Is much of the criticism of cheap food actually class snobbery?

[Kyle Schuant]

"It's really not that hard" because you knew how to do it.

If you don't know how to do it, and are starting from zero (as many people are) ... it's fucking hard.

This is true. But it is, I think, a skill worth learning, both for the health of your body and that of your bank balance. It's not morally wrong if you don't know how to shop and cook, but it's better for you if you do.

[use2betrix]

"It's really not that hard" because you knew how to do it.

If you don't know how to do it, and are starting from zero (as many people are) ... it's fucking hard.

This is true. But it is, I think, a skill worth learning, both for the health of your body and that of your bank balance. It's not morally wrong if you don't know how to shop and cook, but it's better for you if you do.

Apparently there’s some expectation that all sorts of people took fancy cooking classes and cooked with their parents or something? 

I started from zero, and don’t recall it being some massive overtaking. I’ve gotten better, with better recipes, and better tasting food. It’s not like it’s so hard that you’re going to spend hundreds of dollars wasting inedible food. For like $2 you can get a food thermometer to make sure your chicken is cooked right. It’s nearly impossible to not be able to read directions on a box of oatmeal and “add dry oatmeal, add water, microwave.”

Could you imagine that person? “How do I measure 1/2 cup of dry oatmeal? What does stir mean?” Apparently those people are rampant among the low income. Honestly, it’s almost insulting to even insinuate that people are incapable of following such rudimentary directions.

[Kyle Schuant]

It's true that basic cooking is simple, but it also won't be that tasty, for example boiled oats. The skill is in making it tasty.

As well, the skill is in planning things. This is something chefs in restaurants have to deal with, how much to order? Order not enough, and you have to turn people away; order too much and it goes bad. And then if you're cooking for a family you have to deal with this one who won't eat that and this other one who insists on eating the other, and so on. So now you're making two different meals, and now how much should you get at the shops, and...

So it does take time to learn how to do well. And as I said, most people when asked mention not the taste or cost as attractions to fast food, but the convenience. We know that with everything: good, fast or cheap - choose one! If you're smart or lucky you get two of the three. And with food it's complicated by "good" tasty vs "good" nutritious. Yes, food can be both - but that's a skill.

I don't believe the poor are stupid. But I do believe that they have things other than preparing good and cheap food occupying their time and mental energy. Again Orwell: "When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit 'tasty'. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you." The same goes for the working poor. After a day cleaning public toilets I'd probably want to have a burger and a sixpack, too.

[ysette9]

I think it’s the wrong conversation to be having. One of the healthiest populations in the world (the Seventh Day Adventists) eats a vegetarian diet low in processed food. Go into one of their hospital cafeterias and find a salad bar the size of a small city. That diet can be very cheap but is extremely healthy. Or you can eat off the dollar menu at McDonald’s.

Interesting. I grew up in the Adventist church and wouldn’t say I found the eating to be particularly healthy. Better than fast food, yes, but there are plenty of processed veggie “meats” that have a lot of salt. My memories of potlucks were of Jello fruit salad, scalloped potatoes, this fake turkey veggie loaf thingie that had god-knows what in it,  it was salty and fatty, and lots of casseroles with cream sauces. I think I eat quite a bit healthier now.

[ysette9]

OP's reference (Dr Magnus Pike - nice to see footage of him again) was talking in the UK in 1980, and talking about effects based on the past not the future.  So basically right but talking about very different conditions.  In the UK in those days there just wasn't as much food available, it was (relatively) more expensive and "convenience foods" were a relatively recent and relatively scarce thing, certainly nothing like the recent poster here whose family lived on convenience foods 3 times a day and 7 days a week.

I do think the general message of "enough but not too much" and "variety" is right.

WW2 Rations 1940: per one person (adult)
Butter: 50g (2oz)
Bacon or ham: 100g (4oz)
Margarine: 100g (4oz)
Cooking fat/lard: 100g (4oz)
Sugar: 225g (8oz).
Meat: To the value of 1/2d and sometimes 1/10d – about 1lb (450g) to 12ozs (350g)
Milk: 3 pints (1800ml) occasionally dropping to 2 pints (1200ml).
Cheese: 2oz (50g) rising to 8oz (225g)
Eggs: 1 fresh egg a week.
Tea: 50g (2oz).
Jam: 450g (1lb) every two months.
Dried eggs: 1 packet (12 eggs) every four weeks.
Sweets & Chocolate: 350g (12oz) every four weeks
Fruit and vegetables: unrationed (but possibly scarce)

My grandmother would talk about rations when she was a little kid and how much she treasured the half an egg a week that she got.

[Paul der Krake]

I don't understand how rural areas are so overpriced in the US? I would expect that the land and space are opportunities to grow yourself or other things that do well?

They're really not. Food is rather cheap all over the country, just not everything everywhere, and it requires not putting things blindly in the cart, and spending 10-20 minutes mixing things together and possibly heating them up.

The definition of a food desert is no grocery store within one mile. One mile! It's the new "I have big bones". Like all good rallying cries, it has a nugget of truth that there is a subset of the population for which obtaining food, for many reasons, isn't a walk in the park. It distracts from the elephant in the room, which is flat out poor habits.

[Zikoris]

Certainly in rural areas you have all kinds of opportunities to grow things - I grew up in various parts of rural Canada, and everyone had massive gardens. Our family had a pretty rudimentary garden compared to most of our neighbours, whose families had been farming for many generations and knew growing plants inside out, but we were still able to produce cherries, apples, plums, pears, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, carrots, onions, radishes, corn, pumpkins, peas, bush beans, and kohlrabi. Throw in some hunting and fishing, which is also extremely popular in rural parts, and you could pretty easily pay next to nothing for food while eating better than any city person.

[dividendman]

Certainly in rural areas you have all kinds of opportunities to grow things - I grew up in various parts of rural Canada, and everyone had massive gardens. Our family had a pretty rudimentary garden compared to most of our neighbours, whose families had been farming for many generations and knew growing plants inside out, but we were still able to produce cherries, apples, plums, pears, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, carrots, onions, radishes, corn, pumpkins, peas, bush beans, and kohlrabi. Throw in some hunting and fishing, which is also extremely popular in rural parts, and you could pretty easily pay next to nothing for food while eating better than any city person.

I lived in a suburban area as a kid, we had a garden. My grandmother used to drag us to the grocery store to help her shop. I remember my grandmother's incredulous tone at the price of veggies in the supermarket (which were also cheap) because half of the backyard was a garden of mostly tomatoes.

She was the most annoyed when she saw mint in the supermarket. "Mint! How can they sell mint! Who would buy this?! It's a weed!" We had mint everywhere in the backyard, and yes, it grows just like a weed. She thought it was the most ridiculous thing ever that people would buy mint from the supermarket when you can literally just toss mint seeds on the grass and have an unlimited supply.

Haha, I'm laughing out loud right now just thinking about that. Oh man - too funny.

[Imma]

I don’t understand people can claim it’s too expensive to eat healthy when it’s actually often more expensive to eat junk.

Our chicken is $2/lb. rice is cheap, oatmeal is cheap. Eggs are cheap.

Fast food is way more expensive than cheap healthy food. A frozen pizza is like $5. You could get two lbs of chicken and a lb of rice for the same cost.

A lot of people really just have no self control and they would rather lie to themselves and others that it costs too much to eat healthy instead of taking responsibility.

Not only this, even with junk food there’s no actual excuse to be overweight. Weight is determined by calories in vs calories out. A person can stay just as skinny on fast food burgers and shakes as they can on chicken and rice.

It's not just the price that matters, it's also the time it takes to prepare the food and the mental and physical energy.

I work long days and am exhausted all the time. I love cooking and I try to plan ahead and I stick to the plan most of the time. But I'm not going to deny that it happens that I've been away for 12 to 14 hours and the best I can do is put a frozen pizza in the oven. Rice and beans is much cheaper and healthier, I don't just know how to prepare them but have them in the pantry already. I just can't manage preparing them sometimes. Just standing up in the kitchen is a struggle on those days.

Then there are the days that I spend all day at work, have a quick dinner and then have to attend an important course, without going home in between. I don't have access to a microwave, fridge or any healthy food for sale on those locations. I end up eating the least unhealthy option at any of the several fastfood places that I do have access to on those days.

Now, for some meals, it's easy: overnight oats have been my favourite breakfast for most of my life and they're quick, healthy and cheap.

For the last decade I’ve worked 60+ hrs a week for probably 80% of those weeks. 70+ hours for probably 10% of those hours.

My wife does all the cooking now, but before her I worked these hours and did all my own cooking and ate just as well. It takes maybe 1 hour to cook 3 days worth of healthy meals, 3 meals a day. You can toss some hamburger on a pan, chicken breast in the over, potatoes, rice, etc. you can do most of this simultaneously.

Here’s an old picture of some meals I cooked. I’d do this every 3 days, then just microwave them as needed. Really not that hard...

As I said: I love cooking and I try to plan ahead and I stick to the plan most of the time. That means I do cook in bulk a lot of the times. I spend a lot of time and energy in food planning and prepping and shopping and it still doesn't work 100% of the time. I can imagine that for some people, who for whatever reason don't have the energy / mental space / skills to plan ahead, this is a lot more difficult. I live in a poor area and I see many people who are so stressed out they eat out all the time (which causes financial problems, which makes them more stressed out). I also see some families that do eat wholesome food, so no, I don't think it's impossible to eat healthily while you're poor. It's just more difficult - like everything is more difficult when you're poor.

But there are weeks when my plan doesn't work, and I can point out a few reasons why it doesn't:
- My plan works most of the time when I leave after breakfast and return home before dinner. But I'm often away from home for long days. For example, next week one day I'll be out of the door by 7, don't get home until after 11, then have to get up at 5am the next day and won't be home until late at night. I always have a few of those insane days in a row. I have fainted from exhaustion on occasion, I'm not just being a complainypants when I say I'm tired.
- I don't own a car. Very mustachian, but means I walk and cycle a lot and I need a lot of food.
- When I have those long days, usually I don't have access to a microwave or fridge for the entire time. There are also no grocery stores en route to buy something fresh and we don't have a canteen at work, only a vending machine with cans of Coke. Because the food for the entire day has to fit in my work bag or laptop bag (not going to carry a third bag, two is heavy enough) it has to be compact too. Very few foods can be eaten cold, don't need to be cooled and are still edible after 12 hours. One option is bread and while I do take bread with me quite often, I strongly dislike it so I don't want to eat it all the time.
- I live somewhere with a small kitchen. Again, very mustachian, but my combined freezer / fridge space is about half the size of the space in your picture. So I do run out of prepared meals after a busy week, and it happens that I'm not in the vicinity of a grocery store during opening times for a few days in a row, so the options for buying more food are limited. In a couple of years we will be either moving or extending the kitchen, but for now we have to make do with limited space. I do have a large pantry, so I can store staples like oats, soy milk, pasta and rice.

