time. Thank your parents for what they provided and eat your food, unless you want to go out and work to feed yourself. If they ask why can't we get mcds we used to do it all the time, explain that it might give them health problems which are expensive, so we can't do that so often anymore. They may argue and pout but don't cave, because you're doing right by them.
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This is very, very sad. Of course, people can eat nutritional balanced meals even from food banks and dollar stores. Here’s an example of a vegan meal plan based on that: https://www.vrg.org/blog/2020/02/18/vegan-at-the-dollar-tree/amp/. The question is if the average person living in poverty has the time, energy, and knowledge to do that. I doubt that person does. I grew up probably lower middle-class, and as a time saver, my mom used to stop at a Chinese restaurant on the way home, buy a big box of plain cooked rice, and add that to our meals. Imagine people who can’t even make that happen because they don’t have a car to get there, enough time over a weekend to make some beans, or a microwave to warm those beans up. It’s a shame that this happens so often in such a wealthy country.
I have only judged when I've seen teenage mothers feeding Macca's fries to their 1 year old n laughing that the baby likes it.
The doctor wasn't giving diet advice. She was simply asking folks to go a bit easier on the overworked, the poor, and those who don't have a lot of food choices in their neighborhoods. That's it. Why add to their burden by wagging a big Karen-finger at them because you disapprove of their "choices"? And your own personal experiences aside, what makes you think everyone has your options, your time, and your resources? I once read a similar Why Don't The Poor Eat Like I Do rant by a Whole Foodie about how THEY had planted organic produce from seed, implying that a poor person working double shifts should obviously pull a Jamie Oliver and get into personal agriculture and whip up some kale smoothies as an after school snack. So Easy! Problem Solved!
Omg the woman that said a chicken at sam's club or Costco is only 4.99... no not only 4.99 the basic membership to get In the door is like $40 or $50. It pisses me off so bad when elitist people say just shop at Costco and save money. Poor people cannot afford to spend a huge amount of money for a membership. And yes when you are poor that is s huge amount. That could be the entire food budget for a family of four for a week or more.
I am not familiar with the US prices but why compare a burger with a handful of berries? Why not compare it with lentils, beans, chickpeas, rice, pasta, apples, oranges, potatoes, etc?
At this time I would give a shout out to former president Trump for feeding Americas kids under eighteen for free by the lunch programs at schools this year and Then also to Michelle Obama for insisting healthy options are available with those lunches, and President Biden for understanding the continued need for the food programs, My kids know you all did this in your own ways. Thanks. Thank you to all the Cafeteria workers this year, you made all the difference for a lot of families, God bless America Ya'll.
As a German I'd call this Bullshit, but maybe some Americans can help clarify: Here in Germany it's always cheaper to cook yourself. For 3.25$/2,70€ I'd be able to cook Spaghetti Napoleon for 4 Persons (500 g Spaghetti = 0,49 €, 500 ml sieved tomatoes= 0,49 €, 1 Onion = 0,5 €, a bit of spices and 250 g shredded mozzarella = 1,59 € All in all 2,63 €). So how could it be that McDonalds is consideted cheap? It'd be always cheaper and healthier to cook yourself. So for for persons it'd be 2,63 € instead of 10,80 € (for meals at McD) - lot's of money saved to use on vegetables and fruits. Even if you make Burger and fries yourself you save enough for healthy food!
When I was broke, it was the 'cook' thing that was the issue - no oven, microwave or grill access. I did, however, have a kettle - but I gather kettles aren't a thing in America. Something to do with the way their power grid works.
Load More Replies... The thing is: eating unhealthy all the time makes your body more tired/overweight, so you won't have energy to prep healthier meals so then you just continue eating unhealthy. It's a vicious circle, which we need to break out of by making healthier food choices. They will give you more energy and you will feel better in your own body. Not fat alone makes fat but the combination of too many carbs with fat and not enough movement through the day. And please reduce your portion sizes America. It is definitely possible to make smaller changes there, even with a small budget and not enough time. Little changes, step by step. It can be done. :-)
I worked a second job for years as a waitress/bartender. Try being hungry, handing an entitled you know what a $40 dinner, seeing them pick at it, then throwing almost all away, AND getting stiffed on a tip. Yes I enjoyed an employee discount. Half off. Ha!!!! Still couldn't afford it! I have three kids. I fed them from the food bank and rice, beans and chicken and hamburger.
Vegetables actually are cheaper if you know what to buy. Much of this could be attributable to an addiction to salt, fat, and sugar. "Healthier" options at fast food restaurants are more expensive because they don't sell. They don't sell because people don't eat them. They don't eat them because they crave the stuff loaded with salt, fat, and sugar. If you stop eating this junk - or feeding it to your kids - those cravings eventually go away.
Do not forget that you can only absorb 20% of any plant matter, even the cooked ones, while meat can be used up to 80%. Carbs also offer more energy. Our body runs on salt, carbs, fat and sugar.
Load More Replies... I am glad towards the end you see the comments from people with common sense... making food at home is definitely cheaper and better... also the whole "working 10 hours so too tired" is bollocks... welcome to the real world...
the real world is people get tired not that people are invincible and have the all holy ability to care for kids and make a full meal for your self on the low as f**k minimum wage most people are getting so get off your high horse and just know that people get tired and cant aford to pay around 60 dollars for STEAK. the REAAAL world is that the easiest way to survive is to get some mcdonalds until they have the money to buy "real food" which might last you one day longer before you have to buy more of it and realize you cant afford the live and instead just picking up some wendies.
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Comparing UK food prices with USA ones is just impossible. In the UK fast food tends to be a bit dearer here but fresh fruit and veg appears to be considerably cheaper.
You Tube is filled with home cooks and their recipe ideas that are quick, easy and $1-$5, they shop from Aldi, Dollar Store, Walmart, etc, the ingredients are basic. It may be a bit more effort but worth it. At one point in my life we walked to the nearest dollar store for groceries (working full time and going to school) so I do know what being without is like. But I much prefer to prepare something, since I would have to travel anyway to the fast food place, that has some nutritional value it it is also something we can do together vs. just mindless ordering a number from a board, it is a kind of empowerment vs. being a victim. So I give more credit to persons with lower incomes (and have been there) the writer should view some of these ideas, they have been so helpful for so many in difficult times.
