Complaining about mass produced garbage instead of fresh meat and produce is just silly. Walmart has plenty of all three.

Yes there are people without kitchens. But don’t tell me you think that’s most of the poor people at Walmart.

I do think that most poor people at Walmart are so worn down and tired that cooking a healthy meal can be difficult. Especially when there’s a box that only needs water and a few zaps from the microwave.

I went on Walmart's website. Per ounce, name brand fish sticks were cheaper than the cheapest fresh fish, tilapia. Pre made, microwavable burgers were the same price as just 80/20 ground beef. Jurassic Park white meat dino nuggets are the same price as Perdue chicken breast.

Those kids that didn't grow up with cooked meals are very unlikely to cook for themselves or their own eventual children. They're going to stick to 90 second rice pouches, ramen packs, mac n cheese, "salad kits". I can tell you right now a Kraft Mac n cheese cup is cheaper than what I would spend on pasta & the cheeses to make a roux. Easier to prepare, too.

I don't see people in Walmart buying produce. If they wanted that they'd go to one of the Latino grocery stores or the farmer market. If they wanted pantry staples (flour, bread, eggs, milk) they generally go to Costco. Who goes to Walmart to buy anything fresh?

All I'm saying is just that buying the components separately would probably be cheaper and result in a healthier meal.

But yeah you're right about many people not liking to cook due to lack of time or other reasons.

> I don't see people in Walmart buying produce

Well they wouldn't sell if people didn't buy it. I do see your point of course.

I no longer shop there and I know of many people who feel the same way. It’s the only store I avoid because of “the feeling of human suffering.” Walmart’s stores are cold and uninviting, the employees don’t look happy to be there, and the shoppers don’t either.

I don’t believe the people inside a Walmart are a representative sample of Americans, the store self selects for people who are willing to shop at a Walmart.

I shop at walmart all the time, in all area's poor, rich, middle class, are there fat people, sure. Are they "Dead zombies looking hobbled to their mobility scooters" .... I think the OP fancies themselves a fiction writer..

One is clean and the other looks like a bomb went off. Dirty floors, merchandise laying all over, employees nowhere to be found...

Doesn't even seem like the nice one is a Walmart.

Literally 95% of the US shops at Walmart, so... you might be in a very small bubble

That or a Dollar General with its bountiful selection of bananas and limes.

Walmart is rarely the Only option. Where there is a Walmart, 90% of the time there is a Kroger (or Kroger Brand) Store, or Mejier (if in the Midwest), or some other store close by...

Not sure why you're minimizing this reality. 1 in 6 Americans don't know where their next meal is coming from. https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/42711/12716_ap...

So if you have a source to back that actual claim I would be happy to look at it, and likely refute why it is cherry picking data

>>A solid chunk of the US population lives in a food desert.

Food Deserts are a political term, largely attributed to urban not rural area's and ever every study you find talking about Food Deserts I can find at least 1 if not more refuting that actual data.

Possibly. But your statistic tells me nothing about the foot traffic in a Walmart. 95% shop at Walmart, of that cohort how many shop there regularly? How many shop there for occasional purchases vs treating it as their primary store for staple items? On a random sample of days, how representative of that 95% is the foot traffic you’ll find there?

Personally I share OPs view of Walmarts, I don’t go in them because they make me feel bad about the world. I don’t get that feeling other places.

Very, since the more likely someone is to be a regular shopper there, the more likely you are to run into them on any given visit. That is simply an artifact of statistics.

> Personally I share OPs view of Walmarts, I don’t go in them because they make me feel bad about the world. I don’t get that feeling other places.

Do you get that feeling at the DMV? Maybe at the doctor's office or pharmacy? You are bumping into a true cross-section of the US population. Take note of the feelings you get and why, and understand that this is what the US is, not just what you see in the bubble

Exactly. "Do you shop at Walmart?" answers a different question than "How frequently do you show at Walmart?"

I don't think you encounter a uniform sample of 95% of Americans on random visits to Walmart, you encounter a disproportionate number of frequent shoppers.