Your self-discipline might be better than mine, but I already know I will find it hard to resist the falafel place that I will walk by at 7pm this Monday, while travelling from one workplace to another. My partner works long days too and in the opposite schedule (he's in bed when I get home and gets up in the middle of the night) but he usually gets food at work for free and otherwise just eats plain yoghurt all the time. I couldn't eat such a limited diet, I need variety.

Our diet is way better when we're both off from work, so that's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to FIRE.

[former player]

"It's really not that hard" because you knew how to do it.

If you don't know how to do it, and are starting from zero (as many people are) ... it's fucking hard.

This is true. But it is, I think, a skill worth learning, both for the health of your body and that of your bank balance. It's not morally wrong if you don't know how to shop and cook, but it's better for you if you do.

Apparently there’s some expectation that all sorts of people took fancy cooking classes and cooked with their parents or something? 

I started from zero, and don’t recall it being some massive overtaking. I’ve gotten better, with better recipes, and better tasting food. It’s not like it’s so hard that you’re going to spend hundreds of dollars wasting inedible food. For like $2 you can get a food thermometer to make sure your chicken is cooked right. It’s nearly impossible to not be able to read directions on a box of oatmeal and “add dry oatmeal, add water, microwave.”

Could you imagine that person? “How do I measure 1/2 cup of dry oatmeal? What does stir mean?” Apparently those people are rampant among the low income. Honestly, it’s almost insulting to even insinuate that people are incapable of following such rudimentary directions.

About 30 million people in the USA are functionally illiterate.  That means no, they quite possibly can't read the directions on a box of oatmeal.  That's 14% of the adult population.  For them you need to begin your "self-starter cooking lesson" with "first, learn to read".

And then you are assuming access to safe storage for that box of oatmeal where it won't be stolen by someone else or eaten by vermin, you are assuming access to clean running water (rules out a lot of people living in Flint, Michigan, right?), you are assuming access to electricity and a microwave, you are assuming access to a clean microwaveable container and a spoon.

I'm guessing you are a healthy, educated American male from a stable and quite possibly prosperous background who wasn't failed by their family or school, passed on from school into a well-paid job and has never been homeless or the victim of domestic violence (15% of the population have suffered this).  Not everyone is like you, or as lucky as you.

[ysette9]

I see a lot of parallels with financial literacy. Yes, the basics are easy and yes, a yoke with internet connection can self educate. But you have to know that such a thing exists and is possible to prompt such a search for info. If you’ve never seen anyone cook, then what would push you to go seek out that skill? If you’ve only ever seen people up to their eyeballs in debt and using payday lenders, what would prompt you to go open a bank account?

I’m reminded of a friend back in HS who I observed making some pretty bad mistakes with a boyfriend and sabotaging herself. To me it seemed obvious that what she was doing was bad, but then I realized that she didn’t know how else to react in a relationship because she grew up with parents who had a crappy marriage.

There is a great privilege in growing up in an environment where the people around you have stable homes and the time and money to cook and the wherewithal to model good financial and social and health behaviors.

[soccerluvof4]

To the OP's point I think there is definitely food snobbery. If I have had 3 I have had a dozen people almost look shocked when I tell them I buy from Aldis. They would rather spend 3$ on a gallon of Milk I would spend 1.69 on because they think there to good to walk into an Aldis BUT somehow they feel a Costco is more classy? Give me a break. They wont eat at Mc Donalds but will stop and consume shit at Starbucks or Chick fa la like tha'ts some how that much better. But they like to walk around showing off there Starbucks cup "Oh i am going to make a Starbucks run, anybody want something"?  Yes, imo there is food snobbery up and down in all aspects of food from cooking at home and eating out. Problem too is in America and sounds like as well now in other country's food has become a way of entertainment as opposed to eating to survive not surviving to eat.

[PhilB]

A key question around food and diet is 'Cui bono?' When you follow the money there are 2 separate producer groups with a vested interest in shaping our behaviours.  At the low end you have the highly processed 'junk' products that are looking for high volumes at minimum costs.  This lobby has a vested interest in persuading us that we are too lazy / stupid to cook and in filling their products with as much addictive stuff like sugar and salt as possible.  At the other end we have the 'designer' market who want to persuade the 'wealthy' that eating artisan food makes them 'better' than people buying food from the mainstream.  In the middle there is what you might call 'normal' food - fresh meat, fruit, veggies etc from ordinary producers sold through ordinary stores (if the products and/or stores haven't been crowded out of the market).  The middle is, I'm sure,  where you will find the mustachians as we are more likely than most to be able to cut through the crap when confronted with the wall of marketing coming at them.  The problem is that the producers in the middle just don't have the means to fight the marketing war.

[Rural]

I don’t understand people can claim it’s too expensive to eat healthy when it’s actually often more expensive to eat junk.

Our chicken is $2/lb. rice is cheap, oatmeal is cheap. Eggs are cheap.

Fast food is way more expensive than cheap healthy food. A frozen pizza is like $5. You could get two lbs of chicken and a lb of rice for the same cost.

A lot of people really just have no self control and they would rather lie to themselves and others that it costs too much to eat healthy instead of taking responsibility.

Not only this, even with junk food there’s no actual excuse to be overweight. Weight is determined by calories in vs calories out. A person can stay just as skinny on fast food burgers and shakes as they can on chicken and rice.

not going to go into a huge rant about people in low income/rural areas and their access to food...but some people have convenience stores as their only option for food. In the south you'd be hard pressed to find many very healthy items on the shelves of a Circle K or 7 Eleven, and when there are things like eggs, rice, etc they are much more expensive than at a normal grocery store.

Low income areas of Southern cities, yes, 100% there with you. But rural is a whole different issue, and real food is easier to come by than fast food, and Dollar General is almost certain to be much closer than a convenience store (and carries milk and eggs, though only canned and frozen produce). Fresh produce in a true rural area is found at swap meets and local farm stands (farmer's markets are almost all urban these days), so is available only during the growing season, or, for a bit more of a drive, at Wal-mart year round.

[horsepoor]

About 30 million people in the USA are functionally illiterate.  That means no, they quite possibly can't read the directions on a box of oatmeal.  That's 14% of the adult population.  For them you need to begin your "self-starter cooking lesson" with "first, learn to read".

The education piece probably can't be understated.  I look back at my childhood and try to figure out how my parents fed us pretty decent food for almost no money.  At one point we had a small propane stove and no refrigeration, no extra appliances except maybe a toaster, so I'm pretty familiar with eating from almost no kitchen.  The difference?  My mom learned to cook from somewhere (not her mother), and my dad is college-educated, so reading up on how to cook dried beans or whatever, was trivial (also, we did have a pressure cooker that worked on the propane stove).  Still, when it was just me, my dad and brother, my dad did resort to taking us out for fast food dinners a couple times a week, because eating bean burritos, spaghetti, cereal and cheese sandwiches gets hella old.

[Boofinator]

And then if you're cooking for a family you have to deal with this one who won't eat that and this other one who insists on eating the other, and so on. So now you're making two different meals, and now how much should you get at the shops, and...

No, you don't. You make one meal for the family, and if they are hungry enough, trust me it will be eaten. If they aren't hungry enough, then missing one meal will not result in starvation or nutritional deficiency.

Your self-discipline might be better than mine, but I already know I will find it hard to resist the falafel place that I will walk by at 7pm this Monday, while travelling from one workplace to another. My partner works long days too and in the opposite schedule (he's in bed when I get home and gets up in the middle of the night) but he usually gets food at work for free and otherwise just eats plain yoghurt all the time. I couldn't eat such a limited diet, I need variety.

Our diet is way better when we're both off from work, so that's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to FIRE.

There are many times it makes economic sense to eat out. Your situation seems to fit the bill.

The definition of a food desert is no grocery store within one mile. One mile! It's the new "I have big bones". Like all good rallying cries, it has a nugget of truth that there is a subset of the population for which obtaining food, for many reasons, isn't a walk in the park. It distracts from the elephant in the room, which is flat out poor habits.

Holy shit! One mile! I had to look it up to confirm, but damn, you're right, one mile and not having a car. More like a food paradise, if you ask me. http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/usda-defines-food-deserts

About 30 million people in the USA are functionally illiterate.  That means no, they quite possibly can't read the directions on a box of oatmeal.  That's 14% of the adult population.  For them you need to begin your "self-starter cooking lesson" with "first, learn to read".

And then you are assuming access to safe storage for that box of oatmeal where it won't be stolen by someone else or eaten by vermin, you are assuming access to clean running water (rules out a lot of people living in Flint, Michigan, right?), you are assuming access to electricity and a microwave, you are assuming access to a clean microwaveable container and a spoon.

I'm guessing you are a healthy, educated American male from a stable and quite possibly prosperous background who wasn't failed by their family or school, passed on from school into a well-paid job and has never been homeless or the victim of domestic violence (15% of the population have suffered this).  Not everyone is like you, or as lucky as you.

What is your point here? Life is harder if you don't learn how to read? I guess I have to agree there. Maybe we should tax the people to provide free public education for everyone!

What's next... Thievery is not good for society? Maybe we should make laws against theft and incarcerate people (who will, not coincidentally, get three square meals a day).

And your last point... Having a shitty family may result in a shitty outcome for your descendants? Wow, I've never made that connection before. You've now made me reconsider my parental strategy.

Apologies for the sarcasm, but making excuses for humans not to do a basic task that has been performed by their ancestors for thousands of years without excessive difficulty is a poor precedent. I don't disagree that cooking might be tough to learn, but nothing worth doing in life doesn't fit that bill.

[mm1970]

I don't understand how rural areas are so overpriced in the US? I would expect that the land and space are opportunities to grow yourself or other things that do well?