I'm sure this is true, bet when you drive past a Mickey Ds & the drive thru has 10 cars waiting in line, somehow I don't think wealth is the issue, but it IS the issue of obesity in our country.
I think his mostly applies to the US. In Europe, fast food is definitely more expensive than cooking at home. We cook for the entire week with maybe around 30 euros. Of course, if you cook 3 different meals each day, it will be expensive, but cooking a large pot of food that would last 3-4 days is perfectly fine and healthy and cheap.
So part of the problem is how perfect veggies & fruit needs to be for the American public to purchase them. How much food goes to waste on farms because they know people won't buy them unless they're perfect. It's a shame and a crime.'
"single mom of 2 work working for $7.25/hr". Once again the irresponsibility of having kids when you can't support them isn't mentioned. Even if healthy food costs the same, most of these people would opt for the fast food. The lack of responsibility permeates through their entire life.
A lot of people are completely missing the point of the original tweet. STOP judging and shaming people for their choices and fix the system!
It seems weird to compare McD with raspberries. Unhealthy in McD's is the fact that it is processed, high fat, low quality food. Buying minced meat and Buns and the other ingredients and coocking yourself is still a burger with fries but in a healthy way: more and longer filling (due to quality of food and nutrients). Overall you will get out more of the ingredients (more than one meal) and be cheaper, despite the initial higher price. However I acknowlege that people can be worn out after work - maybe time to think about if the world and society we live in is alright? Earn Bnzos more money and be super tired so you have to give your little penny to another cooperation and no time for life.
It is bizarre that McDonald's is so cheap, perhaps more than that organic raspberries bought in a random season, not July, are expensive. It's true that in USA, for whatever reason, farm produce costs the same regardless of the time of year. I would expect that buying seasonal goods in a bulk (e.g. farm share) shouldn't be that expensive. But food deserts are ... sad. As for meal preparation, cooking a 3-course meal may be time-consuming but making or soup, or combining a sandwich with fresh veggies isn't that hard.
This is definitely true in some places. Where I live, rice is easily accessible and jobs are typically higher pay but so are taxes. So it's easier to buy food at the store. But I've visited in other places and sure you can get a can of beans and some corn for cheap, but you are left feeling sick and unfilled, alike to the nutrition as some fast food so you may as well get fast food in some cases. I've been in a struggling money situation and sometimes you just do what you got to do. this is just my opinion love you all <3
She does realize there are other, less expensive healthy foods, right? She doesn't have to get the $9/lb raspberries.
I dont know. I can think of dozen of meals which are both healthier, cheaper and quicker. I hate cooking so simple quick food is all I do all the time. For example pasta with simple tomato sauce (onion, garlic, tomatoes), steamed carrot with butter and boiled potatoes (carrot, potatoes), fried rice (rice, egg, onion, spices and optional other vegetables), chicken soup (chicken, carrots, onion, salt), any soup really (like peas soup, pumpkin soup, carrot soup, roasted garlic soup, broccoli soup, green beans soup, lentils soup), spaghetti with cream mushroom sauce (spaghetti, cream, mushrooms), or for my last dinner I just mixed tomatoes, canned beans, zucchini, carrot, onion, done in 10 minutes on pan. When I am super lazy I just mix some vegetables and put them in the oven (like beets, celery, carrots, potatoes and such, mix with oil and spices), then I add sour cream and garlic and its amazing. Also pancakes are really simple and quick.
Where's the meat, though? I don't see much protein here besides eggs.
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Fast food (at least in Canada) is NOT cheap. Last time I ordered a spicy chicken burger & small coke at Wendy's it came to almost $10. Dinner for 2 at Taco Time = $30. I can make a chicken salad for under $5 at home. Chicken strips take 20-30 mins to cook (can do other things while they bake), salad prep = 5 mins. It's not hard to eat healthy for cheap.
my take on this is that, you could buy a burger from mcdonalds 20 times and still be able to live. while you may be able to buy traditionally healthy food like a few times before you have to stoop down to mcdonalds. and the way people go about talking about mcdonalds. youd think there selling you zebra meet between to pickled frog livers. ill admit its not healthy its not gonna freaking kill you and its gonna keep you full enough to have the energy to work enough to buy ACTUAL healthy food. which by the WAY has a very small window to be able to eat and also corn bread is not healthy. its just bread with cornmeal and oil. AND YOU HAVE TO EAT ALOT OF the VERY EXPENSIVE HEALTHY FOOD FOR THE HEALTHINESS to EVEN MATTER. when alternativly when you can just get a burger for much cheaper and be done with it.
I shop at the dollar store in my city, and there are a surprising amount of healthy options. For example, I can get fresh produce such as bell peppers, onions, carrots, garlic, potatoes, fruits, etc.--all for cheaper than at the supermarket. There are also bags of beans, lentils, peas and more. Rice, pasta and gnocchi is also there. Not to mention all the canned stuff such as sliced pineapple, coconut milk, olives. Bread, eggs and other stuff is available too. I know it takes time to put all this together to cook, but depending on the meal, it shouldnt be more than 40 minutes.
I know it is not applyable to everyone, but what I see in my surroundings - it is very often the wrong mindset. Last year I decided to change my eating habbits to be healtier and to loose some weight. I was affraid it would be time and money consuming. But honestly, we turned it into the family event - we plan meals together, going to buy a grocery is a long family walk, and we prepare it often together. It helps childern to setup the correct eating behavior and it is fun for them, when they are involved in the proces - not acting like it is a punishment, you need to make them feel important :D You don't need to make some several-hours taking meals in fifty pots. One pot meal is a very good option, legumes are cheap and very healty...you don't need to buy and cook some exotic expensive stuff if you don't feel like it (or you don't have money for it). I am not saying, we are cooking all the time from skratch, but even a small change is good. Think about your childern future.
In Germany, companies like Hello Fresh deliver mostly organic, fresh ingredients to your door for healthy cooking for less than $5 per meal (you still need to cook, though). Might be a bit cheaper if you buy it in a supermarket.
