Eating like that, no, you can’t live like this. At least, not for long.
That’s not food.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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If anyone is actually on the struggle bus don’t get ramen. Get rice. Buy the biggest fucking bag of rice from the local Asian store you can find. You can make enough rice to last multiple days in one sitting and the bag will last you several months to a year depending on if you have family or not
If you can spring for it buy some high protein beans or lentils or some other legume and mix them, almost every society on the planet no matter the geography invented rice and beans because it’s so damn easy to store for long periods of time and will get you the protein and calories you need to survive.
Is it fun? No. But it will get you fed and it’s an excellent base to throw in other things to spice it up. Get a little extra money and can afford a bit of meat and veggies? Sauteed them up and you get a full blown meal with a side dish and a porkchop/fish filet/chicken breast with your rice.
Wait, rice and beans isn’t fun? It requires some extra seasonings but Carrib style rice and peas are my jam. Though it does have a Lotta aromatics.
Well… personally I think rice and beans can be delicious but it’s not most people’s idea of comfort food I suppose. At least where I’m from.
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Lentilles-saucisse is a French staple and I’d definitely consider it comfort food. Lentils, sausages, with some carrots and little bacon bits (lardons) cooked into the lentils, heaven.
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Half way into it I was like… “yeah yeah yeah that’s our staple food! It’s very ni…”
“Is it fun? No.” Had me question everything in life thus far. 🤣
No I genuinely enjoy rice and beans, but I feel like people I know have really high expectations for food being good.
The price of rice is pretty high right now. It’s still a good value, especially in bulk, but it’s not as cheap as it used to be.
Only gonna get higher, so buy now.
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Make sure to put the rice in a freezer if you’re going to store it for a long time. This is important to prevent bugs, especially in hot and damp weather. If that’s not possible, sprinkle some dried chilis or peppers.
As in the cooked rice or the dry stuff?
Dry stuff probably. You have to do the same with flour.
People make fun of this. But if you are on a poverty budget, you have to buy cheap calorically rich food as you would starve on expensive healthy options. Not to mention, most poor people live in grocery food deserts where the closest food market is a dollar general that doesn’t carry fresh/healthy food.
Edit: Since people seem to think they’ve solved the food insecurity for 34 million Americans. I’ll continue to go with organization international and domestic that actually studied this.
No, you wouldn’t. The same amount of money going to dry beans and grains, some dairy and eggs, and some cheap protein goes much further. You’d even have enough left for fresh veggies and seasonings.
The intersection of poor and can’t cook is just depressingly shitty and too common.
So I live in the US. I have 2 friends that got scurvy in 2017. How did they get scurvy you might ask? Let me tell you. They live about 30 mins from the grocery store in a car. Which they don’t have. The closest person that can take them grocery shopping lives about 2 hours away. Plus they’re poor as shit.
To save money they spent 3 months eating nothing but homemade biscuits (scones for non Americans). The lack of vitamin c gave them scurvy.
They live on a fixed income. My state tightened requirements for food stamps. They were fucked.
I will say that the UN came to my state several years ago. They literally called it the 3rd world and said it was the most impoverished place in the developed world. So, there’s that.
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Granted they were headed to West Virginia next. So they may have changed their tune. Heh
Why do they live on fixed income? There’s not even semi-local charities willing to donate food?
I mean maybe, but how do you get involved with one? Also, they’d have to deliver.
I’ll admit I’ve done no research, but wouldn’t Meals on Wheels fit this perfectly?
That’s a good question. She is on disability, but he is her caregiver. So, I don’t know if that would feed both. I’ll ask them about that.
So that sucks, but I just don’t see it being entirely about poverty in this case. There’s not a single neighbor of theirs who they could ask “hey, next time you drive to Walmart let me ride with you”? They hit their diet to save money? There’s no churches around them doing food pantry days?
Scurvy… You can prevent scurvy by eating literally anything uncooked, including meat. You can get vitamin C from grass. Sounds to me like these people are wholly uninterested in understanding anything about nutrition and diet and don’t talk to their neighbors at all.
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Oh the indignity! I can hear it now. “Eating only things with a nutrition label on the box is a yuman right!”