They're really not. Food is rather cheap all over the country, just not everything everywhere, and it requires not putting things blindly in the cart, and spending 10-20 minutes mixing things together and possibly heating them up.

The definition of a food desert is no grocery store within one mile. One mile! It's the new "I have big bones". Like all good rallying cries, it has a nugget of truth that there is a subset of the population for which obtaining food, for many reasons, isn't a walk in the park. It distracts from the elephant in the room, which is flat out poor habits.

I'm a mile from the nearest grocery store.  In college, I would often walk a mile to go grocery shopping.

I'd be hard-pressed to shop for a family of 4 on foot and walk that mile, and carry that amount of groceries.  For even 1-2 days of groceries.

[Christof]

You are joking, right? A family of four needs maybe 10-15 pound of food in 2 days. That is less than what most people take as carry-on on flights while walking similar distances to and from the gate at several airports. That is not even considering that you can usually take the bike to the grocery store.

[GuitarStv]

Lobster was reviled as cheap food for a long time.  It was used as prison food.

https://eatsiptrip.10best.com/2018/09/27/how-lobster-went-from-prison-trash-food-to-delicacy/

[Linea_Norway]

I don't understand how rural areas are so overpriced in the US? I would expect that the land and space are opportunities to grow yourself or other things that do well?

They're really not. Food is rather cheap all over the country, just not everything everywhere, and it requires not putting things blindly in the cart, and spending 10-20 minutes mixing things together and possibly heating them up.

The definition of a food desert is no grocery store within one mile. One mile! It's the new "I have big bones". Like all good rallying cries, it has a nugget of truth that there is a subset of the population for which obtaining food, for many reasons, isn't a walk in the park. It distracts from the elephant in the room, which is flat out poor habits.

I'm a mile from the nearest grocery store.  In college, I would often walk a mile to go grocery shopping.

I'd be hard-pressed to shop for a family of 4 on foot and walk that mile, and carry that amount of groceries.  For even 1-2 days of groceries.

MMM has a blog about cycling with a trolley where you can put in your family grocery shopping.

[GuitarStv]

I don't understand how rural areas are so overpriced in the US? I would expect that the land and space are opportunities to grow yourself or other things that do well?

They're really not. Food is rather cheap all over the country, just not everything everywhere, and it requires not putting things blindly in the cart, and spending 10-20 minutes mixing things together and possibly heating them up.

The definition of a food desert is no grocery store within one mile. One mile! It's the new "I have big bones". Like all good rallying cries, it has a nugget of truth that there is a subset of the population for which obtaining food, for many reasons, isn't a walk in the park. It distracts from the elephant in the room, which is flat out poor habits.

I'm a mile from the nearest grocery store.  In college, I would often walk a mile to go grocery shopping.

I'd be hard-pressed to shop for a family of 4 on foot and walk that mile, and carry that amount of groceries.  For even 1-2 days of groceries.

MMM has a blog about cycling with a trolley where you can put in your family grocery shopping.

The nearest grocery store to my home is about two miles, but the best one is four miles away.  When we only had one car I once went a year and a half going to the far grocery store with my bike.  The only thing I had trouble with was ice cream in the hottest days of summer.  It's no problem at all to carry 50 lbs of groceries on a bike.

[Boofinator]

I don't understand how rural areas are so overpriced in the US? I would expect that the land and space are opportunities to grow yourself or other things that do well?

They're really not. Food is rather cheap all over the country, just not everything everywhere, and it requires not putting things blindly in the cart, and spending 10-20 minutes mixing things together and possibly heating them up.

The definition of a food desert is no grocery store within one mile. One mile! It's the new "I have big bones". Like all good rallying cries, it has a nugget of truth that there is a subset of the population for which obtaining food, for many reasons, isn't a walk in the park. It distracts from the elephant in the room, which is flat out poor habits.

I'm a mile from the nearest grocery store.  In college, I would often walk a mile to go grocery shopping.

I'd be hard-pressed to shop for a family of 4 on foot and walk that mile, and carry that amount of groceries.  For even 1-2 days of groceries.

So what's the suggested alternative? Walk to the convenience store for every meal?

By the way, I used the bike and bike trailer pretty religiously for a few years to get a week's worth of food for a family of 7 (doing so at up to 120 degrees F in the city that captures the crown for U.S. hottest: http://www.wxresearch.com/triv.htm).

[apkanne]

I see a lot of parallels with financial literacy. Yes, the basics are easy and yes, a yoke with internet connection can self educate. But you have to know that such a thing exists and is possible to prompt such a search for info. If you’ve never seen anyone cook, then what would push you to go seek out that skill? If you’ve only ever seen people up to their eyeballs in debt and using payday lenders, what would prompt you to go open a bank account?

I’m reminded of a friend back in HS who I observed making some pretty bad mistakes with a boyfriend and sabotaging herself. To me it seemed obvious that what she was doing was bad, but then I realized that she didn’t know how else to react in a relationship because she grew up with parents who had a crappy marriage.

There is a great privilege in growing up in an environment where the people around you have stable homes and the time and money to cook and the wherewithal to model good financial and social and health behaviors.

Off topic, but is there a cooking version of Dave Ramsey?? Cooking/meal prepping is something i struggle with constantly.

[PhilB]

I don't understand how rural areas are so overpriced in the US? I would expect that the land and space are opportunities to grow yourself or other things that do well?

They're really not. Food is rather cheap all over the country, just not everything everywhere, and it requires not putting things blindly in the cart, and spending 10-20 minutes mixing things together and possibly heating them up.

The definition of a food desert is no grocery store within one mile. One mile! It's the new "I have big bones". Like all good rallying cries, it has a nugget of truth that there is a subset of the population for which obtaining food, for many reasons, isn't a walk in the park. It distracts from the elephant in the room, which is flat out poor habits.

I'm a mile from the nearest grocery store.  In college, I would often walk a mile to go grocery shopping.

I'd be hard-pressed to shop for a family of 4 on foot and walk that mile, and carry that amount of groceries.  For even 1-2 days of groceries.

MMM has a blog about cycling with a trolley where you can put in your family grocery shopping.

The nearest grocery store to my home is about two miles, but the best one is four miles away.  When we only had one car I once went a year and a half going to the far grocery store with my bike.  The only thing I had trouble with was ice cream in the hottest days of summer.  It's no problem at all to carry 50 lbs of groceries on a bike.

A 56lb sack of potatoes, on the other hand, was less than fun to balance on my pannier rack for a 4 mile ride home.  Won't be doing that again.

[former player]

About 30 million people in the USA are functionally illiterate.  That means no, they quite possibly can't read the directions on a box of oatmeal.  That's 14% of the adult population.  For them you need to begin your "self-starter cooking lesson" with "first, learn to read".

And then you are assuming access to safe storage for that box of oatmeal where it won't be stolen by someone else or eaten by vermin, you are assuming access to clean running water (rules out a lot of people living in Flint, Michigan, right?), you are assuming access to electricity and a microwave, you are assuming access to a clean microwaveable container and a spoon.

I'm guessing you are a healthy, educated American male from a stable and quite possibly prosperous background who wasn't failed by their family or school, passed on from school into a well-paid job and has never been homeless or the victim of domestic violence (15% of the population have suffered this).  Not everyone is like you, or as lucky as you.

What is your point here? Life is harder if you don't learn how to read? I guess I have to agree there. Maybe we should tax the people to provide free public education for everyone!

What's next... Thievery is not good for society? Maybe we should make laws against theft and incarcerate people (who will, not coincidentally, get three square meals a day).

And your last point... Having a shitty family may result in a shitty outcome for your descendants? Wow, I've never made that connection before. You've now made me reconsider my parental strategy.

Apologies for the sarcasm, but making excuses for humans not to do a basic task that has been performed by their ancestors for thousands of years without excessive difficulty is a poor precedent. I don't disagree that cooking might be tough to learn, but nothing worth doing in life doesn't fit that bill.

I don't understand your point. Possibly you are not making sense because you are commenting out of context: my post needs to be read as a reply to a previous post by use2betrix, particularly the sentence which said "It’s nearly impossible to not be able to read directions on a box of oatmeal and “add dry oatmeal, add water, microwave.”  My point is that for the 14% of the adult population of the USA that is illiterate that statement is just not true, just as it is not true for the percentage of people who have insecure or below standard living situations or abusive families.  And of course it's not a good thing that those situations exist but it is a real thing, and I don't see how pointing out that it is a real thing is "making excuses".

[Prairie Stash]

About 30 million people in the USA are functionally illiterate.  That means no, they quite possibly can't read the directions on a box of oatmeal.  That's 14% of the adult population.  For them you need to begin your "self-starter cooking lesson" with "first, learn to read".

And then you are assuming access to safe storage for that box of oatmeal where it won't be stolen by someone else or eaten by vermin, you are assuming access to clean running water (rules out a lot of people living in Flint, Michigan, right?), you are assuming access to electricity and a microwave, you are assuming access to a clean microwaveable container and a spoon.

I'm guessing you are a healthy, educated American male from a stable and quite possibly prosperous background who wasn't failed by their family or school, passed on from school into a well-paid job and has never been homeless or the victim of domestic violence (15% of the population have suffered this).  Not everyone is like you, or as lucky as you.

What is your point here? Life is harder if you don't learn how to read? I guess I have to agree there. Maybe we should tax the people to provide free public education for everyone!

What's next... Thievery is not good for society? Maybe we should make laws against theft and incarcerate people (who will, not coincidentally, get three square meals a day).

And your last point... Having a shitty family may result in a shitty outcome for your descendants? Wow, I've never made that connection before. You've now made me reconsider my parental strategy.

Apologies for the sarcasm, but making excuses for humans not to do a basic task that has been performed by their ancestors for thousands of years without excessive difficulty is a poor precedent. I don't disagree that cooking might be tough to learn, but nothing worth doing in life doesn't fit that bill.

I don't understand your point. Possibly you are not making sense because you are commenting out of context: my post needs to be read as a reply to a previous post by use2betrix, particularly the sentence which said "It’s nearly impossible to not be able to read directions on a box of oatmeal and “add dry oatmeal, add water, microwave.”  My point is that for the 14% of the adult population of the USA that is illiterate that statement is just not true, just as it is not true for the percentage of people who have insecure or below standard living situations or abusive families.  And of course it's not a good thing that those situations exist but it is a real thing, and I don't see how pointing out that it is a real thing is "making excuses".

