I will be sure to immediately replace my bag of chips with a bag of onions?

Poor people are likely to be both cash-poor and time-poor: it's not a question of "being bothered". If you have the available time to fully consider, process, and follow this advice, then you may not realistically be poor at all.

And, if you did manage to follow this advice, you would likely still be poor - saving pennies on food is not any way out of poverty.

I was poor growing up. Both parents worked, a lot. My mom had tons of ways to quickly prepare ground beef or chicken into something that tasted good. When she had time she bought whole chickens and broken them down because it was cheaper. Maybe once/month she would buy a 2 liter of soda as a treat for my sister and me. So I've been there and done that.

And lets get off of this no time argument. Why do all these people with no time still have TVs? The average American watches ~5 hours of TV per day. Watch 4 hours instead and cook a healthier and cheaper meal.

"And lets get off of this no time argument. Why do all these people with no time still have TVs? The average American watches ~5 hours of TV per day. Watch 4 hours instead and cook a healthier and cheaper meal."

That's a complete non-sequitor. You're going to have to provide evidence that those who are poor are the ones watching tv so much, and don't have the time because they're working multiple jobs.

Yes, I recall my mother (single mother, high school education, in the rust belt of the Ohio Valley) saying to me, in between shifts of her 2nd and 3rd part time jobs, that she would love to spend 30 minutes cooking a delightful meal from scratch and then another 30 minutes eating followed by another 30 minutes cleaning up, but she just can't be bothered.

She kept the house stocked with canned soup and lunch meat because a 6 year old (me) and a 12 year old (my brother) could manage to make a meal out of it while she was working.

Sandwiches are dirt cheap, filling, nutritious, and quick to make and clean up. Sure, they aren't delightful, which is sad, but that's not the barrier to nutrition.

Wow, standards of delight have come up a lot in this country. I've probably had more delightful sandwiches than not

They can easily be bad for you if you use any kind of appealing (white) bread.

So this is what I had always assumed as well, but the science is less clear:

https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(17)...

The research done concluded that differences in Gut Microbiome meant that "The glycemic response to the two types of bread varies greatly across people".

More food for thought (Pun intended :p )

Switching from rye to white bread is a whole lot less bad for you than switching from water to soda. At some level we have to make a decision about what an acceptable level of "bad for you" is and I think white vs wheat is way below that line.

I have complete respect for single parents and how hard their job(s) are. It sounds like for your situation growing up that even 30 minutes would have been too much time to spend to make a meal.

I do think in the general case though, that people usually have 1/2 hour to cook if they wanted to. Are there going to be exceptions like yours? Absolutely.

Poor people often have less time as well, due to working multiple jobs, taking the bus, etc.

"Unhealthy food is only cheaper if you can't be bothered to take 30 minutes to cook"

Which, if you're working 2 jobs, you very well might not have.

"If you're thinking the unhealthy food in the grocery store is cheap, that's also not true."

Time is also a cost. So is the ability to store food.