I eat weeds. Wild weeds from the yard. For fun. They’re tasty. You should try it. Most of them are harmless and nutritious, shit, dandelions were an imported food crop from Europe. Double check what you’re eating first but they can be really good.
I didn’t blame them for not eating grass I said that you should know a thing or two about nutrition if you intend to, you know, survive. I don’t know about you, but if I was so poor I was living off of scones alone for 3 months, I’d be looking up wild food and learning about vitamin deficiency, and I’d be entirely willing to eat grass to prevent fucking scurvy.
You have a yard. Many people do not. People live in parts of the US that are deserts made of shitty buildings and huge roads.
Those places are called “cities.” And the people in question also have a yard, they’re renting a house in the country.
And I don’t have a yard actually, I just live somewhere that there’s living creatures outside aka not a city.
Yeah it’s kind of rural, but also people don’t talk around here. I don’t know any of my neighbors names, and I live in an apartment. Also, save money was really a polite way of saying pay bills or eat. Like, even now they don’t use heat in the winter which isn’t a big deal. But they don’t use a/c in the summer. Which here is incredibly dangerous. In the summer the temp regularly gets above 100F and the average humidity is around 75%.
Now things are better. His dad drives down once a month and takes them food shopping, and buys them stuff. But that still means most of the month is no fresh fruits, or vegetables, or milk.
The scurvy thing was just something that happened due to poor diet. Like, sure, looking back it’s easy to say “I’m getting scurvy. I better eat some vitamin C.” But the reality was they didn’t realize that they had scurvy until it was serious enough to have symptoms. After all who thinks about scurvy in 2017.
Why do they live like this? I understand you know, some people are just hard up, but eventually you try to sort it out right? Are they both disabled or something?
Yeah the scurvy thing is weird. It’s like how antivax people don’t think about measles and polio anymore and so don’t see the importance of vaccination.
So, that’s a complicated issue. She is like 60 and disabled. She has MS. He is like 34 and isn’t disabled, but is her husband and full time caregiver. They are married, and spend most of their time playing video games.
He met her playing on a game server I used to host a literal lifetime ago. They got married when he turned 18. Honestly the whole thing is kind of gross, and I don’t really like her much. But, he and I grew up in the same town and share some experiences, and are friends.
They got into a cheap house and have been living there. Recently she inherited some money and bought the trailer and land that he grew up on. They are in the process of moving into it. Which is closer to me.
I think their rent has been 850 a month and she gets like 1100 a month for disability. So that doesn’t leave much for bills.
Goodness. Yeah I hate to be callous, but that sounds less like just having it hard and more like a lifetime of terrible decision making. Whatever the case is I hope they make it happen with their land plans and are able to make their lives easier.
If you’re on certain types of disability you are limited in how much money you can actually have at any given time. “SSI beneficiaries are limited to only $2,000 in assets of any kind. For married couples or two-parent families with SSI beneficiary children, the limit is $3,000, which creates a marriage penalty because the couple limit is 25 percent less than the limit for two individuals.” Hence the fixed income.
I don’t see Oreos mentioned in any of those dummy.
Rice and beans, baby! It’s a world wide staple for a reason.
Yeah if it were that simple, world wide hunger would have been solved.
Some places just don’t have anything to eat. The person in the photo used their money foolishly. It’s not the same problem…
I tried chicken and rice for a few weeks as a diet and it was beyond miserable. Only thing that kept me on it was using sauces I shouldn’t have. Yes, cookies and sweets are a little more money than rice and beans but anyone who has been subjected to the latter can testify it’s akin to eating condensed sadness. High fructose corn syrup makes this garbage dirt cheap but that’s a whole other issue.
Try using spices and vegetables. When people say rice and beans they don’t mean literally only those two ingredients
The cart is all cookies and unnecessary shit like that. Comparing that and how eating the same food for a long time is “miserable” to places that are starving because they don’t have food is amazing. Peak America energy lol
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I’m not sure what you wanted to say with the first link, but
Households with children headed by a single woman (24.3 percent) or a single man (16.2 percent).
man that’s a big difference. I wonder what’s up with that, are single woman household much poorer or something?
What is wrong with you?
Until you realize that some people are soon poor, they may be lucky to have a microwave, let alone a stovetop/cooking pots, pans.