If you read the source of your information, 14% of the population is English illiterate. I'm illiterate in French, that doesn't mean I'm illiterate overall. Here in Canada our Oatmeal comes with instructions in two languages, since I'm illiterate in one of them. 39% of the so called American illiterates are Hispanic, I suspect many can read spanish.

Others, like a coworker, read pictographs. She would be among the 20% of the 30 million who have diabilities and can't read. My oatmeal comes with pictures of a microwave and water on it, for those who struggle with text. If you look at your food, does it have pictographs?

Its not true that 14% of americans are illiterate; 14% of americans can't read english. I found badly written news articles supporting you and I see where you're coming from. However, sometimes its true that America has Fake News. This is one of those cases where a little digging shows the news isn't always factual.

[mm1970]

You are joking, right? A family of four needs maybe 10-15 pound of food in 2 days. That is less than what most people take as carry-on on flights while walking similar distances to and from the gate at several airports. That is not even considering that you can usually take the bike to the grocery store.

I'm not kidding.

I'm relatively fit and all, but I'm not about to walk 1.25 miles with 15 pounds of food on my back and in my arms.  Because it probably wouldn't all fit on my back (and currently dealing with an injury to my right arm, so I can't carry much more than 5 lbs).

On top of that, it's up over a big, un-bikeable hill. 

Probably best bet would be to find an old used jogging stroller - that would be doable for someone who had to shop this way.  Used to do it myself when my kids were younger, but then again, I wasn't buying 15 lbs of food because it wouldn't fit in the bottom of the stroller (since the top was filled with kids).

In any event, for 2 days of food (your point of 15 pounds for 4), that would be 2.5 miles round trip plus actual shopping, so let's call it 1.5 hours of "getting food", not to mention cooking it, after a full work day.  Multiple times per week.

For everyone poo poo-ing all this (with your inability to actually put yourselves in someone else's older, more tired, poorer, busier shoes), I have a new challenge!  Instead of a food stamp challenge -

I challenge you to do 100% of the grocery shopping for your family (or let's just make it a family of 4) on foot or by bicycle or by bus, for the next month.  Caveat is, you also have to have a full time job.  And keep a record of what you buy, how much you spend, how much you cook - bonus points if you take pictures of what you make.

I've done similar challenges (but never an "on foot" challenge like this), and I've found that a full month is really what is needed to get any kind of feel for what it is like.

[mm1970]

I don't understand how rural areas are so overpriced in the US? I would expect that the land and space are opportunities to grow yourself or other things that do well?

They're really not. Food is rather cheap all over the country, just not everything everywhere, and it requires not putting things blindly in the cart, and spending 10-20 minutes mixing things together and possibly heating them up.

The definition of a food desert is no grocery store within one mile. One mile! It's the new "I have big bones". Like all good rallying cries, it has a nugget of truth that there is a subset of the population for which obtaining food, for many reasons, isn't a walk in the park. It distracts from the elephant in the room, which is flat out poor habits.

I'm a mile from the nearest grocery store.  In college, I would often walk a mile to go grocery shopping.

I'd be hard-pressed to shop for a family of 4 on foot and walk that mile, and carry that amount of groceries.  For even 1-2 days of groceries.

MMM has a blog about cycling with a trolley where you can put in your family grocery shopping.

It's not super bikeable (really steep hill), so you'd be pushing your bike plus the trailer for a large portion of it (plus it's a windy road with no bike lane either), but would be stroller-able.

Be especially difficult to do it in the dark, and it's pretty much always dark when I'm not at work.

I realize that we aren't talking specifically about ME here, but we are talking generally about the kinds of difficulties that others may face.  I get that we're all problem solvers here, but a little bit of understanding might be nice.

Or maybe I'm just too soft and interested in seeing multiples sides of everything and their complexities, and MMM just isn't for me anymore.  Because: face punches!

[mm1970]

I don't understand how rural areas are so overpriced in the US? I would expect that the land and space are opportunities to grow yourself or other things that do well?

They're really not. Food is rather cheap all over the country, just not everything everywhere, and it requires not putting things blindly in the cart, and spending 10-20 minutes mixing things together and possibly heating them up.

The definition of a food desert is no grocery store within one mile. One mile! It's the new "I have big bones". Like all good rallying cries, it has a nugget of truth that there is a subset of the population for which obtaining food, for many reasons, isn't a walk in the park. It distracts from the elephant in the room, which is flat out poor habits.

I'm a mile from the nearest grocery store.  In college, I would often walk a mile to go grocery shopping.

I'd be hard-pressed to shop for a family of 4 on foot and walk that mile, and carry that amount of groceries.  For even 1-2 days of groceries.

So what's the suggested alternative? Walk to the convenience store for every meal?

By the way, I used the bike and bike trailer pretty religiously for a few years to get a week's worth of food for a family of 7 (doing so at up to 120 degrees F in the city that captures the crown for U.S. hottest: http://www.wxresearch.com/triv.htm).

Well, you tell me?  What do people do?  Here's what I think a lot of them do, based on what I've read.

They bum a ride from a friend and buy whatever groceries they can afford on the weekend.

When they run out of food mid-week, or need something, they walk to the nearest convenience store to stock up on whatever they can find.  Like milk is a common thing to buy at the convenience store.  The important thing is it has to be close enough to walk (I mean, does everyone know how to ride a bike?  No.)  It also has to be safe, because in the winter, if you have a full time job - it's dark when you aren't at work.

Many of our local families have kids who eat for free at breakfast and lunch (in fact, both my kids' schools are 100% free), but that means they often might not get dinner or eat much on the weekends.

[Zikoris]

For everyone poo poo-ing all this (with your inability to actually put yourselves in someone else's older, more tired, poorer, busier shoes), I have a new challenge!  Instead of a food stamp challenge -

I challenge you to do 100% of the grocery shopping for your family (or let's just make it a family of 4) on foot or by bicycle or by bus, for the next month.  Caveat is, you also have to have a full time job.  And keep a record of what you buy, how much you spend, how much you cook - bonus points if you take pictures of what you make.

I've done similar challenges (but never an "on foot" challenge like this), and I've found that a full month is really what is needed to get any kind of feel for what it is like.

Funny you should mention it - I've actually done exactly that for personal interest a few times. I've grocery shopped by foot/bike/bus for literally my entire adult life, always with full time jobs, but have done one month tracking a handful of times. If you're interested in what I buy and make, here's the latest one: https://incomingassets.wordpress.com/2017/03/31/grocery-tracking-2017/

Interestingly, since that tracking period we've actually shifted more towards foot than anything else (used to be more bike/bus), because I found a cheap store that I really like that's not on a bus route, so I mostly go there now. Unfortunately, my tracking projects have now fallen by the wayside, because they don't give itemized receipts.

[albireo13]

Keep eating fast food and savor the terminal constipation!
LOL

[Abe]

I bike to get groceries and bought two bags that attach to the back rail. I lived in one of the food deserts of Chicago and when it’s 30F with a 15mlh wind that sure sucked. They have a decent bus service specifically on Michigan that goes past several grocery stores (only one with any good produce) and the bus would get crowded with everyone’s groceries. It is true that all the second-rate stores have a pathetic fruit selection that’s way more expensive per calorie than anything else. Also true that few people in Chicago were lacking for calories. There were exactly 6 Harold’s chicken stores between my campus and the closest decent grocery store! I guess that’s just life in a US city, and am glad I don’t live there anymore.  Still bike to the grocery store, though.

[use2betrix]

I like that these examples are of people with full time jobs, yet can’t make it to the grocery store.

Genuinely curious, how are they getting to work, if they are apparently unable to get to the grocery store? Bus? Drive? Friends? Bike?

I get it, somewhere out there is a poor blind disabled illiterate Spanish speaker that doesn’t know English and has no legs and no arms and it doesn’t make sense for him to grocery shop and cook healthy meals.

We got it. But quit acting like these people are the damn RULE and not the EXCEPTION. There are fat garbage eating slobs in every single socioeconomic group. I’d venture a guess that there are plenty of people in this thread that also eat like garbage and are here trying to justify it.

[Telecaster]

Off topic, but is there a cooking version of Dave Ramsey?? Cooking/meal prepping is something i struggle with constantly.

There sure needs to be.  When I left my parents house to go to college I didn't know how to cook.  Sure, I could boil water for spaghetti or fry hamburger, but that was about it.  Over a long period of time, like a couple decades, I learned how to cook.    I now fancy myself a pretty good cook, and I very firmly believe cooking is an important life skill to have.  Very similar to personal finance in some ways.   The ability to cook well at home is important for your health, it is important for your wallet, eating is very communal, etc.  The benefits cascade and I didn't realize how many of them there were until I gained that ability myself.   Also similar to personal finance.

I disagree that cooking good food at home is hard.  Knowing what to cook is the harder part.  So just start with one thing and expand.   For example, roast chicken.   Salt and pepper the inside and outside.  Put it in an oven at 425 for about an hour and a half.   Turns out great!   Everyone loves it.   And whole chickens are cheap!   As a bonus, endless variations.  Different herbs and spices, roasting vegetables along with the chicken, etc. Make it as fancy as you like.  Now you know how to cook one really good meal, time to learn the next one.  Pretty soon, you've got seven.  Not long after that you'll have dozens.   Soon, you can just look in the fridge and figure out what you can make.  You'll keep coming back to roast chicken, however. 

I also disagree that cooking is time consuming.   It can be, if you enjoy it and have the time.  But it doesn't have to be.  The chicken in the above example takes maybe 10 minutes to prepare, if you are slow.   The rest of the time you can do whatever you want.  And I firmly disagree that it has to be "fancy" to be good.  A one pot meal centered around the cheapest cuts of meat is a fine, fine thing. 

As I was learning to cook from cookbooks, I often got frustrated because a recipe might call for a spice I didn't have and would never use again, or require some exotic utensil, or the directions weren't very good, or otherwise just weren't practical.   Not many cook books I felt like I could just work from front to back.  So I came up with the idea of a cookbook for beginners, where you would be able to cook every recipe in the book with only say, like two different pots, a frying pan, two knives, a sheet pan, six or seven spices, and two oils.  And each recipe would be easy, require no special techniques, and taste great. But as I was doing some market research I found approximately 4.5 billion cookbooks for beginners on Amazon.  So the field is probably too crowded already. 

