Three words: rice and beans.
Produce (even though it's August) and meat (even hamburger) cost a fortune around here. Pasta, potatoes and bread are cheap. And you'll get fat on them. Stouffer's frozen stuff is expensive, but Banquet frozen dinners go for $1 apiece; their potpies are $.69.
You've got that right.
Other than weekly staples, like milk, eggs, bread, fruits and veggies, I do a freezer/pantry stock up about every 10-12 weeks....and then I will spend 2 days cooking and repackaging.....
It can never be said in this house "there's nothing to eat." If you walk away hungry after eating at my table, you have no one to blame but yourself :)
"No one's too poor to eat healthy. Fresh produce and meat costs far less than the prepackaged frozen stuff."
Absolutely. The problem is not one of economics, it's laziness. One can buy healthy food virtually anywhere in the country. The "problem" is, it has to be prepared and cooked. Many people don't want to be bothered.
I do think some people are too uneducated to know how to eat healthy and resistant to change, a welfare mother I knew several years ago would trade her WIC stamps for cigarettes and use her welfare food 'dollars' for daily's fruit drink and cheetos and popsicles because her kids 'won't eat nothin else'. But she's an exception.
But I do disagree, in a way. Maybe not many are too poor to eat healthier, but it is a challenge. I've found (since I've taken a cut in pay) that produce is not cheap. Just as one example - a single walmart red pepper, $1.43. No-name mac n cheese, 3 boxes for a dollar. And more filling, so some may be tempted to go with the mac and cheese. I've had to be creative, what's on special today and we can cut around that bad spot and so on. Meat, also the cheap meats, pre-made, fattier and less healthy (additives), are much cheaper than a nice or budget cut.
And it depends on location, too. I'm constantly amazed how my sister in a major city pays less for produce, meat and other grocery items than I do in a rural area. Of course, she pays more for many other items, but they eat well.
They forgot to mention "too lazy". Junk food is more convenient.
Exactly!
I see what the welfare mothers are buying with their WIC coupons and it makes me cringe.
I can buy four dozen eggs for the cost of one box of cereal, which box might make it through 1.5 breakfasts with a couple of kids.
For the cost of two bags of chips, I could buy several pounds of potatoes that can be made into all kinds of yummy things, including just put in a microwave.
For under a buck, I can buy a bag of dried beans, add $3.00 worth of Polish sausage and have a pot of good stuff to feed the whole family a couple of times.
That's just the beginning.
In the end, it usually costs way more to eat crappy food than good, basic food.
Now to eat fine food, that's another matter.
Exactly!
I see what the welfare mothers are buying with their WIC coupons and it makes me cringe.
I can buy four dozen eggs for the cost of one box of cereal, which box might make it through 1.5 breakfasts with a couple of kids.
For the cost of two bags of chips, I could buy several pounds of potatoes that can be made into all kinds of yummy things, including just put in a microwave.
For under a buck, I can buy a bag of dried beans, add $3.00 worth of Polish sausage and have a pot of good stuff to feed the whole family a couple of times.
That's just the beginning.
In the end, it usually costs way more to eat crappy food than good, basic food.
Now to eat fine food, that's another matter.