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Because that’s the same as the intersection of poor and “working more than one job, has no time to cook, and can’t afford lots of kitchen gadgets”
You clearly are one of those who don’t know how to cook if you think it takes forever and needs lots of gadgets.
A rice cooker. Everyone should have one. A pot, pan or wok.
Start the rice cooker before work. Come home to cold cooked rice, crack an egg chop some veg and have delicious nutritious fried rice in minutes. Cook enough for 4 meals and pack lunches.
Tortillas are another cheap nutritious item I forgot. Bean and egg tacos are cheap and delicious.
EatCheapAndHealthy was one of my favorite subreddits, we should get that going again here.
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Are you illiterate?
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None of those say that getting Oreos instead of beans and rice is the right choice when you’re in poverty.
Maybe if they post those links a few more times…
Also cooking takes time. I make dinner every night and even with previously prepped things it’s usually 20-30min every evening. If I worked 2 jobs (12-16hr) I wouldn’t have the time nor energy, either.
Now throw in a being a single parent!
I honestly don’t know how people do it. When my wife’s out of town for a week, nothing gets done beyond basic survival. I don’t have time to do any other chores, and I only work 1 job.
Child labour
I live alone and everything gets done. I cook meals that have 1/2 days of leftovers and leapfrog through them so I’m not eating the same thing all week. I grocery shop after work on Friday and clean house on weekends. It’s not that difficult to manage. I guess kids would throw some complications on that though but I do have working out and hobby stuff after work that could be swapped with child care time.
I never had more time than living alone. Having a spouse and 2 kids is mayhem.
The kids make the things you mentioned impossible. I’m up an hour before them to get the day going. Then it’s getting everyone together to get to work and daycare. Pick up kids from daycare after work, cook/have dinner, a little down time (like 30-60 minutes tops) which is spent with my kids, then it’s baths and bed time routine for both of them. At this point, it is somewhere between 8 and 9, depending on how bedtime went and you haven’t even cleaned up dinner or their lunch stuff. Now you can’t leave your kids alone in the house, so you can’t run any errands.
If you have practice or activities after daycare, push everything back another hour or 2.
It’s a lot to do, which is how I dont understand how single parents do it every single day. I can handle it for a week, but a lot of routine chores don’t happen. Things like a load of laundry goes in at 10p and I pass out and it sits wet until the next day.
What is your spouse doing during all this?
This was in reply to “when my wife’s out of town for a week.” And me talking about how i have no idea how single parents do it… So… not there. When she’s home, the duties are split and it’s manageable
I never had more time than living alone. Having a spouse and 2 kids is mayhem.
Sorry I got confused by this line.
I also live alone, and my kids are grown up and gone.
I came to feel that “It’s not worth it to cook for just one person” was a pretty lame excuse to eat frozen food and other garbage.
I’m trying to cook more stuff I can freeze or at least store for a few days.
Still pretty lazy though.
I believe in you. There’s lots of easy stuff you can make that’s good for you too. Just have to look up recipes. I’m gonna be staying with someone for a few weeks soon and I’m dreading it because they eat like shit.
It’s kind of hard right now, because food prices have gone up so much .
But you don’t have to poison yourself
Rice would be a choice, but I got type 2 diabetes a couple years ago after having pneumonia.
What’s really bad is bread, which is annoying because it is relatively cheap.
I don’t know much about diabetes diets so can’t speak to that but I haven’t really found junk food to be any cheaper than any other ingredients. Steak is more expensive but my grocery store usually has sales on particular cuts or older stuff you just need to use right away.
I do not have children but that is a dramatically out of touch perception of parenthood
Seriously, do one big dinner every Sunday and freeze enough portions for the rest of the week. Healthy, delicious, cheap and saves time on weekdays.
I’ve mentioned that a few times and people went “eugh, I don’t want to eat the same food two(!) days in a row”.
:/
If that’s a big issue you can always save some from last week and alternate.
Now that I work 12 hour shifts 5 days a week… I only cook on the weekends. I try to make a bigger meal that saves well though. Chili, etc. after that’s gone just easier things like sandwiches until the next weekend.
This week I’ve had my eyes opened to batch cooking. We were a bit skint (not poverty line skint) and working opposite shifts to each other, so for time and money we bought in ingredients for lasagne and chilli and made a massive batch of each on Sunday.