But I do believe there should be a Dave Ramsey of cooking. 

[Kyle Schuant]

I don't eat like rubbish. However, when I was in early adolescence my mother went to university and got busy with that - if I wanted to eat, I had to cook. And my first job was with our landlord downstairs in his deli, and he taught me some cooking skills, and I saw a huge variety of people come in and make different food choices with different costs and so on. So I was fortunate in that I got a good idea of how to do things early on.

Now 30 years later married with two children, we are well off enough that I can work just part-time from home while caring for the children. This gives me plenty of time to go shopping, prepare lots of good food and so on. Not everyone is as fortunate as us. Some have two parents with two full-time (or more) jobs, some have just one parent, some have several children, some have very poor-paying jobs so must work two of them, some have no paid work available, and so on. We are also fortunate to live in an area with good and cheap fresh food - there was a McDs Express in the shopping strip for a year or two, it closed down, since the locals are mostly Indian and Chinese, and they'll work in a McDs, but they won't eat there, that site is now a dumpling place.

Of course, this along with the decent public transport, lots of schools and parks and medical facilities and so on - this makes it an area with high rents and house prices.

I learned the skills early on, and we are well-off and living in a good area. Not everyone has that. They can develop the skills, become better off and live in a better area - but this takes years, and usually it's all people can manage to work on one of those three things at a time.

I don't judge, I just offer recipes.

[remizidae]

I get it, somewhere out there is a poor blind disabled illiterate Spanish speaker that doesn’t know English and has no legs and no arms and it doesn’t make sense for him to grocery shop and cook healthy meals.

I agree. There are some people who truly cannot [do whatever it is, cook or bike or save]. Are they on this thread, composed of relatively well-off, smart, literate people with Internet access and at least some free time? I doubt it.

For every person who truly cannot, there are 100 people who love coming up with excuses. It's always a better strategy to find a way you can, rather than coming up with lists of reasons why you can't.

Tangent: LOL @ the person who thinks any mention of the word "Starbucks" is snobbery. It's moderately priced coffee, dude, nothing super-fancy.

[former player]

About 30 million people in the USA are functionally illiterate.  That means no, they quite possibly can't read the directions on a box of oatmeal.  That's 14% of the adult population.  For them you need to begin your "self-starter cooking lesson" with "first, learn to read".

And then you are assuming access to safe storage for that box of oatmeal where it won't be stolen by someone else or eaten by vermin, you are assuming access to clean running water (rules out a lot of people living in Flint, Michigan, right?), you are assuming access to electricity and a microwave, you are assuming access to a clean microwaveable container and a spoon.

I'm guessing you are a healthy, educated American male from a stable and quite possibly prosperous background who wasn't failed by their family or school, passed on from school into a well-paid job and has never been homeless or the victim of domestic violence (15% of the population have suffered this).  Not everyone is like you, or as lucky as you.

What is your point here? Life is harder if you don't learn how to read? I guess I have to agree there. Maybe we should tax the people to provide free public education for everyone!

What's next... Thievery is not good for society? Maybe we should make laws against theft and incarcerate people (who will, not coincidentally, get three square meals a day).

And your last point... Having a shitty family may result in a shitty outcome for your descendants? Wow, I've never made that connection before. You've now made me reconsider my parental strategy.

Apologies for the sarcasm, but making excuses for humans not to do a basic task that has been performed by their ancestors for thousands of years without excessive difficulty is a poor precedent. I don't disagree that cooking might be tough to learn, but nothing worth doing in life doesn't fit that bill.

I don't understand your point. Possibly you are not making sense because you are commenting out of context: my post needs to be read as a reply to a previous post by use2betrix, particularly the sentence which said "It’s nearly impossible to not be able to read directions on a box of oatmeal and “add dry oatmeal, add water, microwave.”  My point is that for the 14% of the adult population of the USA that is illiterate that statement is just not true, just as it is not true for the percentage of people who have insecure or below standard living situations or abusive families.  And of course it's not a good thing that those situations exist but it is a real thing, and I don't see how pointing out that it is a real thing is "making excuses".

If you read the source of your information, 14% of the population is English illiterate. I'm illiterate in French, that doesn't mean I'm illiterate overall. Here in Canada our Oatmeal comes with instructions in two languages, since I'm illiterate in one of them. 39% of the so called American illiterates are Hispanic, I suspect many can read spanish.

Others, like a coworker, read pictographs. She would be among the 20% of the 30 million who have diabilities and can't read. My oatmeal comes with pictures of a microwave and water on it, for those who struggle with text. If you look at your food, does it have pictographs?

Its not true that 14% of americans are illiterate; 14% of americans can't read english. I found badly written news articles supporting you and I see where you're coming from. However, sometimes its true that America has Fake News. This is one of those cases where a little digging shows the news isn't always factual.

Apparently it's only 9% of native English speakers in the USA who are illiterate with the rest being made up by people who are illiterate in English and may or may not be illiterate in their first language.  So that's still 14% who couldn't read use2betrix's simple instruction "“add dry oatmeal, add water, microwave”. A third of them could have read it in some other language, probably but not certainly spanish, if use2betrix had provided them with a translation, which he naturally didn't.

Whichever way you count it, there are still millions of adults in America who struggle with that simple instruction, and for whom the easy answer to learning to cook is not "read how to do it".  And that's not fake news.

[use2betrix]

About 30 million people in the USA are functionally illiterate.  That means no, they quite possibly can't read the directions on a box of oatmeal.  That's 14% of the adult population.  For them you need to begin your "self-starter cooking lesson" with "first, learn to read".

And then you are assuming access to safe storage for that box of oatmeal where it won't be stolen by someone else or eaten by vermin, you are assuming access to clean running water (rules out a lot of people living in Flint, Michigan, right?), you are assuming access to electricity and a microwave, you are assuming access to a clean microwaveable container and a spoon.

I'm guessing you are a healthy, educated American male from a stable and quite possibly prosperous background who wasn't failed by their family or school, passed on from school into a well-paid job and has never been homeless or the victim of domestic violence (15% of the population have suffered this).  Not everyone is like you, or as lucky as you.

What is your point here? Life is harder if you don't learn how to read? I guess I have to agree there. Maybe we should tax the people to provide free public education for everyone!

What's next... Thievery is not good for society? Maybe we should make laws against theft and incarcerate people (who will, not coincidentally, get three square meals a day).

And your last point... Having a shitty family may result in a shitty outcome for your descendants? Wow, I've never made that connection before. You've now made me reconsider my parental strategy.

Apologies for the sarcasm, but making excuses for humans not to do a basic task that has been performed by their ancestors for thousands of years without excessive difficulty is a poor precedent. I don't disagree that cooking might be tough to learn, but nothing worth doing in life doesn't fit that bill.

I don't understand your point. Possibly you are not making sense because you are commenting out of context: my post needs to be read as a reply to a previous post by use2betrix, particularly the sentence which said "It’s nearly impossible to not be able to read directions on a box of oatmeal and “add dry oatmeal, add water, microwave.”  My point is that for the 14% of the adult population of the USA that is illiterate that statement is just not true, just as it is not true for the percentage of people who have insecure or below standard living situations or abusive families.  And of course it's not a good thing that those situations exist but it is a real thing, and I don't see how pointing out that it is a real thing is "making excuses".

If you read the source of your information, 14% of the population is English illiterate. I'm illiterate in French, that doesn't mean I'm illiterate overall. Here in Canada our Oatmeal comes with instructions in two languages, since I'm illiterate in one of them. 39% of the so called American illiterates are Hispanic, I suspect many can read spanish.

Others, like a coworker, read pictographs. She would be among the 20% of the 30 million who have diabilities and can't read. My oatmeal comes with pictures of a microwave and water on it, for those who struggle with text. If you look at your food, does it have pictographs?

Its not true that 14% of americans are illiterate; 14% of americans can't read english. I found badly written news articles supporting you and I see where you're coming from. However, sometimes its true that America has Fake News. This is one of those cases where a little digging shows the news isn't always factual.

Apparently it's only 9% of native English speakers in the USA who are illiterate with the rest being made up by people who are illiterate in English and may or may not be illiterate in their first language.  So that's still 14% who couldn't read use2betrix's simple instruction "“add dry oatmeal, add water, microwave”. A third of them could have read it in some other language, probably but not certainly spanish, if use2betrix had provided them with a translation, which he naturally didn't.

Whichever way you count it, there are still millions of adults in America who struggle with that simple instruction, and for whom the easy answer to learning to cook is not "read how to do it".  And that's not fake news.

And then you also assume that every single one of those 9% also doesn’t live nor has ever lived with anyone who can read or can cook or has taught them anything at all. You also assume that they are not only illiterate, but they also have zero ability of problem solving or critical thinking to understand how to possibly “boil water, put noodles in til their soft, drain water, add sauce.”

Or that they have no tv where anyone has ever cooked anything.

And they don’t have arms, or legs, or speak English, and the directions aren’t in Braille, because they’re also blind. You know - while we’re continually talking about the exceptions..

Im not illiterate but I have dysnomia, dyslexia, and a non verbal learning disorder, and I’ve managed to eat healthy and not starve up to this point.

[former player]

About 30 million people in the USA are functionally illiterate.  That means no, they quite possibly can't read the directions on a box of oatmeal.  That's 14% of the adult population.  For them you need to begin your "self-starter cooking lesson" with "first, learn to read".

And then you are assuming access to safe storage for that box of oatmeal where it won't be stolen by someone else or eaten by vermin, you are assuming access to clean running water (rules out a lot of people living in Flint, Michigan, right?), you are assuming access to electricity and a microwave, you are assuming access to a clean microwaveable container and a spoon.

I'm guessing you are a healthy, educated American male from a stable and quite possibly prosperous background who wasn't failed by their family or school, passed on from school into a well-paid job and has never been homeless or the victim of domestic violence (15% of the population have suffered this).  Not everyone is like you, or as lucky as you.

What is your point here? Life is harder if you don't learn how to read? I guess I have to agree there. Maybe we should tax the people to provide free public education for everyone!

What's next... Thievery is not good for society? Maybe we should make laws against theft and incarcerate people (who will, not coincidentally, get three square meals a day).

And your last point... Having a shitty family may result in a shitty outcome for your descendants? Wow, I've never made that connection before. You've now made me reconsider my parental strategy.