Seems like this doc has never actually tried or googled 'easy 5min meals that fill' or anything like that in her life. Saing cooking is 'wayy harder and takes wayyy longer'' lmaooo Pancakes: 120ml milk, 50gr oatmeal, 1 egg: mix it up and make small pancakes: goes for 4kids easily and takes me around 10-15mins to make from start to finish. How is that ''taking a long time and leaving a lot of dishes' when I only use 1 pan and 1 cup to blend it all together+measure the milk? f**k this.
I was downright starving poor for a few periods in my youth where I had to skip meals because I simply couldn't afford to eat. I can tell you if I had the $3.28 or whatever for a hamburger, I certainly wouldn't have been buying it because that's a waste. I could have eaten 2-3 times on that by buying smarter at the grocery store. Particularly things like beans, rice, etc. go a lot further.
Frozen vegetables and fruit can actually be better options than fresh because they're frozen right after being picked and they don't go bad. You can microwave a bunch of vegetables together in about 5 minutes and add them on the side of the cheap staple foods. Frozen fruit can be thawed out in the fridge over the course of the day and used as a fruit salad. Raspberries are probably the costliest fruit in the store due to their fragility and the labour required to pick them, which is why I have a raspberry patch in my back yard and freeze bags of them during the 6 weeks they're producing.
She's right... Ish .... but mcd s isn't that cheap and raspberries aren't that expensive. Her argument is sound, the post nsm
in Germany you can buy fruits and vegetables in the street market. It's even cheaper than supermarket.
It's not about the amount of food in the stores, it's about living out in the country and having to travel many miles to get to the store. That's what they mean by "food desert"
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That is not how society works. Yes, parents with low savings should not have kids, I agree completely. But once they have them it’s our duty as society to be sure that they are ok. Taking care of our weak and ill is one of the very few things that distinguish us from other animals.
Load More Replies... Genius! You have solved world hunger! Why didn't anyone think of that?!
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I just want to add that in my opinion, this applies mostly to the US. In Germany or let's say most of Europe, I would still say, healthy food, like veggies and fruit are much cheaper. I have never paid as much for a few tomatoes and a salad as I did in the US, and this was low quality stuff at a normal grocery store. In Europe, poor people cook their own food, because it's 10.000 times cheaper than fast food and much healthier.
I know, I work in a supermarket, not even one of the high end ones, and you can buy a kilogram of raspberries for less than regular big mac meal. That's 2.2lbs for under £5. When my mother was visiting family in America , and she was shocked by the price of fruit and veg.
Load More Replies... Did none of you catch the part about the time and expense involved. It isn't just the cooking, it is the cleaning up, the shopping. Before you can even shop, where is the nearest grocery store? Do you have reliable transportation there? Are you taking a bus for an hour to get there? And another hour back? The entire point of this was to stop judging when you don't know, and everyone just hopped on the judgement band wagon. So you have hours devoted to shopping, and a hit or miss for transportation, you have at least an hour of prep work, if you don't want the blandest food on earth you have to add things that add flavor and all of them cost money. Unless you flavor absolutely everything with onions. Then you have the clean up time. After all this they're probably working 2 or 3 jobs just to make ends meet, likely 7 days a week. There is also laundry to handle (likely at a time consuming laundry mat). Do you just think poor people never deserve a break?
I do flavor everything with onions. And dry spices, they are pretty cheap and last very long. Fresh ginger and garlic are also pretty cheap (OK, they are expensive, but you need a very little of them). On the other hand, there are many condiments that are super expensive. But I see your point. Not everyone has enough time to play around in a kitchen.
Load More Replies... 15 dollars of beans and rice can feed a family far longer than 15 dollars at McDonald's. Its also more nutritionally balanced. Add eggs on the side for a heartier meal. No, eating beans and rice is not fun all the time. But it goes further and will not make you sick like eating McDonald's "food" will eventually. If you find just beans and rice are not satiating, try adding some avocado oil (expensive, so use sparingly. but super heart healthy)
Try and add SPICES - the magic ingredient that will turn ol' same pinto beans into Mexican food, Peruvian food, German food, Polish food and much more.
Load More Replies... Did the person tweeting about Costco and Sam's Club forget that they require a paid membership to shop there?
Of course they did...the same as the poster who keeps insisting that the poverty stricken simply pull out their pressure cookers to cook their dried foods! So many take for granted and dont even think about the luxuries they have and assume all others have them too....
Load More Replies... Having actually BEEN homeless & destitute, I can assure you that it's a pretty straightforward question: what is going to fill my empty belly for the least money? Yeah, fast food isn't particularly nutritious - but that takes a lot longer to be felt than hunger pangs. Cooking bulk foods (rice, beans, etc) is all well and good - assuming you have someplace to cook, something to cook in and with, and a way to keep leftovers or ingredients.
I've been in shared houses where it was impossible to do any of this. Your food vanished - you made leftovers? Too bad, they've taken it. You can't get another house, because this is the only one you can afford. Don't even think about refrigerator space. And, by the way, there's nowhere to cook because your flatmates have the kitchen permanently trashed...if you're up for working, coming home, and cleaning a smashed place EVERY night...
Load More Replies... The person who mentioned buying a rotisserie chicken at Costco or Sam's forgot that a person has to pay a fee to use those stores
I may get down voted for this and apologize if it offends anyone, but I am particularly annoyed with the comments about working a full day and then having to cook. I work 10 hours a day with a half hour commute each way. I still cook at home every day. Do I always want to? No. But I choose health over convenience.
Now make it 10 hours of work and 1.5 hours of commute each way. Plus house chores. Your health will decline if don't have any rest; healthy food barely has a say in this.
Load More Replies... It dilutes your entire message when you start off with an unfair comparison. Why would you compare the price of raspberries to a fast food meal? Raspberries are one of the most expensive fruits you can buy. How about a can of beans and a banana (around $1.25). Ok, I know, that's not very appetizing. So how about a can of white beans, tomatoes, pasta and olive oil. That's less than $5 for 2 - 3 servings worth. If you need something quick and on the go, then a packet of shelf-stable tuna or salmon salad with crackers and an apple. Still less than $4
The meal might be less than $5, but can you afford the $24 up front to buy the tomatoes, beans, pasta, olive oil, apple, banana, crackers, and fish for a week? Some people can't. Been there, done that.