All week I’ve been taking the chilli to work and the family have been microwaving the batches when Wifey finishes work.
Cost me 50% of my usual food budget this week, and we still got in all the usual stuff for lunches with fruit and such.
Downside was Wifey overcooked the lasagne, so it can be a gamble I guess, but I will certainly be making a massive batch of Chilli in the future
This person has blown money not getting the store brand. Driving farther to get real food cannot be that much more expensive, but let’s say it’s even $4 more. You’d get your money back buying a pound of apples. As someone who didn’t grow up with means, I know a lot of people with carts like this and it’s mostly just a history of bad choices.
Food deserts are places more than 20 minutes away from a grocery store. So at least that’s a 40 minute round trip if you have a car. And spoiler alert, most people living in poverty don’t have reliable mods of travel. It’s a proven fact that processed foods provides more calories for less than fresh produce. Two oreo cookies is more calories than a apple and they keep longer. Are there some people that make poor eating habits simply because they can, absolutely! But that’s not what I’m talking about. Please don’t demonize people for the failings of our society.
Calories, yes. Actually making you feel full? No. Oreos burn far too fast to provide meaningful fuel for your body. Non reliable transportation I completely understand. I share a car. But if you have access to a car even sometimes you can make it work. If you can’t afford even oreos then I understand. A 40 min round trip is do-able. It sucks, but once a week it works. Now, a food desert is also defined as somewhere over 10 miles away. Let’s say it’s 15 for nice math, that’s still rare. If you take a car that gets an abysmal 20 miles to the gallon and you spend $4 a gallon on gas (also an awful price) it would cost $6.00 to go to the store. $6 a week can change things, but that’s also do-able. Apples will keep on the counter for a week for SURE. So even accounting for a terrible scenario you’re better off buying apples even if you only have access to a car once a week. I know this isn’t everyone, and some people straight up can’t afford even the gas to go to the store, but my mother nickel and dimed her way through my childhood and we were able to stay decently fed. Even a box of pasta is cheaper. Forget fruit. Just eat pasta. It’s certainly better than oreos and keeps just as long
You know what keeps even longer, is cheaper and healthier? Rice and beans.
mostly just a history of bad choices
What a weird way to spell “chronically overstressed”.
That’s too many letters you can just say lazy or stupid.
… rice, beans, and a $15 rice cooker?
I’m as lazy as they get in the kitchen. If I can’t throw it in a pot, walk away, and walk back to food then it’s too much effort.
Rice and beans is cheap, quick, and easy.
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That’s all part of the problem though, isn’t it?
I live in central Europe and veggies and fruit are one of the first things, you see when you enter a store. They’re also really affordable and you can get them in pretty much every corner store all over the town as well. There isn’t a place where basic fruit and veggies are more than 15 minutes walking/public transit distance from you within the city. Never had to drive to a grocery store in my life. Some places are even open at night.
Let’s not blame the people for eating like this, when that’s exactly what the system is set up for.
But it’s not though. Many people on Lemmy act like the US is some evil cabal trying to kill its citizens. No. The area is just big af. People went west and were mostly self-sufficient (with regards to food production before anyone starts getting angry). Now that people aren’t self-sufficient anymore, instead of moving closer they stay put, but there’s so few people that a business can’t sustain itself. I understand some people can’t afford to move, but some people are unwilling to
Used to be that small towns had general stores so you never had to go that far. Walmart killed them all. Pair that with a lack of walkable roads, and rural America is fucked.
So if Walmart killed them all, but they’re too far away from a lot of people, then presumably at least those people would’ve kept the general stores in business, no?
People just drive 15-30 minutes.
Those without reliable transport have few options. Its not uncommon to go grocery shopping once a month here in West Virginia.
Good luck keeping fruits and veggies around that long.
But it’s not though. Many people on Lemmy act like the US is some evil cabal trying to kill its citizens. No. The area is just big af. People went west and were mostly self-sufficient (with regards to food production before anyone starts getting angry). Now that people aren’t self-sufficient anymore, instead of moving closer they stay put, but there’s so few people that a business can’t sustain itself. I understand some people can’t afford to move, but some people are unwilling to
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Dude please don’t spam the same links a dozen times
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I see you watched the Wendover Productions video.