> Do you get that feeling at the DMV? Maybe at the doctor's office or pharmacy? You are bumping into a true cross-section of the US population.

This is exactly it. I've never felt that way in a DMV or doctors office. I've shopped at bodegas in the Bronx, County Markets in the Midwest, Frys, Safeway, head shops, gas stations at the corner of trailer parks (actually shopped, like for staple items on a regular basis and daily breakfast), gas stations in East St. Louis, dollar generals, etc. Public transit was my only form of transportation for 2 years in NYC, same with Seattle, and I went all over NYC.

You keep referencing my bubble. I'm not low income. But I wasn't born this way. Software engineering pulled me out of poverty in my mid-20s. I've been down and up the socioeconomic ladder (outside of addiction fueled poverty and true wealth) - and I have friends who've experience many dimensions of that ladder.

America is beautiful and diverse. There are a lot of people trying to find their way through this life here and you find amazing people everywhere you look.

The only place I've sworn off is Walmart. I can try to articulate why I think Walmart is the way it is, but that's tangential to it not being a representative of America.

I'm going to push back and say you might be in a bubble if you think Walmart is representative of the population here and suggest it might have a similar effect as the DMV. Either you frequent nicer Walmarts, you spend less time in them, or you have a very skewed view of the diversity of America.

This is one of the biggest lies in social "justice" circles.

Buying fresh meat and produce is NOT in anyway more expensive than buying premade crap. at most the cost is the same, but in reality it is often cheaper to make it fresh.

For example I can make a better lasagna, with better beef for about 25% lower price than I could buy the same size Stouffers Lasagna.

People buy garbage premade food because either they cant, or choose not to cook for themselves.

This "ohh the poor people at the walmart just dont have options" is frankly disinformation.

>>Just about everyone was overweight.

And how many of those were buying cases of soda?

you can do that in a Instapot with no fuss in the same amount of time it would take to make a store meal

There are plently of Quick and Easy ways to make your own healthy meals. For me I do Meal Prep Sundays, and make my own freezer meals. Far cheaper and better than the store bought.

Further I doubt many of them are "working multiple jobs" the vast majority of that junk food it likely coming from government assistance money, disability, etc because if as you said they are "hobbled to their mobility scooter" then chances are they found a doctor to put them on disability

Edit: I remember watching my mom ration her insulin. I sure wish we could have been “welfare leeches” because that would have been super neat.

but no, I dont know anything about being poor....

If you are working two jobs to make ends meet, I imagine it becomes much more difficult to squeeze in the time to make a nice fresh lasagne.

I think the “food desert” issue can sometimes be overblown, but equally this nonsense idea that anybody who isn’t cooking from scratch is just stupid or lazy needs to die. It’s an absolutely perennial pet argument from some quarters and it just skips over so many complexities.

I have worked with and spoken to people dealing with these challenges over in the UK. A constant problem is the challenges people face in getting access to time, equipment and resources aside from food itself. How do you cook a lasagne if you work 14 hours? If you don’t have an oven? If you don’t have a refrigerator?

It really saddens me to see such surface-level, knee-jerk dismissal of complex problems.

>> If you don’t have an oven? If you don’t have a refrigerator?

Is that really a problem for most people. Most of my family is on some kind of government assistance or in government housing, all of them have Ovens and Fridges.

Compare that to boiling water, throwing macaroni noodles in for 8 minutes, and stirring in a "cheese" packet. I can tell you which one I'm going with after a work day at two separate blue-collar jobs.

I have literally no doubt whatsoever that there are people out there with all the time, knowledge, energy and equipment to cook themselves nice food, but who survive on ready-made or other more expensive food sources.

The problem is that every single discussion about this topic ends up with responses ignoring that it’s way more complex than “people who don’t make lasagne are lazy”. It’s a particular kind of facile that seeks simplistic solutions of complex issues.

This comes up as a public conversation at least once a year in the UK, when some politician inevitably says “I can feed a family of 12 for two pounds a day on fresh produce I collect from the bargain bin!” Meanwhile there are two million people in the UK living without a cooker.