Load More Replies... I just wanna call out the commenter ignorantly suggesting regular coke is healthier than diet "carbonated chemicals in a can". Can we PLEASE stop perpetuating this crap? It's like the vaccine-autism thing - IT WON'T DIE and it just keeps getting restated. S T O P I T
Yep, regular (sugared) coke is the healthiest drink ever invented... no additives... just pure organic natural unicorn strawberry juice.
Load More Replies... only in america, burgers etc are cheaper than homemade food. Here in greece the average homemade portion of food costs 2 to 5 euros to buy and make. fast food costs 2-3 times as much
Mewton keeps talking about beans and lettuce. Apparently that's all she needs to function. I'm assuming she's vegetarian, since she hasn't mentioned any meat in all of her MANY posts in this thread. So just take into consideration that her "diet" only works if you don't eat any meat AFAIK.
Load More Replies... The environmental cost of McDonald's food, however, is extremely high. We all will pay that with interest.
For those of you who don't understand the hot water and ketchup packets, if you mix ketchup in hot water you get what is known as "hobo tomato soup" which is basically a terrible version of hot ketchup
Thank you. I didn't understand that part, and was going to post the question.
Load More Replies... I think one of the biggest issues with people being able to cook healthier meals from is education on how to do it. If you are feeding your family from places like McDonalds, people can say you should be cooking at home and it's unhealthy, but how are you actually going to do it? My mum worked full time and we had homemade meals every night, however this was only possible because she had a bunch of recipes for dinners she could make quickly, and cheaply. She also did not work on a Saturday, so could make a big batch of things like bolognese or stews, which would be frozen and then adapted into different meals during the week. Healthy eating isn't just about salad and fruit, making it at home vastly reduces things like salt and sugar that are packed into fast foods. There should be more resources that people can turn to for support on how to cook, and quick recipes so they can learn, rather than just be shamed and told what they are doing is wrong.
With all due respect- there's still a lot of judgment in these comments. About the time to cook, etc. In regards to the comparison between raspberries & fast food- her point was clearly that fresh produce is expensive. My biggest issue with a lot of these comments is this: in impoverished urban areas in the US, people live in food deserts. Grocery stores are more often in wealthier areas. If you don't have a car, those stores are hard to get to. And public transportation takes a lot more time than a car. Not to mention carrying the groceries, the food is more expensive. Corner stores don't always carry the variety of food..The US needs more initiatives to get proper grocery stores in those areas, & to bring fresh produce to them. There are some, but not nearly enough
Thank you for mentioning the time it takes to get anywhere on public transportation. I remember when I was single and living in Raleigh, NC, there were times my car was in the shop and I had to take the bus to work or the store. Raleigh’s not a huge metropolis. It’s more like a medium-ish sized town. If you’re driving and hit every red light at rush hour, it can take 30 minutes to cross town or use the bypass, more if traffic’s bad or there was an accident. It could take a couple hours or more by bus; waiting for the right bus, changing busses and waiting for the next one, getting passed by if the bus is full, etc, etc, etc. More waiting than traveling. That’s why you see people outside the grocery store waiting for a taxi—-an expense they then have to add onto their grocery bill—-because they have too many bags of groceries (those plastic bags are not very big, and the handles cut into your hands if they’re heavy) to manage on the bus.
Load More Replies... One thing that hasn’t been mentioned is that some folks are so poor that Dollar Menu meal may be the only full meal they get per day. And don’t start praising free lunches at school, especially if they’re in a cash-strapped school. Even back in the day when I was a kid in public school, the lunches weren’t necessarily all that delicious or healthy—-some looked downright nasty. Luckily, my parents were better off than many, so I actually had the option of brown-bagging it. Some kids rely on those lunches, and breakfasts if the school offers them, for the bulk of their nutrition. Their parent(s) however, probably only have that one McDonalds meal per day, unless they work in food service and get a complimentary lunch. If they’re homeless—-though some homeless people do work—-it can take forever to beg or scrounge for that dollar. So don’t go judging people making the best of their difficult situation. What they have to go through every day would probably kill the most judgmental of you.
Maybe they should start taxing these types of food. BTW, you don't need to eat organic shït to eat well. You can grow vegetables in your own home using a plastic bottle, you don't even need that much space! Meat is RIDICULOUSLY CHEAP in the U.S. as it's rice, pasta and chicken. I understand the struggles of living on a tight budget, but that's never an excuse to neglect your kids and feed them junk everyday.
Which vegetables can you grow in a plastic bottle?! And if you don't need much space for these plastic bottle veggies then I'm guessing we're talking micro portions. I'm in the UK, not an American but please, enough of slagging off Americans. There are serious issues with food deserts there that most of us in Europe don't fully understand. People also ignore other aspects of poverty like not having things like crock pots or pressure cookers because of the cost, or for too many people not a proper stove or oven. For those using food banks in the UK most of the food isn't perishable because they can't keep fresh fruit and vegetables or dairy products. There are real difficulties that ignorant onlookers don't see or prefer to ignore. Maybe if we helped those suffering food poverty by helping them with proper cooking facilities and utensils, basic food cupboard essentials, and for many, lessons in how to cook we'd help, but yeah, let's just judge instead.
Load More Replies... Instead of rasberries ...buy potatoes? I'm sure they're not that expensive anywhere? Cheaper cuts of meat are usually tastier the expensive ones. Take 2 hours on a saturday and pre-cook for a week. I know fast food is cheap, and it is tasty (as is anything unhealthy) but it is NOT cheaper than real food.
It's sad to read "have kids willing to eat whatever you make" I live in Italy and in school my two kids (2 years and 5 years old) have balanced menu..every two weeks they have pizza for lunch ( 1 day) ..they have vegetables, fish, meat, eggs, fruits and I pay less than 3 € each lunch. They never eat at school fried chicken..French fries or chocolate milk as in USA ( I've seen many tv programs showing what they serve at school canteen and it's terrible) . I think it's a problem that starts here.. you'll never eat healthier at home if at school you eat trash food, you don't have to buy raspberries or fancy foods but you can prepare healthy lunch with Very few ingredients and not too expensive (yesterday I prepared dinner with 2 carrots, 2 zucchini , oil, soy sauce and chicken.. without frying anything..)
EXACTLY. On the other hand, in the USA, zucchini cost an arm. I think the problem cannot be dealt the same way in northern America and in Europe.