Yes, but I lived it long before watching the video. Growing up my neighborhood was literally isolated for all the surrounding grocery stores. The poor side of town was on the west side of a major highway and all the grocery stores were on the east side. But strangly enough the west side has less on ramps to the highway and even fewer bridges to get to the other side. So you had to drive an extra 20 min just to cross from west to east. But east to west was literally 2 min. A lawsuit eventually got that “fixed” but it shows malicious intent by those in power.
I can’t believe that’s the best option, snacks and some weird pre made stuff
Dude I feed 3 people a month on $200 with no assistance. And we eat healthy. We splurge a little too.
It’s too expensive, sure. It should be half that. And some people live near a dollar store, I get that, they’re eating cat food and Vienna sausages. But this meme isn’t about those people. There are waaaay too many people complaining about the cost of groceries that won’t eat anything that doesn’t come out of a plastic package.
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Lol this is complete bullshit. What a clown.
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All that produce fresh from the factory!
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Cactus
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thatsthejoke.png
This is upbringing and education. If you grow up in a household that eats well and values food and cooking at home surely it’ll make a difference. I wouldn’t solely blame this on the individual. America sells junk food way too aggressively and way too much. I reckon there needs to be restrictions on that and even heavier taxes on junk food.
That’s 70% horse shit.
With everyone in the house being over worked and under paid, everyone is too exhausted to spend the time to actually cook.
To me that’s like saying everyone’s too exhausted to brush their teeth or have a shower. Simple cooking isn’t hard when it’s ingrained in your life. That comes from finding enjoyment in it and upbringing plays a big part in that.
Cooking for one sucks balls. I like cooking for a larger group but cooking for one is only worth it if you do a big batch and eat it for a while
Then do batches!
I actually enjoy cooking for myself. I do always make a batch. I feel more relaxed and free to experiment knowing I won’t disappoint anyone if I make a mistake.
Ok, so I wasn’t brought up that way. Well, I kinda was, but my mom made a lot of undesirable shit. I only recently learned that vegetables can actually be delicious. Still, it feels like a lot of work. I cook good meals as a treat. The rest is like oven/microwave crap from Trader Joe’s and cooking simple ass stuff.
Cooking simple ass stuff is still cooking and that’s a win. I love cooking one pot dishes. Everything in a rice cooker and press start. There are days I don’t feel like cooking for sure. I guess it’s about finding a style that doesn’t feel like a chore for everyday cooking. And go all out when you have the energy.
People are just making excuses for not doing for themselves, that’s all.
If you don’t know the basics you have a moral responsibility to learn the basics. It’s part of being an adult. But American culture discourages people from pursuing maturity and enables them to do dumb shit like live solely off of processed foods. And it’s able to do that because most Americans don’t want responsibility. They want their lives lived for them and corporations exploit that.
Upbringing, education and availability. There are towns in the US where the only grocery store within 20 miles is a Dollar General, creating food deserts.
Issa joke 🤦♂️
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That’s for the Hamburger Helper
I should add that to my food repertoire 
Because $200 worth of real food would be about a quarter of that in America.
Have you tried buying food instead of whatever the fuck this garbage is?
Average moderator shopping cart.
If you’re on a budget this is such a horrible cart… not to mention so unhealthy. I guess most of it doesn’t go bad quickly at least… only positive.
That was the point of the picture …
My stomach hurts just looking at it.
You are weak and your bloodline is weak, instead of sugary sweet like God intended when he invented high fructose corn syrup
guys, this is a joke post
Yet it is still bringing out all the bots and trolls.
I don’t see any food in that shopping trolley. Most of that is snacks and microwave meals.
Don’t be smug about it though. Cooking might seem like an innate ability if you were raised with it but intergenerational poverty is associated with a lack of education about things like this and also a lack of access to quality food.
If you’re time poor from working shifts or multiple jobs
If due to social class or race or intergenerational poverty you lacked an education about food
If contemporary race and social class segregation means you live in a “food desert” that simply doesn’t sell fresh produce
Have empathy. Obviously this person is suffering and needs help.
I used to cook every day. It was one of my favorite hobbies.
But then about two years ago my life started falling apart. Between divorce and a couple moves I’m barely making ends meet, in the cheapest apartment I could find (a one bedroom that I split with someone else.)