Apologies for the sarcasm, but making excuses for humans not to do a basic task that has been performed by their ancestors for thousands of years without excessive difficulty is a poor precedent. I don't disagree that cooking might be tough to learn, but nothing worth doing in life doesn't fit that bill.

I don't understand your point. Possibly you are not making sense because you are commenting out of context: my post needs to be read as a reply to a previous post by use2betrix, particularly the sentence which said "It’s nearly impossible to not be able to read directions on a box of oatmeal and “add dry oatmeal, add water, microwave.”  My point is that for the 14% of the adult population of the USA that is illiterate that statement is just not true, just as it is not true for the percentage of people who have insecure or below standard living situations or abusive families.  And of course it's not a good thing that those situations exist but it is a real thing, and I don't see how pointing out that it is a real thing is "making excuses".

If you read the source of your information, 14% of the population is English illiterate. I'm illiterate in French, that doesn't mean I'm illiterate overall. Here in Canada our Oatmeal comes with instructions in two languages, since I'm illiterate in one of them. 39% of the so called American illiterates are Hispanic, I suspect many can read spanish.

Others, like a coworker, read pictographs. She would be among the 20% of the 30 million who have diabilities and can't read. My oatmeal comes with pictures of a microwave and water on it, for those who struggle with text. If you look at your food, does it have pictographs?

Its not true that 14% of americans are illiterate; 14% of americans can't read english. I found badly written news articles supporting you and I see where you're coming from. However, sometimes its true that America has Fake News. This is one of those cases where a little digging shows the news isn't always factual.

Apparently it's only 9% of native English speakers in the USA who are illiterate with the rest being made up by people who are illiterate in English and may or may not be illiterate in their first language.  So that's still 14% who couldn't read use2betrix's simple instruction "“add dry oatmeal, add water, microwave”. A third of them could have read it in some other language, probably but not certainly spanish, if use2betrix had provided them with a translation, which he naturally didn't.

Whichever way you count it, there are still millions of adults in America who struggle with that simple instruction, and for whom the easy answer to learning to cook is not "read how to do it".  And that's not fake news.

And then you also assume that every single one of those 9% also doesn’t live nor has ever lived with anyone who can read or can cook or has taught them anything at all. You also assume that they are not only illiterate, but they also have zero ability of problem solving or critical thinking to understand how to possibly “boil water, out noodles in til their soft, drain water, add sauce.”

Or that they have no tv where anyone has ever cooked anything.

And they don’t have arms, or legs, or speak English, and the directions aren’t in Braille, because they’re also blind. You know - while we’re continualky talking about the exceptions..

I'm pleased you are thinking about additional problems and ways around them.

Where did I ever say that learning simple cooking was impossible for someone with the disadvantages outlined?  I just said it's not always as simple as you make out.  That seems undeniable, however much someone is unable to understand that or just wants to mock.

[use2betrix]

About 30 million people in the USA are functionally illiterate.  That means no, they quite possibly can't read the directions on a box of oatmeal.  That's 14% of the adult population.  For them you need to begin your "self-starter cooking lesson" with "first, learn to read".

And then you are assuming access to safe storage for that box of oatmeal where it won't be stolen by someone else or eaten by vermin, you are assuming access to clean running water (rules out a lot of people living in Flint, Michigan, right?), you are assuming access to electricity and a microwave, you are assuming access to a clean microwaveable container and a spoon.

I'm guessing you are a healthy, educated American male from a stable and quite possibly prosperous background who wasn't failed by their family or school, passed on from school into a well-paid job and has never been homeless or the victim of domestic violence (15% of the population have suffered this).  Not everyone is like you, or as lucky as you.

What is your point here? Life is harder if you don't learn how to read? I guess I have to agree there. Maybe we should tax the people to provide free public education for everyone!

What's next... Thievery is not good for society? Maybe we should make laws against theft and incarcerate people (who will, not coincidentally, get three square meals a day).

And your last point... Having a shitty family may result in a shitty outcome for your descendants? Wow, I've never made that connection before. You've now made me reconsider my parental strategy.

Apologies for the sarcasm, but making excuses for humans not to do a basic task that has been performed by their ancestors for thousands of years without excessive difficulty is a poor precedent. I don't disagree that cooking might be tough to learn, but nothing worth doing in life doesn't fit that bill.

I don't understand your point. Possibly you are not making sense because you are commenting out of context: my post needs to be read as a reply to a previous post by use2betrix, particularly the sentence which said "It’s nearly impossible to not be able to read directions on a box of oatmeal and “add dry oatmeal, add water, microwave.”  My point is that for the 14% of the adult population of the USA that is illiterate that statement is just not true, just as it is not true for the percentage of people who have insecure or below standard living situations or abusive families.  And of course it's not a good thing that those situations exist but it is a real thing, and I don't see how pointing out that it is a real thing is "making excuses".

If you read the source of your information, 14% of the population is English illiterate. I'm illiterate in French, that doesn't mean I'm illiterate overall. Here in Canada our Oatmeal comes with instructions in two languages, since I'm illiterate in one of them. 39% of the so called American illiterates are Hispanic, I suspect many can read spanish.

Others, like a coworker, read pictographs. She would be among the 20% of the 30 million who have diabilities and can't read. My oatmeal comes with pictures of a microwave and water on it, for those who struggle with text. If you look at your food, does it have pictographs?

Its not true that 14% of americans are illiterate; 14% of americans can't read english. I found badly written news articles supporting you and I see where you're coming from. However, sometimes its true that America has Fake News. This is one of those cases where a little digging shows the news isn't always factual.

Apparently it's only 9% of native English speakers in the USA who are illiterate with the rest being made up by people who are illiterate in English and may or may not be illiterate in their first language.  So that's still 14% who couldn't read use2betrix's simple instruction "“add dry oatmeal, add water, microwave”. A third of them could have read it in some other language, probably but not certainly spanish, if use2betrix had provided them with a translation, which he naturally didn't.

Whichever way you count it, there are still millions of adults in America who struggle with that simple instruction, and for whom the easy answer to learning to cook is not "read how to do it".  And that's not fake news.

And then you also assume that every single one of those 9% also doesn’t live nor has ever lived with anyone who can read or can cook or has taught them anything at all. You also assume that they are not only illiterate, but they also have zero ability of problem solving or critical thinking to understand how to possibly “boil water, out noodles in til their soft, drain water, add sauce.”

Or that they have no tv where anyone has ever cooked anything.

And they don’t have arms, or legs, or speak English, and the directions aren’t in Braille, because they’re also blind. You know - while we’re continualky talking about the exceptions..

I'm pleased you are thinking about additional problems and ways around them.

Where did I ever say that learning simple cooking was impossible for someone with the disadvantages outlined?  I just said it's not always as simple as you make out.  That seems undeniable, however much someone is unable to understand that or just wants to mock.

For the illiterate I can certainly see it being a struggle, same with other certain scenarios. These are still a small percentage.

If our obese and poor eating habits were isolated to those who had legitimate reasons, this wouldn’t even be worth discussing. My issue is how horrible our nations nutrition habits are as a whole, and I’d say probably 90%+ don’t have a justifiable excuse. Walk around a standard office. Everyone can read, most of them have cars, most probably have college degrees, somehow everyone is still fat and eats like shit, and then you have people like those here that will legitimately make excuses for it.

[shazwazza]

If I see items reduced (particularly meat) I'll be cooking it that night and save 50%. However, I do go through the self serve checkout not wanting to be judged by the cashier.
My friend only buys premium brands, I think it's a pride / marketing thing.

Class snobbery exists and marketing makes sure there is still a divide.

[Radagast]

Yes, I see a lot of snobbery about food. One example is the "paleo diet" which is basically just saying "I am just a titanic annoying snob who doesn't have any idea what ancient people ate and certainly wouldn't eat like that if I did, but I sure can afford a lot of expensive meat and exotic vegetables!" There is also the anti carb crowd, the antigluten crowd, people who look down on potatoes, people who think peanuts are for plebs, people who eat palm oil and coconut oil but not peanut and canola oil, people who don't eat canned food, or slow cooker food, vegans, people who are against GMOs full stop, people who think eating food not labeled organic is like dying, and many others. People are full of reasons for why they need to buy expensive fancy food.

This thread has also been demonstrating some food snobbery which hadn't really occurred to me. Wait what? I was just in a dollar store and the healthy food selection was pretty reasonable. Olive oil, frozen stir fry vegetables, I even left with 10 ounces of blueberries (yes for $1.00). I bet that dollar store's food selection was unusually poor too, because it was butting up against a discount grocer. Also the dollar store serving sizes were pretty reasonable. I didn't get the impression meal planning would be a huge deal because for 1 dollar you get small individually wrapped packages. So lets add people who think they can't eat and cook healthily on dollar store food to the list. That said, grocery stores have much better selection, even as a poor person with no car I'd want to get to one at least once a month.

There have been some other food snobbery things here as well. It seems like people are implying non perishable things like the classic tuna sandwich (or tuna melt even better) are inferior, and you should cook whole chickens and fresh vegetables or don't bother. In fact any reasonable attempt at cooking at home, reducing refined grains, and including multiple vegetables is already a success. Especially if it is cheap, easy, or tastes great. I favor things like roma tomatoes, green peppers, eggs, onions, garlic, and the like precisely because they take a long time to go bad.

[Radagast]

About 30 million people in the USA are functionally illiterate.  That means no, they quite possibly can't read the directions on a box of oatmeal.  That's 14% of the adult population.  For them you need to begin your "self-starter cooking lesson" with "first, learn to read".

And then you are assuming access to safe storage for that box of oatmeal where it won't be stolen by someone else or eaten by vermin, you are assuming access to clean running water (rules out a lot of people living in Flint, Michigan, right?), you are assuming access to electricity and a microwave, you are assuming access to a clean microwaveable container and a spoon.

I'm guessing you are a healthy, educated American male from a stable and quite possibly prosperous background who wasn't failed by their family or school, passed on from school into a well-paid job and has never been homeless or the victim of domestic violence (15% of the population have suffered this).  Not everyone is like you, or as lucky as you.