Load More Replies... after my parents divorced, my siblings and i lived with our mum (dad was not interested). my mum worked 3 jobs to provide for us, and never had time to cook. i was 10 at the time and could do simple meals. we had a lot of goolash (which i hate), mac n cheese, soups, and stews. any time she was home, she was trying to catch some sleep before having to go to the next job. we were lucky enough to live in a suburb and have a vehicle, so we were lucky in that. i'm sure there are a lot of people who had it worse than we did. i try not to judge anyone because i don't know their circumstances. i think we should all be like this.
In the U.S. we get packets of coupons saving 1/2 off, 3/4 off some foods at grocery stores and some restaurants. The coupons are ALWAYS for junk food. I've never seen a single coupon for healthy food, ever. If you talk about calories per dollar, junk food is the winner for poor people. Agree that things like beans and rice are even cheaper but then dealing with logistics is harder -- when you're poor you're often trying to get a quick meal in between your 3 jobs.
The grocery store that is most convenient for me to get to often has very steep sales on certain things, but they are usually things which are terrible to eat in quantity (mac and cheese, peanut butter, chips, cheese, etc.) and never has produce on sale. I noticed that was influencing my buying and I had to quit going there. I now go to a smaller store where the only things that are ever on sale are in-season produce, which is not a bad thing!
Load More Replies... Love the person commenting about rotisserie chicken at Costco or Sams. The membership fee to these stores is my grocery budget for a week. Am I supposed to not eat for a week so I can enter the land of cheap chicken? You can tell some people have never been poor.
Preach. From the mouths of people who've never known real food insecurity, here comes a bunch of impractical solutions & suggestions!
Load More Replies... When I was really broke and living somewhere I could afford to...I didn't have access to the ability to STORE food. The kitchen was always trashed - there were 7 other people living there, most of whom were delighted if you cleaned - but they weren't going to. I had no transport, so you'd walk for at LEAST half an hour carrying any groceries. It was quite possible to work a long day, walk home, and find that you had literally nowhere to cook. Other people would eat your food (goodbye refrigerator!). Anything you had to cook was going to be a challenge. If you could eat cheap, out, you avoided people stealing your food, and it made it heaps easier to carry. (That said, you can go a long way on adding bok choi or other greens to 2 min noodles.)
Exactly. When i was in germany working 70-75h a week for 600 euros a month I was renting a tiny room in a small apartment where two people couldnt use the kitchen at the same time. I barely had any place to store food and least a car to go to cheap supermarkets. I only had a bike and a day and a half free a week to do groceries and cook for the entire week.
Load More Replies... I like how the people complaining have ignored the very clear points about food deserts and being time/energy poor.
A lot of supermarkets move out of "poor" areas, citing high crime (as opposed to hiring security guards). When the doc says that 15 miles outside of Austin is a grocery desert, she's not kidding (I live there). Instacart is a good option - IF you can pay the higher costs. So if my only choices were the convenience store and McDs, yeah, I'd go to McDs. NOT being able to there is a privilege I didn't even know I had until I was unemployed for six months. (I also dumpster-dove behind the grocery store, but no grocery store, no option.)
Someone complained that comparing it against raspberries isn't comparable as they're not a substantial meal. That is exactly the point, you can buy a whole fast food meal for the price of a small healthy snack.
20 worth of McDonald's vs 20 worth of meat/rice/lettuce. Fast food is not cheap, it's just easier.
Load More Replies... I eat healthy - my friend doesn't. We did many road trips together in the US. My food bills were easy double his. He had microwave stuff, donuts, etc, I got veggies and fruits and meat/fish whatever. It's extremely expensive in the US to eat healthy. And the quality in supermarkets isn't that good.
Add to this that well over half of McDonalds & Walmart workers are on food stamps and take it in conjunction with the burden on the medical system, McDonald and Walmart are funded by taxpayers. That's right, your taxes paying to buy the Walton family and McDonalds shareholders another summer home or private jet. Making people billionaires while they kill and maim the astoundingly sad quality of life of those who actually work 40+ hrs a week making them rich.
Food insecurity is such a massive, multifaceted & complex issue. You have regional cost, cultural influence, affordability vs. availability. The truth is while fast food & junk food cost more in the long run, they're often cheaper in the right now. A box of pasta & bag of beans might cost the same but the amount of prep & planning is vastly different. It boils down to the outlook of entire societies like how in Europe fresh produce & whole meats are affordable & available as a general rule vs the US where people get furious if milk costs more than 3$ a gallon. The cost of those low cost items & convenience foods is farming also being done on a commercial scale making it difficult to have and afford it in all regions. Farmers grow what sells so soybeans, corn for corn syrup, potatoes, etc making the healthier foods more exclusive & more expensive. These industries are meeting a demand we set as a general society. If we collectively changed our diets, the industry would follow.
Food deserts are a real problem here. Supermarkets and farmers' markets don't want to go into the poor neighborhoods, so discount chains like Family Dollar and convenience stores are the only easy source for food. None of those places sell produce of any kind.
who get 3 meals with one chicken? i have 3 kids. if i'm lucky after we eat the chicken maybe we get enough bit of chicken to make a chicken nood soup with the bones. and usually where we are we pay 12-15 buck for a cooked chicken. same with fruits. i only buy what's cheap. sometime we can get 2x 1 pound straberry for 6$. and those aren't local... we are in the east canada coast. those come from california or mexico usually. local strawberries are too expensive. my kids eat all of then in one sitting!
Time is a factor. People, shopping, traveling to the shops, cooking the food, cleaning up, all takes time. Poor people are usually time-poor as well as broke. If you are living on minimum wage, you have to work long hours to live. You also have to live somewhere cheap, which often means far from your job, and you probrably can't afford to run a car, so you're taking the bus, and usually changing busses. If you are working a 10 hour shift, and you take the bus and have to change and it's 2 hours each way, and you sleep 8 hours, that leaves you 2 hours total for housework, bathing, laundry, shopping, cooking and eating, spending time with your kids, making them do their homework, seeing them clean and dressed and fed. Where is the time to go shopping and fix healthy meals? It's not just food - exercise, studying, extra-curricular activities for the kids, all of that disappears because there just is not enough time in a day, because everything is harder, and takes longer, when poor.
