I think it's a two sided chicken and egg type problem: we can only buy what's on our shelves but - having personally come from a country that's hardly famous for its cuisine - I think American food culture ranges from poor to nonexistent. The bar for agricultural and processed products that the average consumer recognizes as edible food is shockingly low whether we're talking about bread or what passes for tomatoes here. There is plenty of ultraprocessed rye breads in Europe, for example, that are far more nutritious and produced at similar industrial scales because most consumers would recoil at the thought of eating Walmart's value brand of sugar bread.

Here in Southern California there are plenty of food desserts that sit adjacent to immigrant enclaves that provide critical mass for amazing grocery stores with a wide variety of higher quality, cheap produce and a diverse collection of nutritious processed and ultraprocessed food simply because that's the stuff that their communities demand. Replacing such a supermarket with a McDonalds would never work within these communities because most families simply don't consider fast food an alternative to their existing diets. These are huge supermarkets that are often similar in size to Costco or Walmart stores (see Shun Fat, 99 Ranch, Zion Market, etc).

We could do with a little more culinary elitism among consumers in my opinion.

The immigrant melting pot, and the food that results is American food culture, at least when you're outside of homogeneous strip malls that the Midwest is famous for. So in Southern California, there's no shortage of immigrants who started their own restaurant or food truck. Next to the 99 Ranch or H-mart, there's little boutiques of food from back home. And then to top it off, there are fusion places targeting the American palate, which just couldn't exist anywhere else in the world.

If you think American cuisine consists of massive chains; TGI Fridays, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Hooters, Texas Roadhouse, etc, then no wonder you don't think highly of American cusine. But if you branch out from there, there's a ton of food culture, and Southern California's a great place to experience it.

Walmart sells flour, eggs, milk… and it’s doubtful that plastic tube bread is cheaper when you can make a loaf yourself for about thirty cents.

it’s the hidden costs of time and knowledge are a factor to be accounted for.

I don’t believe this is true, it’s a coping mechanism that people use to keep from learning new skills. It’s also a very popular cope to claim “it’s more expensive” to cook at home because you typically have to buy more ingredients than you’d use to make a single serving of some food item.

If people want to stay ignorant and economically and nutritionally disadvantaged it’s not something I pity. I can’t but help feeling disgusted and scornful toward people with these attitudes. Cave people made bread.

I think the problem occurs when you realize its not just bread, it's almost everything at the store. For a working couple with children, they now have to make everything at home, which is not possible if both parents are working.

Although I'm not one of them, I don't think you can call something that many people do "not possible".

Of course it’s possible. It takes about five minutes to prepare a chicken.

Also you can prepare a meal in a crockpot and let it cook all day.

You can prepare and freeze meals.

It takes another thirty minutes to do the dishes and clean the kitchen.

So just eat your unhealthy processed foods, no skin off my nose.

I actually cook every day, but I acknowledge that many people don't have the energy to do that.