I call BS on all of that except the Flint one, and it only applies to people in Flint. And I didn't check, did they fix that yet? I'll use my MIL as a direct refutation of some points.
1. You do not need to be literate to cook. Dumping water on oatmeal does not require reading or pictures. My MIL can cook 1000 amazing things and never had a recipe for any of them and can't even imagine the concept of a recipe. Among my family it generally seems like following written instructions is inversely correlated to good results.
2. Who steals oatmeal? I am serious.
3. 7 billion humans manage to overcome vermin every day. This is so easy I don't even see how it could be a suggestion as an impediment and I once caught 37 mice in my house. Shelves and metal or ceramic or glass containers work easily.
4. Virtually everyone in the US has access to clean running water as mandated by law and insisted upon by citizens. Cities put a lot of time and money into treating, testing, and delivering it . And somehow all the people who don't have instantly drinkable water in 90% of the planet still manage to wash, cook by themselves, and even drink the water. It's almost as is if it isn't even an impediment at all.
5. There are lots of options beside microwave. Toaster oven. Slow cooker. Induction top. Electric kettle. Regular oven. George Foreman grill. There is 0 stopping anyone from these unless you are actually homeless. Even then you could get one, but using and transporting might be inconvenient. A thrift shop would probably give you one for free, and at most for the cost of five dollar menu items.
6. Electricity. MIL cooks every one of her 1000 things on a hearth using leftover corn parts and twigs. Absolutely not needed, though our culture may make it seem that way except for people using $2k barbecues. Personally I find electricity safe and convenient and compatible with building codes.
7. Microwavable container and spoon. I thought about this and every single person I have every met or seen had access to both of these and I will categorically state that every person you have met or seen did too. I could hardly even think of a person who might not. Lost in the wilderness with no tools? Locked in an authoritarian prison system? But I never saw people in those situations.
8. I'm guessing you are a healthy, educated North American of unknown to me gender from a stable and quite possibly prosperous background who wasn't failed by their family or school, passed on from school into a well-paid job and has never been homeless or the victim of domestic violence. You have literally no clue about how easy and inexpensive it is to cook or how 90% of the people on the planet who are less privileged than you live their lives without restaurants or convenience stores. It is especially obvious because you think privileged educated wealthy American males are better cooks than underprivileged uneducated poor non-white females, which is cosmically funny. I guess you have only ever met the former.

[Radagast]

I challenge you to do 100% of the grocery shopping for your family (or let's just make it a family of 4) on foot or by bicycle or by bus, for the next month.  Caveat is, you also have to have a full time job.  And keep a record of what you buy, how much you spend, how much you cook - bonus points if you take pictures of what you make.

You said that on the MMM forum? Challenge accepted! And I raise you three. I walk to full time job 1.7 miles each way each day (unless it snows because I'm a pansy and I don't like to get my toes wet). My wife works night shift full time and is also a full time student so not a lot of spare time going on especially as I also review her papers. So three of four nights a week I cook and have one hour total to prepare food and eat before she leaves. And lower you two. DW has already said she arranged six days off and she intends to drive to a grocery store on one of them regardless of my wish for challenge walks. My parents will come over for a weekend and that will also destroy the challenge for a few days. So net raise of one. I'll start a thread next time I buy food.

And I don't do wheels. So net raise of two.

[BookLoverL]

I definitely think cooking is a lot easier than people think it is, though there will be the occasional person who truly can't figure it out. But if you don't know how to cook and cooking the entirety of everything that ever existed is overwhelming to you, well, you start small. You don't have to do a fancy roast with veg and all the trimmings the first time out.

For instance, want to cook eggs? For boiled eggs, put it in a saucepan of water, put it on a high heat so the water boils, then turn the heat down a little and leave it there for 12 minutes if you want hard boiled or less if you want it soft. (IDK, I always eat hard boiled eggs because I like them better.) Want fried eggs? Get a pan that has at least a flat section that's big enough to put your egg in, put a bit of oil or butter there, put the pan on a hot thing, crack the egg open with the edge of the pan or with a fork and tip the contents into the oil, and leave it there until it looks like you expect fried eggs to look when you eat them.

How about vegetables? Well, if you get a steamer pan (a pan with two layers that has little holes in the bottom of the top layer), the method is to peel the skin off  the outside of carrots and potatoes, then chop all the veg into small pieces (I do roughly an inch each way for potatoes, but it's not critical), put the potatoes in water in the bottom layer (do this right after you chop them or they start going black) and put all the other veg in the top layer, then put the pan on high heat so the water boils, then once it's boiled turn the heat down a bit and leave for 15 minutes. Set a timer if you need to. Now you have carbs and multiple types of vitamins! I don't know if it works for all veg, but I have done this for potatoes, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, and kale, at least.

What if you don't have a cooker and can't get one? Well, you can still eat much healthier than having fast food without having to do any heating of your food at all! You could: buy a wedge of non-crappy cheese from the shop and eat it in pieces; eat various fruit and veg cold after peeling them if applicable and chopping them up, including carrots, broccoli, cucumber, celery, tomatoes, probably some other stuff too; you can buy bread and make sandwiches, either with the cheese, with peanut butter, with jam, with tuna, with cold pre-cooked sandwich meats; etc. Any of these options are healthier than eating at McDonalds, and they don't even need you to own a microwave.

Cooking isn't rocket science. There are absolutely social barriers that have lead to less people cooking regularly than there ought to be, but I don't think it helps individual people to act like those social barriers mean they can't even try.

[former player]

About 30 million people in the USA are functionally illiterate.  That means no, they quite possibly can't read the directions on a box of oatmeal.  That's 14% of the adult population.  For them you need to begin your "self-starter cooking lesson" with "first, learn to read".

And then you are assuming access to safe storage for that box of oatmeal where it won't be stolen by someone else or eaten by vermin, you are assuming access to clean running water (rules out a lot of people living in Flint, Michigan, right?), you are assuming access to electricity and a microwave, you are assuming access to a clean microwaveable container and a spoon.

I'm guessing you are a healthy, educated American male from a stable and quite possibly prosperous background who wasn't failed by their family or school, passed on from school into a well-paid job and has never been homeless or the victim of domestic violence (15% of the population have suffered this).  Not everyone is like you, or as lucky as you.

I call BS on all of that except the Flint one, and it only applies to people in Flint. And I didn't check, did they fix that yet? I'll use my MIL as a direct refutation of some points.
1. You do not need to be literate to cook. Dumping water on oatmeal does not require reading or pictures. My MIL can cook 1000 amazing things and never had a recipe for any of them and can't even imagine the concept of a recipe. Among my family it generally seems like following written instructions is inversely correlated to good results.
2. Who steals oatmeal? I am serious.
3. 7 billion humans manage to overcome vermin every day. This is so easy I don't even see how it could be a suggestion as an impediment and I once caught 37 mice in my house. Shelves and metal or ceramic or glass containers work easily.
4. Virtually everyone in the US has access to clean running water as mandated by law and insisted upon by citizens. Cities put a lot of time and money into treating, testing, and delivering it . And somehow all the people who don't have instantly drinkable water in 90% of the planet still manage to wash, cook by themselves, and even drink the water. It's almost as is if it isn't even an impediment at all.
5. There are lots of options beside microwave. Toaster oven. Slow cooker. Induction top. Electric kettle. Regular oven. George Foreman grill. There is 0 stopping anyone from these unless you are actually homeless. Even then you could get one, but using and transporting might be inconvenient. A thrift shop would probably give you one for free, and at most for the cost of five dollar menu items.
6. Electricity. MIL cooks every one of her 1000 things on a hearth using leftover corn parts and twigs. Absolutely not needed, though our culture may make it seem that way except for people using $2k barbecues. Personally I find electricity safe and convenient and compatible with building codes.
7. Microwavable container and spoon. I thought about this and every single person I have every met or seen had access to both of these and I will categorically state that every person you have met or seen did too. I could hardly even think of a person who might not. Lost in the wilderness with no tools? Locked in an authoritarian prison system? But I never saw people in those situations.
8. I'm guessing you are a healthy, educated North American of unknown to me gender from a stable and quite possibly prosperous background who wasn't failed by their family or school, passed on from school into a well-paid job and has never been homeless or the victim of domestic violence. You have literally no clue about how easy and inexpensive it is to cook or how 90% of the people on the planet who are less privileged than you live their lives without restaurants or convenience stores. It is especially obvious because you think privileged educated wealthy American males are better cooks than underprivileged uneducated poor non-white females, which is cosmically funny. I guess you have only ever met the former.

Not North American, not male, grew up in poverty (food stamps level poverty), survived periods of unemployment.  It's because I was privileged in other ways (healthy, educated, stable family) that I can live healthily spending very little on food, even though I no longer need to.  It's because I have seen poverty up close and seen (and lived) its effects that I can see that what you take to be simple is not.  If you are homeless or in a hostel (more than half a million in the USA at any one time) yes, your porridge oats may very well be stolen.  If you are in substandard housing (six million in the USA) you may not have a kitchen and electricity and oven and running water and be able to keep out pests.  If you never saw your parents cook, or grew up in State care, you haven't seen examples to follow, so how do you learn the way your MIL probably learned?

I've never said this applies to everyone, and your suggestion that I think privileged American men are better cooks than others would be laughable if it didn't indicate your own prejudices.

[Boofinator]

About 30 million people in the USA are functionally illiterate.  That means no, they quite possibly can't read the directions on a box of oatmeal.  That's 14% of the adult population.  For them you need to begin your "self-starter cooking lesson" with "first, learn to read".

And then you are assuming access to safe storage for that box of oatmeal where it won't be stolen by someone else or eaten by vermin, you are assuming access to clean running water (rules out a lot of people living in Flint, Michigan, right?), you are assuming access to electricity and a microwave, you are assuming access to a clean microwaveable container and a spoon.

I'm guessing you are a healthy, educated American male from a stable and quite possibly prosperous background who wasn't failed by their family or school, passed on from school into a well-paid job and has never been homeless or the victim of domestic violence (15% of the population have suffered this).  Not everyone is like you, or as lucky as you.

What is your point here? Life is harder if you don't learn how to read? I guess I have to agree there. Maybe we should tax the people to provide free public education for everyone!

What's next... Thievery is not good for society? Maybe we should make laws against theft and incarcerate people (who will, not coincidentally, get three square meals a day).

And your last point... Having a shitty family may result in a shitty outcome for your descendants? Wow, I've never made that connection before. You've now made me reconsider my parental strategy.

Apologies for the sarcasm, but making excuses for humans not to do a basic task that has been performed by their ancestors for thousands of years without excessive difficulty is a poor precedent. I don't disagree that cooking might be tough to learn, but nothing worth doing in life doesn't fit that bill.