Cheap food: Potatoes, carrots, onion, garlic, apples, root vegetables such as celeriac, beets. rice, pasta, beans, lentils, basic oats, neutral canned tomatoes, canned mais (corn?). Try to aim seasonal, by meat if you need on sale.. Spices- salt, pepper, curry, paprika, dried herbs, cumin, coriander etc.. Don't by them in a major supermarket, get them in a random place like a dollar store. You can make so much cheap food and so many different dishes with that. People should be "braver" and try cooking dishes inspired by other countries. Make a stew, a curry, spaghetti sauce,. And if your short on time due to working 12 hour shifts.. Plan ahead., cook dishes that can keep for 2-3 days on a stove or freeze if you can. Ask for help if possible. It is really not impossible at all. Now, if you want to eat MC-D sometimes that is ok, yes it "fills" but not really in the long run.
This is such an interesting concept. I never thought of it this way. Of course, I'm not one of those people who judges eating habits, i'm a picky eater myself.
I had the reverse problem when I was broke--there wasn't any fast food in my part of town, but we had a small grocery store. I had some second-hand pots and pans that I bought at Salvation Army, so I'd get frozen stuff and cheap foods and I'd cook. I'm not a great cook, but I could keep myself alive. And I couldn't afford the bus, so my "exercise" was walking downtown to work, always in a hurry due to my bad habit of over-sleeping. It was tough, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
What do you mean what do I think? If this is American based, done deal. Of course cheaper food is the go to. We have a mcdonalds on every street corner. And every grocery, just like EVERY OTHER BUSINESS IN AMERICA, is a business first and the people running it don't give a rats ass about anyone. They care about their business.
I'm privileged and I know it. I've been getting my produce delivered to my doorstep for over a year now. It's all from farms around where I live. It's less expensive than Whole Foods too. I also have a huge farmers market produce stands in front of peoples houses that grow fresh fruit and vegetables and at least 4 grocery stores less than 10 min drive in every direction. A home w everything I need plus more and I still want to eat fast food after a long day of work and errands. I was poor for a short time growing up and I remember my mom crying bc all we had were eggs and lettuce to eat until she got a new job. It's got to be so hard.
I worked at a school cafeteria.... We had fresh lunches. Yes, there was the occasional crap pizza, chalupas, and chicken patties... Yuck... But I also made fresh, chili, spaghetti sauce, sloppy joes, fresh baked chicken/turkey. I was truly amazed at the recipes and to this day, I still use some of those recipes at home..... Just smaller amounts
Dunno about US, but in Russia fast food chains are usually more expensive than more or less healthy stuff (for example, I can buy a fast food meal for 300-350 roubles, it is about 4 dollars, or a frozen veggie mix for 150 roubles which is less than 2 dollars). But there are two nuisances. First, you need to cook it anyway, sometimes I just don't have time to go home and re-freeze it in a microwave. Second, not all stores have this kind of profucts and big fast food chains at least have quality standarts and often it is just safer to go a Burger King or McDonalds.
It's the same in the Country I am from (Not USA) but not in the Country I currently live, which is great. One Burger King meal here is almost 15 Euro. I can buy ingredients for two-three dinners with that. It's one of the few things the Government here has right. Junk food should be more expensive
It's almost always cheaper and easier to go with natural food. You can cook eggs or potatoes in the microwave, in a frying pan, in the oven, or by boiling in a matter of minutes. The cost and effort... negligible. Think carrots instead of imported berries. Also, Walmart delivers.
**Walmart delivers if you pay a delivery fee or monthly fee and place a minimum $35 order.
Load More Replies... I believe BOTH make very good points! There's a lot of *pressure* when you're poor to do something like fast food that is different than other classes, mcds knows this. It is harder in many ways, but also being poor, you may not have the education or energy to research just why fast food too frequently is bad and think of what the long term effects may be. Or perhaps there is subtle nuance where maybe you try to do healthy but get mcds just a bit too frequently and miscalculate how much of an impact it has. (Like that it's made to be addictive) There's also misinformation... It's a burger, right? It has lettuce tomato and meat, they might think surely this is a good meal? Maybe more calories are not bad for kids if they're always hungry? It's understandable if someone thinks these things at first. Honestly food science is pretty complex. So I don't believe we should "snub" people we don't know, we don't know their situation. That said, my other point:
That said, my other point: being a parent is hard but you have to be able to do it. Once you notice fast food is making your kids hungrier and if it's at the amount that will become a problem, as parents we should try to find a healthiER alternative, even a not the best option is better than the worst. Whatever that option turns out to be by god kids you'll eat it because we don't have the money to indulge what you want all the time. Thank your parents for what they provided and eat your food, unless you want to go out and work to feed yourself. If they ask why can't we get mcds we used to do it all the time, explain that it might give them health problems which are expensive, so we can't do that so often anymore. They may argue and pout but don't cave, because you're doing right by them.
Load More Replies... This is very, very sad. Of course, people can eat nutritional balanced meals even from food banks and dollar stores. Here’s an example of a vegan meal plan based on that: https://www.vrg.org/blog/2020/02/18/vegan-at-the-dollar-tree/amp/. The question is if the average person living in poverty has the time, energy, and knowledge to do that. I doubt that person does. I grew up probably lower middle-class, and as a time saver, my mom used to stop at a Chinese restaurant on the way home, buy a big box of plain cooked rice, and add that to our meals. Imagine people who can’t even make that happen because they don’t have a car to get there, enough time over a weekend to make some beans, or a microwave to warm those beans up. It’s a shame that this happens so often in such a wealthy country.
I have only judged when I've seen teenage mothers feeding Macca's fries to their 1 year old n laughing that the baby likes it.
The doctor wasn't giving diet advice. She was simply asking folks to go a bit easier on the overworked, the poor, and those who don't have a lot of food choices in their neighborhoods. That's it. Why add to their burden by wagging a big Karen-finger at them because you disapprove of their "choices"? And your own personal experiences aside, what makes you think everyone has your options, your time, and your resources? I once read a similar Why Don't The Poor Eat Like I Do rant by a Whole Foodie about how THEY had planted organic produce from seed, implying that a poor person working double shifts should obviously pull a Jamie Oliver and get into personal agriculture and whip up some kale smoothies as an after school snack. So Easy! Problem Solved!