The kitchen is so tiny, the refrigerator doesn’t even open all the way. I barely have any counter space, and with a longer commute (and lots of overtime) I barely have time/energy anymore to cook. Plus, I don’t have a dishwasher anymore, so cleanup takes a lot longer.
I want to cook. But fuck, it’s so much harder to do now. I never realized how much I took cooking for granted, back when I had money.
Other than the points already discussed about food deserts and the differing prices of such food between The global north and south, I think we must also consider addiction. Food industry calculates and produces such ultraprocessed foods with the sole goal of hijacking your brain as efficiently as possible, so un processed foods starts looking and tasting bland in comparison and suddenly you are getting cravings.
I know a lot of folks in this thread are taking the piss but imagine you are a single mother on a limited / min wage income working 2 jobs and a kid or two to feed. You need food that doesn’t spoil and that you are certain your kids will eat (can’t afford to waste it) and that doesn’t require much if any time to prepare (you don’t have time). This is how you get shopping carts like this.
People posting the Russian borscht or whatever don’t get it, there are people out there that simply can’t spend an hour or whatever cooking.
I mean I get it but when I was a kid it was “shut up and eat what’s put in front of you”
Maybe you don’t want to spend the 20 mins you have with your kid that isn’t getting them ready for bed fighting about broccoli or whatever. My point is free/extremely cheap, easy access to healthy prepared foods is the solution to shopping carts like this not shaming people for their food selections. Hardly anybody over the age of 7 would intentionally choose to eat like this.
Letting your kid eat junk food because you don’t want to be the bad guy and make them eat vegetables is really shitty parenting.
This is not a binary choice argument. Some aspects of good parenting require privilege that not all families have.
People who have never suffered and struggled don’t get it.
Don’t you fucking lecture me like you know me or my family we’ve known plenty of struggles.
Giving your kid something other than junk food is not a luxury or a privellage it’s the absolute bare minimum for being a parent.
Rice and beans is cheaper and healthier than any of the shit in that cart, I know because for years that’s what I ate when I couldn’t have afforded the garbage in this cart.
Says the jerk lecturing others.
And if your children just steadfastly refused to eat rice or beans? For hours. Every day? And you didn’t have the spare time or energy to work out a cheap and healthy food solution because you have a chronic illness and you’re working 12 hours a day to afford a roof?
Not denying your experience at all, but don’t deny others’ experiences either. I’ve lived through periods of it as a kid, and seen it as an uncle; there certainly are struggles that can make that kind of lifestyle effectively impossible for hardworking and loving parents to achieve.
They refuse until you make ot clear it’s that or be hungry.
And then they eat.
Sorry, not entertaining the argument that not parenting your kids is fine because it’s hard to do it.
Do you have kids? I would have thought the same before becoming a parent but raising kids is really hard particularly without any support networks. Everyone is just trying to do the best they can. I try really hard not to judge other people’s parenting, the only shitty parenting is being absent or abusive imo. Any parenting that raises kids to be happy, healthy and loved is good parenting in my book.
I’ve got plenty of friends who are great parents that feed their kid nothing but buttered pasta and vitamins bc it is all they will eat. There’s no reasoning with a five year old and if you draw a hard line you will both be miserable. You can’t “make” them eat anything, they are individuals with agency.
Yea I do have a kid and if it were up to her she’d have bacon or sausage for breakfast chicken noodle soup for lunch and a cheeseburger and French fries for dinner every day. But that would be a terrible diet so she also has to eat her veggies if she wants desert after dinner. It’s really not that hard and just giving your kids junk food because you don’t want to parent should be child abuse.
If you can’t draw a firm line with a 5 year old you’re a bad parent. You might both he miserable for a couple minutes until they realize they aren’t getting something else so it’s eat dinner or be hungry. And it’s way better than being miserable for your whole life because you let your kids walk all over you.
I’m gonna disengage here bc this is an emotionally charged topic and I don’t see it going anywhere productive.
So buy broccoli and cook it well and if she don’t eat you can afford it. What about people who can’t afford to scrape nothing into the trash? It’s not like most people don’t know they should eat healthier. They just can’t afford they kid to refuse and pitch a fit, financially or emotionally.
You dont throw it out you tell your kid that’s what’s for dinner.