I don't understand your point. Possibly you are not making sense because you are commenting out of context: my post needs to be read as a reply to a previous post by use2betrix, particularly the sentence which said "It’s nearly impossible to not be able to read directions on a box of oatmeal and “add dry oatmeal, add water, microwave.”  My point is that for the 14% of the adult population of the USA that is illiterate that statement is just not true, just as it is not true for the percentage of people who have insecure or below standard living situations or abusive families.  And of course it's not a good thing that those situations exist but it is a real thing, and I don't see how pointing out that it is a real thing is "making excuses".

I thought my point was fairly clear, but to be a bit more explicit: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/07/how-to-tell-if-youre-a-complainypants/.

I challenge you to do 100% of the grocery shopping for your family (or let's just make it a family of 4) on foot or by bicycle or by bus, for the next month.  Caveat is, you also have to have a full time job.  And keep a record of what you buy, how much you spend, how much you cook - bonus points if you take pictures of what you make.

You said that on the MMM forum?

I'll second that line of thought. Did it for years in good and abominable weather (as mentioned in a previous post), while working 50+ hours per week, raising a family, cooking most of the meals, coaching various sports, and doing engineering grad school fulltime. Wife wanted to take over grocery shopping not too long ago, so now I only ride my bike to the grocer for the occasional run to get needed items.

To step back from the facepunches, I truly believe there are some people who have insurmountable reasons not to eat healthy. As mentioned by others, those people are a vast minority of the people who don't eat healthy, and therefore discussing their plight is irrelevant to this line of conversation.

To add to this, I think most people who are overweight aren't for reasons generally noted on this portion of the thread (eating out all the time), but do to an unhealthy diet coupled to a lesser extent with a lack of enough exercise. In some ways I do feel sorry for them, because a lot of it is socially ingrained. However, where I have a hard time feeling sorry for them, is that they often times have no desire to change their behaviors to improve body composition.

[GuitarStv]

The nearest grocery store to my home is about two miles, but the best one is four miles away.  When we only had one car I once went a year and a half going to the far grocery store with my bike.  The only thing I had trouble with was ice cream in the hottest days of summer.  It's no problem at all to carry 50 lbs of groceries on a bike.

I challenge you to do 100% of the grocery shopping for your family (or let's just make it a family of 4) on foot or by bicycle or by bus, for the next month.  Caveat is, you also have to have a full time job.  And keep a record of what you buy, how much you spend, how much you cook - bonus points if you take pictures of what you make.

I was purchasing food for a family of 3, and held a full time job at the time.  According to google maps, the store that I went to was exactly 7 km (4.3 miles) away from our house and 54m (177 ft) elevation gain each way due to a reasonably large ravine that you have to go down and up.  The ride would take about 30 minutes each way going at a relatively relaxed pace.

Typical groceries would include:
- A gallon of milk
- A large quantity of fresh fruit/vegetables - apples, pears, bananas, oranges, carrots, celery, onions)
- Cheese
- Various canned goods (coconut milk, soup, pasta sauce)
- Misc cuts of meat
- Rice
- Beans (dry)
- Pasta
- Potatoes (usually just a 10 lb bag)

I started out putting everything on the bike:


Later I moved to using a trailer because it allowed me to more easily load things (fixing all the bungees takes a long time!) and put less stress on my bike spokes.

[undercover]

Boy this thread went in a different direction...though the premise of it is a little hard to conceptualize anyway since I think, especially nowadays, it comes down to people overpaying for cheap foods rather than being against "cheap" foods in general.

I do not think people are generally snobby against an actual food item itself, but rather the way in which it is acquired. You can pay $5 for lettuce or $1 for lettuce depending on where you get it. It's still lettuce. And of course if you're buying a hamburger from McDonalds, or from "insert trendy burger restaurant here", or eating one you prepared yourself, it's still a burger. I don't think people these days are concerned with the fact that you're eating a burger, but rather with where it's coming from. At the end of the day a burger from McDonald's or one prepared from home is still a hamburger, you're just getting more of the bad stuff from the former, though in moderation that's not necessarily a detrimental thing. If you're the type that is snobbish against a certain food or foods then you're probably snobbish with your diet overall and that is highly annoying. Whether it's low fat, low carb, low whatever, keep it to yourself, I don't care. Perfect example of this are (some) vegans :)

But in general I think people are overly snobby towards McDonald's or similar in the same way they are towards discount grocers (especially ethnic ones).

Every food item is fairly cheap if you're buying it in bulk from a competitive grocer, but not so much if you're buying it individually from the most expensive organic speciality grocer in town or eating at trendy restaurants. I think people are more snobbish with where they shop/get their food than what they eat personally.

At the end of the day, let's be honest here, everyone is a snob in some capacity. And then people are snobs against snobs. And then people are snobs against people who are snobs against snobs. And then you start to wonder what a snob even is and the idea of it doesn't even make sense. That's why it's best to just be objective about what you're talking about.

It's true that basic cooking is simple, but it also won't be that tasty, for example boiled oats. The skill is in making it tasty.

...

I don't believe the poor are stupid. But I do believe that they have things other than preparing good and cheap food occupying their time and mental energy. Again Orwell: "When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit 'tasty'. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you." The same goes for the working poor. After a day cleaning public toilets I'd probably want to have a burger and a sixpack, too.

I can put a piece of bacon in a hot pan and flip it after 2 min and then take it off the pan after another 2 min. Are you telling me it won't be tasty? Haha. I know that's not the best example but still. Cooking is no more than doing that but just adding more steps. Adding taste just means using oils/fats/spices. Again, why is bacon tasty with little effort? Fat and salt. Learning when and where to use certain spices though and how much does make a difference of course and does take some patience/learning.

100% agree that people that hate most of their day will end up making food choices that make them feel the best which is usually the most convenient/unhealthy foods. Life has to have some sort of consolation for it to be worth it. People do not operate under the premise of zero reward.

Why can you not understand...

"It's really not that hard" because you knew how to do it.

If you don't know how to do it, and are starting from zero (as many people are) ... it's fucking hard.

It's not just spending 1-3 hours cooking. I don't know many people who spend that much time actually cooking, but you're right in that it's more time than the actual cooking itself. I'd say most of the time 30 min all in though between shopping, prep, cooking, and cleaning PER meal
It's learning how to cook. Follow a recipe
It's figuring out what to make. Either look at recipes or just recreate what you already eat
It's learning how to shop for what you want to make. See above. You can go to literally any grocery store and adjust as necessary
It's figuring out what is going to go bad first. I mean you can just look at expiration dates or do some research
It's learning not to ruin that $10 pack of chicken breasts you just bought. Well once you figure out boiling is a fail-proof method of cooking you could do that for a while until you become more brave?

Despite all of that, I think the degree of difficulty that comes along with cooking is not so much the cooking itself, but the mental activities required around the cooking, or the decision to start at all. It's the psychological aspects people do not want to deal with and the planning and managing. But that's why it's best to stick with a few things you like eating first and get in the habit and then you can expand from there.

Like anything else, you can't expect to be amazing at something within a week of starting it. You can 100% get started within a week though...which is more than you can say of most things that are going to make a gigantic impact on your life.

Now...I can understand if you're not willing to go super saiyan and collect your groceries via bike. Even having the courage to get out of bed in the morning in the direct opposition of all the shit you're going to face for that day is sometimes enough :)

Tangent: LOL @ the person who thinks any mention of the word "Starbucks" is snobbery. It's moderately priced coffee, dude, nothing super-fancy.

If 25x more expensive is "moderate" to you, then sure. Would you pay $25 for a $1 single hamburger from McDonalds (using this as an example because I'm not even sure you can make a hamburger yourself for $1)? Because that's literally what you're doing, unless you just somehow think Starbucks has far superior coffee if you consider it costs $0.08 to brew your own 16oz cup vs 16oz Starbucks cup at $2.10.

[former player]

About 30 million people in the USA are functionally illiterate.  That means no, they quite possibly can't read the directions on a box of oatmeal.  That's 14% of the adult population.  For them you need to begin your "self-starter cooking lesson" with "first, learn to read".

And then you are assuming access to safe storage for that box of oatmeal where it won't be stolen by someone else or eaten by vermin, you are assuming access to clean running water (rules out a lot of people living in Flint, Michigan, right?), you are assuming access to electricity and a microwave, you are assuming access to a clean microwaveable container and a spoon.

I'm guessing you are a healthy, educated American male from a stable and quite possibly prosperous background who wasn't failed by their family or school, passed on from school into a well-paid job and has never been homeless or the victim of domestic violence (15% of the population have suffered this).  Not everyone is like you, or as lucky as you.

What is your point here? Life is harder if you don't learn how to read? I guess I have to agree there. Maybe we should tax the people to provide free public education for everyone!

What's next... Thievery is not good for society? Maybe we should make laws against theft and incarcerate people (who will, not coincidentally, get three square meals a day).

And your last point... Having a shitty family may result in a shitty outcome for your descendants? Wow, I've never made that connection before. You've now made me reconsider my parental strategy.

Apologies for the sarcasm, but making excuses for humans not to do a basic task that has been performed by their ancestors for thousands of years without excessive difficulty is a poor precedent. I don't disagree that cooking might be tough to learn, but nothing worth doing in life doesn't fit that bill.

I don't understand your point. Possibly you are not making sense because you are commenting out of context: my post needs to be read as a reply to a previous post by use2betrix, particularly the sentence which said "It’s nearly impossible to not be able to read directions on a box of oatmeal and “add dry oatmeal, add water, microwave.”  My point is that for the 14% of the adult population of the USA that is illiterate that statement is just not true, just as it is not true for the percentage of people who have insecure or below standard living situations or abusive families.  And of course it's not a good thing that those situations exist but it is a real thing, and I don't see how pointing out that it is a real thing is "making excuses".

I thought my point was fairly clear, but to be a bit more explicit: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/07/how-to-tell-if-youre-a-complainypants/.

As I'm not complaining on my own behalf, no, I'm not a complainypants.  This whole series of posts started with use2betrix saying that he found cooking easy and making the comment "It’s nearly impossible to not be able to read directions on a box of oatmeal and “add dry oatmeal, add water, microwave.”."  All I've done is point out that this is not a universally true statement,  but apparently there are people on this thread who are certain that it is.