Omg the woman that said a chicken at sam's club or Costco is only 4.99... no not only 4.99 the basic membership to get In the door is like $40 or $50. It pisses me off so bad when elitist people say just shop at Costco and save money. Poor people cannot afford to spend a huge amount of money for a membership. And yes when you are poor that is s huge amount. That could be the entire food budget for a family of four for a week or more.
I am not familiar with the US prices but why compare a burger with a handful of berries? Why not compare it with lentils, beans, chickpeas, rice, pasta, apples, oranges, potatoes, etc?
At this time I would give a shout out to former president Trump for feeding Americas kids under eighteen for free by the lunch programs at schools this year and Then also to Michelle Obama for insisting healthy options are available with those lunches, and President Biden for understanding the continued need for the food programs, My kids know you all did this in your own ways. Thanks. Thank you to all the Cafeteria workers this year, you made all the difference for a lot of families, God bless America Ya'll.
As a German I'd call this Bullshit, but maybe some Americans can help clarify: Here in Germany it's always cheaper to cook yourself. For 3.25$/2,70€ I'd be able to cook Spaghetti Napoleon for 4 Persons (500 g Spaghetti = 0,49 €, 500 ml sieved tomatoes= 0,49 €, 1 Onion = 0,5 €, a bit of spices and 250 g shredded mozzarella = 1,59 € All in all 2,63 €). So how could it be that McDonalds is consideted cheap? It'd be always cheaper and healthier to cook yourself. So for for persons it'd be 2,63 € instead of 10,80 € (for meals at McD) - lot's of money saved to use on vegetables and fruits. Even if you make Burger and fries yourself you save enough for healthy food!
When I was broke, it was the 'cook' thing that was the issue - no oven, microwave or grill access. I did, however, have a kettle - but I gather kettles aren't a thing in America. Something to do with the way their power grid works.
Load More Replies... The thing is: eating unhealthy all the time makes your body more tired/overweight, so you won't have energy to prep healthier meals so then you just continue eating unhealthy. It's a vicious circle, which we need to break out of by making healthier food choices. They will give you more energy and you will feel better in your own body. Not fat alone makes fat but the combination of too many carbs with fat and not enough movement through the day. And please reduce your portion sizes America. It is definitely possible to make smaller changes there, even with a small budget and not enough time. Little changes, step by step. It can be done. :-)
I worked a second job for years as a waitress/bartender. Try being hungry, handing an entitled you know what a $40 dinner, seeing them pick at it, then throwing almost all away, AND getting stiffed on a tip. Yes I enjoyed an employee discount. Half off. Ha!!!! Still couldn't afford it! I have three kids. I fed them from the food bank and rice, beans and chicken and hamburger.
Vegetables actually are cheaper if you know what to buy. Much of this could be attributable to an addiction to salt, fat, and sugar. "Healthier" options at fast food restaurants are more expensive because they don't sell. They don't sell because people don't eat them. They don't eat them because they crave the stuff loaded with salt, fat, and sugar. If you stop eating this junk - or feeding it to your kids - those cravings eventually go away.
Do not forget that you can only absorb 20% of any plant matter, even the cooked ones, while meat can be used up to 80%. Carbs also offer more energy. Our body runs on salt, carbs, fat and sugar.
Load More Replies... I am glad towards the end you see the comments from people with common sense... making food at home is definitely cheaper and better... also the whole "working 10 hours so too tired" is bollocks... welcome to the real world...
the real world is people get tired not that people are invincible and have the all holy ability to care for kids and make a full meal for your self on the low as f**k minimum wage most people are getting so get off your high horse and just know that people get tired and cant aford to pay around 60 dollars for STEAK. the REAAAL world is that the easiest way to survive is to get some mcdonalds until they have the money to buy "real food" which might last you one day longer before you have to buy more of it and realize you cant afford the live and instead just picking up some wendies.
Load More Replies... Comparing UK food prices with USA ones is just impossible. In the UK fast food tends to be a bit dearer here but fresh fruit and veg appears to be considerably cheaper.
You Tube is filled with home cooks and their recipe ideas that are quick, easy and $1-$5, they shop from Aldi, Dollar Store, Walmart, etc, the ingredients are basic. It may be a bit more effort but worth it. At one point in my life we walked to the nearest dollar store for groceries (working full time and going to school) so I do know what being without is like. But I much prefer to prepare something, since I would have to travel anyway to the fast food place, that has some nutritional value it it is also something we can do together vs. just mindless ordering a number from a board, it is a kind of empowerment vs. being a victim. So I give more credit to persons with lower incomes (and have been there) the writer should view some of these ideas, they have been so helpful for so many in difficult times.
I'm sure this is true, bet when you drive past a Mickey Ds & the drive thru has 10 cars waiting in line, somehow I don't think wealth is the issue, but it IS the issue of obesity in our country.
I think his mostly applies to the US. In Europe, fast food is definitely more expensive than cooking at home. We cook for the entire week with maybe around 30 euros. Of course, if you cook 3 different meals each day, it will be expensive, but cooking a large pot of food that would last 3-4 days is perfectly fine and healthy and cheap.
So part of the problem is how perfect veggies & fruit needs to be for the American public to purchase them. How much food goes to waste on farms because they know people won't buy them unless they're perfect. It's a shame and a crime.'
"single mom of 2 work working for $7.25/hr". Once again the irresponsibility of having kids when you can't support them isn't mentioned. Even if healthy food costs the same, most of these people would opt for the fast food. The lack of responsibility permeates through their entire life.
A lot of people are completely missing the point of the original tweet. STOP judging and shaming people for their choices and fix the system!
It seems weird to compare McD with raspberries. Unhealthy in McD's is the fact that it is processed, high fat, low quality food. Buying minced meat and Buns and the other ingredients and coocking yourself is still a burger with fries but in a healthy way: more and longer filling (due to quality of food and nutrients). Overall you will get out more of the ingredients (more than one meal) and be cheaper, despite the initial higher price. However I acknowlege that people can be worn out after work - maybe time to think about if the world and society we live in is alright? Earn Bnzos more money and be super tired so you have to give your little penny to another cooperation and no time for life.