If you can’t afford to throw something into he trash not sure how that means you can afford to cook an entirely separate meal.
Again, sorry not accepting the argument that it’s ok to not parent your kids because it’s tough.
oh no doubt this is a poverty related malnutrition issue
Those are all name brand snacks every one of those items costs as much as a more healthy meal.
Yeah a box/bag of oatmeal would easily be cheaper than that box of cereal, takes three minutes to cook, and would be much healthier than the cereal, even if you need to add a bunch of sugar to it to make it palatable to kids.
This photograph is just a unique situation that seems to occur in industrialised nations with food deserts. Where this kind of food can be made very cheaply, and even the poor have the purchasing power to afford it. These kind of ready made meals and snacks are usually very expensive in South Africa (except for the ramen/two minute noodles, those are always cheap). No way would a poor person here buy some microwave pizza over a bag of rice or pap.
Yea that stuff is not cheap here.
If it was all generic brands maybe I’d buy it but this is somebody acymtively spending significantly more money to avoid anything that could be considered a nutrient.
No it’s somebody doing a shitty bit
This particular cart is a bad bit though bc everything is name brand
Great, that tactic worked for you. That tactic does not work for all children, or households.
Everybody forgetting about us “latch-key kids since age 6” gang?
A lot of the stuff in that cart can be cooked in a microwave, toaster or oven. Put it in, set the temp/timer, and that’s it.
Pizza roll and bagel bites gang rise up!
So, let’s cook like someone with limited money and time then.
1 box pasta, rice, or whatever other starch. 2 cans of veggies, which veggies is a matter of taste. Cheese, whatever they like and isn’t too pricey. Optionally meat, if you have room in the budget since we’re trying to do this on the cheap. Shop sales since meat is usually the most expensive thing.
Preheat oven. Mix all ingredients and toss in baking dish, either topping with the cheese or mixing the cheese in as well and topping with some breadcrumbs or similar. Bake.
This is filling, cheap to make, holds up for a few days so you can have leftovers, and the actual time you are directly acting to cook it is minimal. Vary each of the parts and you have a distinct dish in the class.
For a variation, use mashed potatoes (even cheap boxed ones), carrots, peas, and ground beef. Swap out the cheese for a jar of gravy and that’s Shepard’s pie.
I grew up in a povertous household that had the exact meal you describe about 300 days out of the year. Sure - If you’re used to making your own meals, this is fine.
But to a lot of people this will still be a lot of time, thought and energy they don’t feel able to give. And a lot of people who never learned cooking skills will feel daunted by it. If you’re dealing with a lot of stress at work and/or chaos at home, you’ll easily forget to turn off the baking and burn the whole dinner. It’s complex when compared to most of these products which are “open, (optionally microwave/add milk/etc) and eat.”
Without meat or copious cheese you’ll also start running low on protein, prompting need to complicate your dishes further by exploring weird foods you’ve never heard of or know how to prepare, like chickpeas.
I agree that kind of recipe is a good and relatively easy meal in the grand scheme of meals, but unfortunately it’s just rarely that straightforward.
But to a lot of people this will still be a lot of time, thought and energy they don’t feel able to give.
Part of the reason I was very vague about specific ingredients is because you can basically drop nearly anything of the general type into each slot and the result will generally work. Meaning it doesn’t take much thought, because just about anything will work passably.
And a lot of people who never learned cooking skills will feel daunted by it.
Part of the point is that it requires limited cooking skills - literally preheat the oven, mix the ingredients in a baking dish, when the oven dings put it in and set the timer. You may need to experiment the first couple of times because ovens and ingredients differ a little, but it’s pretty forgiving.
If you’re dealing with a lot of stress at work and/or chaos at home, you’ll easily forget to turn off the baking and burn the whole dinner.
That’s why there’s an oven timer on virtually all ovens, and you can set a timer on your phone as well. This also isn’t something you’ll burn if you go slightly over, it’s pretty forgiving. And if you do burn it a little, it’s probably just a crust on the top you can remove and save the rest of the pan.
It’s complex when compared to most of these products which are “open, (optionally microwave/add milk/etc) and eat.”