It is bizarre that McDonald's is so cheap, perhaps more than that organic raspberries bought in a random season, not July, are expensive. It's true that in USA, for whatever reason, farm produce costs the same regardless of the time of year. I would expect that buying seasonal goods in a bulk (e.g. farm share) shouldn't be that expensive. But food deserts are ... sad. As for meal preparation, cooking a 3-course meal may be time-consuming but making or soup, or combining a sandwich with fresh veggies isn't that hard.
This is definitely true in some places. Where I live, rice is easily accessible and jobs are typically higher pay but so are taxes. So it's easier to buy food at the store. But I've visited in other places and sure you can get a can of beans and some corn for cheap, but you are left feeling sick and unfilled, alike to the nutrition as some fast food so you may as well get fast food in some cases. I've been in a struggling money situation and sometimes you just do what you got to do. this is just my opinion love you all <3
She does realize there are other, less expensive healthy foods, right? She doesn't have to get the $9/lb raspberries.
I dont know. I can think of dozen of meals which are both healthier, cheaper and quicker. I hate cooking so simple quick food is all I do all the time. For example pasta with simple tomato sauce (onion, garlic, tomatoes), steamed carrot with butter and boiled potatoes (carrot, potatoes), fried rice (rice, egg, onion, spices and optional other vegetables), chicken soup (chicken, carrots, onion, salt), any soup really (like peas soup, pumpkin soup, carrot soup, roasted garlic soup, broccoli soup, green beans soup, lentils soup), spaghetti with cream mushroom sauce (spaghetti, cream, mushrooms), or for my last dinner I just mixed tomatoes, canned beans, zucchini, carrot, onion, done in 10 minutes on pan. When I am super lazy I just mix some vegetables and put them in the oven (like beets, celery, carrots, potatoes and such, mix with oil and spices), then I add sour cream and garlic and its amazing. Also pancakes are really simple and quick.
Where's the meat, though? I don't see much protein here besides eggs.
Load More Replies... Fast food (at least in Canada) is NOT cheap. Last time I ordered a spicy chicken burger & small coke at Wendy's it came to almost $10. Dinner for 2 at Taco Time = $30. I can make a chicken salad for under $5 at home. Chicken strips take 20-30 mins to cook (can do other things while they bake), salad prep = 5 mins. It's not hard to eat healthy for cheap.
my take on this is that, you could buy a burger from mcdonalds 20 times and still be able to live. while you may be able to buy traditionally healthy food like a few times before you have to stoop down to mcdonalds. and the way people go about talking about mcdonalds. youd think there selling you zebra meet between to pickled frog livers. ill admit its not healthy its not gonna freaking kill you and its gonna keep you full enough to have the energy to work enough to buy ACTUAL healthy food. which by the WAY has a very small window to be able to eat and also corn bread is not healthy. its just bread with cornmeal and oil. AND YOU HAVE TO EAT ALOT OF the VERY EXPENSIVE HEALTHY FOOD FOR THE HEALTHINESS to EVEN MATTER. when alternativly when you can just get a burger for much cheaper and be done with it.
I shop at the dollar store in my city, and there are a surprising amount of healthy options. For example, I can get fresh produce such as bell peppers, onions, carrots, garlic, potatoes, fruits, etc.--all for cheaper than at the supermarket. There are also bags of beans, lentils, peas and more. Rice, pasta and gnocchi is also there. Not to mention all the canned stuff such as sliced pineapple, coconut milk, olives. Bread, eggs and other stuff is available too. I know it takes time to put all this together to cook, but depending on the meal, it shouldnt be more than 40 minutes.
I know it is not applyable to everyone, but what I see in my surroundings - it is very often the wrong mindset. Last year I decided to change my eating habbits to be healtier and to loose some weight. I was affraid it would be time and money consuming. But honestly, we turned it into the family event - we plan meals together, going to buy a grocery is a long family walk, and we prepare it often together. It helps childern to setup the correct eating behavior and it is fun for them, when they are involved in the proces - not acting like it is a punishment, you need to make them feel important :D You don't need to make some several-hours taking meals in fifty pots. One pot meal is a very good option, legumes are cheap and very healty...you don't need to buy and cook some exotic expensive stuff if you don't feel like it (or you don't have money for it). I am not saying, we are cooking all the time from skratch, but even a small change is good. Think about your childern future.
In Germany, companies like Hello Fresh deliver mostly organic, fresh ingredients to your door for healthy cooking for less than $5 per meal (you still need to cook, though). Might be a bit cheaper if you buy it in a supermarket.
Seems like this doc has never actually tried or googled 'easy 5min meals that fill' or anything like that in her life. Saing cooking is 'wayy harder and takes wayyy longer'' lmaooo Pancakes: 120ml milk, 50gr oatmeal, 1 egg: mix it up and make small pancakes: goes for 4kids easily and takes me around 10-15mins to make from start to finish. How is that ''taking a long time and leaving a lot of dishes' when I only use 1 pan and 1 cup to blend it all together+measure the milk? f**k this.
I was downright starving poor for a few periods in my youth where I had to skip meals because I simply couldn't afford to eat. I can tell you if I had the $3.28 or whatever for a hamburger, I certainly wouldn't have been buying it because that's a waste. I could have eaten 2-3 times on that by buying smarter at the grocery store. Particularly things like beans, rice, etc. go a lot further.
Frozen vegetables and fruit can actually be better options than fresh because they're frozen right after being picked and they don't go bad. You can microwave a bunch of vegetables together in about 5 minutes and add them on the side of the cheap staple foods. Frozen fruit can be thawed out in the fridge over the course of the day and used as a fruit salad. Raspberries are probably the costliest fruit in the store due to their fragility and the labour required to pick them, which is why I have a raspberry patch in my back yard and freeze bags of them during the 6 weeks they're producing.
She's right... Ish .... but mcd s isn't that cheap and raspberries aren't that expensive. Her argument is sound, the post nsm
in Germany you can buy fruits and vegetables in the street market. It's even cheaper than supermarket.
It's not about the amount of food in the stores, it's about living out in the country and having to travel many miles to get to the store. That's what they mean by "food desert"
Load More Replies... That is not how society works. Yes, parents with low savings should not have kids, I agree completely. But once they have them it’s our duty as society to be sure that they are ok. Taking care of our weak and ill is one of the very few things that distinguish us from other animals.
Load More Replies... Genius! You have solved world hunger! Why didn't anyone think of that?!
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