Yeah, but literally everything is. Unfortunately to eat better than instant garbage you have to put forth more effort than opening the package. But the whole point of the basic recipe structure I threw out is that you set the oven, can do all the prep work in less time than it takes the oven to preheat, set the timer on the oven when you put it in and now you’ve got at least a little time to relax/spend with the kids/spouse while it sits in the oven and cooks and you end up with real food to eat.
The main reason I laid out a casserole style dish instead of a stew or a curry is because a casserole goes in the oven and thus doesn’t require as much direct attention.
However, just last night I made a fancied up version of quick and cheap curry, but it’s a bit more complicated than the previous casserole (still doable in half an hour and doable by someone with limited cooking skills). For that you’ll need:
1 can coconut milk (ethnic foods section in most grocery stores, near other Asian stuff)
1 can tomato paste
1 Tbsp garam masala (this is a spice blend you can find at most grocery stores, either with the other spices or in the ethnic foods section near other Asian stuff)
Some kind of protein (I used chicken last night, I’ve made this with beef, tofu, and even mixed proteins before)
2 cans of veggies (used carrots and potatoes last night)
a few tablespoons of some kind of fat to fry the protein with - I used butter last night, I’ve used olive oil or even vegetable oil in the past.
Step 1: Heat up your fat in a saute pan (this is the one that looks like a skillet, but has a taller wall around the outside and usually a second handle on the far side from the handle - you can use a fry pan, but a saute pan is more convenient because this is the only pan we’ll be using to cook and the taller wall makes it easier to stir later on without spilling while not being too much of a pot to be comfortable to fry in)
Step 2: Cut your protein into pieces and fry it in the pan until it’s browned and cooked through.
Step 3: Remove the protein from the pan and set it aside on a plate.
Step 4: Empty the can of tomato paste and the tablespoon of garam masala spice mix into the pan with the remaining fat and whatever drippings your protein left behind.
Step 5: Reduce heat to low while stirring until the tomato paste turns a darker red and starts to loosen up.
Step 6: Empty the can of coconut milk into the pan, stir until everything is thoroughly mixed.
Step 7: Drain your canned veggies, then add the veggies to the pan and put the protein back in the pan.
Step 8: Let simmer on low, stirring occasionally until the sauce thickens to the point that it’s about as thick as an especially thick BBQ sauce.
Serve over rice, I recommend 90 second microwave rice, basmati rice if your store has it. You could actually cook rice on the stove at the same time if you wanted (you boil water, add the rice, get it back to a boil, then cover, drop the heat to low and don’t touch it for about 15 minutes) if you wanted to save money, but I’m trying to minimize time, effort, cleanup and how forgiving the recipe is here and I’m at around 20 minutes, one pan, one plate, a tablespoon and a spoon to stir and serve with.
When I say “fancied up”, I marinated my meat (chicken, used Angry Orchard Mango Ginger, soy sauce, and the same spices I was going to use in the sauce as the marinade) and added a few more spices to the process - garlic, chili powder, paprika, and curry powder all added at the same time as the garam masala.
Another cheap cooking tip - marinate beef in cheap lite beer overnight, the alcohol will help tenderize it and flavor it and a lot of cheaper cuts become a lot better as a consequence.
Without meat or copious cheese you’ll also start running low on protein, prompting need to complicate your dishes further by exploring weird foods you’ve never heard of or know how to prepare, like chickpeas.
You’ll note I specifically mentioned both, depending on budget. The general casserole structure is flexible enough that you buy meat on sale and whatever you get you can make work. If you’ve got freezer space, post-holiday clearance sales are great for ham. If you’re willing to learn a little bit and put up with a single weird food, tofu is extremely flexible and also cheap (about $1.50/lb around here), but I’d probably add a can of soup or jar of gravy into the mix of a casserole that tried to use tofu as it tends to soak up moisture (and flavor) like a sponge and you don’t want the result to be dry. I’d probably use more tofu at home, but my wife finds the texture unpleasant.
Yup this looks like what i grew up eating, being raised by poor uneducated parents. It’s all still very enticing but i try to not buy this kind of junk too often. Though ice cream is my weakness lmao.
Just buy the corn syrup and iodized salt direct from the manufacturer and skip all these middle men.
I would bet most of the weight in that cart is sugar, salt and plastic.
And corn
I would’ve guessed metal
Plastic is way too light to hit the top 3, it’s probably water or some form of fat.
