If you're having a hard time affording groceries, failing to plan ahead and instead throwing away food is a luxury you can't afford. (A blender and an affection for green smoothies is a good solution.) But that's still cheaper than paying for the health problems downstream of ultraprocessed food. Unfortunately my source for both claims is personal experience.

I'd like to have an app that estimates the cost of groceries, including the long term health effects of regular consumption, not including the savings from dying early. For me I think ribeye would end up being cheaper than Doritos.

>I'd like to have an app that estimates the cost of groceries, including the long term health effects of regular consumption, and interpreting early death as a cost rather than savings. For me I think ribeye would end up being cheaper than Doritos.

Someone who bothers to input everything they eat into an app (basically calorie counting) probably already has enough intuitive sense of what's "healthy" that they don't need an app that they should eat beef rather than doritos.

>But that's still cheaper than paying for the health problems downstream of ultraprocessed food.

It is unrealistic to expect the vast majority of humans to prioritize the long term in every single decision they make, especially if they have a dim view of the long term.

It is logical to want to enjoy life in the present, even if it will hurt in the long term, if you are being brought down by other aspects, such as stress about income volatility and belief in low probabilities of upward movement, etc.

Being poor is expensive.

Just like $50 shoes that last 6 months and $200 shoes that last 10 years, when you’re poor, you often have to chose the less expensive, short-term option because the more expensive, far far better option is literally out of reach.

I'm always skeptical when someone posts that little nugget about shoes. Maybe it used to be true but I don't think it still applies in the era of high-quality mass manufacturing. I have worn shoes that cost $50 to well over $200 and if anything the more expensive shoes tend to fall apart faster.

Walmart has plenty of shoes and work boots for about $50 that will last more than 6 months unless you really abuse them. They don't look great but they're functional and reasonably durable.

For anyone who doesn't know, the literal words are from a book, but its meaning is metaphorical and isn't limited to boots. The point is still that it's expensive to be poor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

Just taking a second to think about this, since we're in the context of groceries, here's another example: the bigger box of cereal will be cheaper per pound and last longer, but you have to pay more up front for it. Another example closer to the boots metaphor is comparing the longevity of cheap, used cars vs new cars.

Even outside of consumer goods, poor people are not able to hire accounts to find, um, ways to minimize your tax bill, or have the money for investments or even savings etc. Even middle class people who may be able to afford a mortgage that is less than their rent might take a while to save up for a down payment (and hopefully the housing market hasn't gotten too much worse in the mean time).

No better way to get your idea across than illustrate it with a lie, I guess.

Canned and frozen vegetables are also non-perishable. While some extremely poor people lack a working freezer or storage space, most consumers can easily use these options.

Absolutely nothing I've seen anywhere justifies the idea that access to food is the problem. In most cultures, you don't need cooking classes because the food is ingrained into their culture, and recipes are passed down. Americans have a much weaker link to their heritage. You might know a few dishes, but in my experience, absolutely nobody knows how to cook.

By cook, I don't mean "can add one box of prepared goods to another box of prepared goods with a can of prepared goods on the side", I mean buying meat, veggies, fruit, and grains and cooking a dish from home, mostly from scratch.

edit: 13 million Americans are in food deserts. If the problem were that small, it'd be similar in size to people who are addicted to substances other than alcohol. This is affecting almost everyone. There MUST be another, bigger solution.

As Gordon Ramsay put it: "Most people don't cook, they heat their food"

Look up food deserts. Access is absolutely a problem.

I know - the extreme majority of them are in rural areas where you'd have to drive a couple hours to get to a grocery store. My MIL lives in one.

Guess how they get most food? All that super-cheap rural land.

Are you suggesting that impoverished people with low income jobs and extreme hours should spend some of their missing time … farming?

It's an observation, not a suggestion. That's literally how many low-income (not impoverished) people live in rural areas. They grow (and hunt) some food at home but not enough to be self-sufficient, and also have a regular job. Sometimes those jobs involve working long hours at peak times. This is a pretty normal lifestyle.

Yes. A garden is a healthy and productive way to spend your free time. If you have land, EVERYONE should be growing some food.

What are you suggesting they do instead? Scroll tiktok?

>and extreme hours

This is not the problem in rural communities.

The most famously true thing about rural areas is that they’re all exactly the same and the people in them experience identical struggles.

Ah, so that’s how you know they’re all short on time

I think canned food can already be considered ultra-processed if it contains any preservatives.

Canned food such as canned tomatoes or canned pickles (if pickled with vinegar/salt/spices) is not considered ultra-processed food. It's considered processed food and can be considered as part of a healthy diet. Well, same could be said about UPF -- your health is unlikely to detoriate long term if you have 1 frozen meal per week. It's just quantity that matters and lack of moderation.

Perhaps this is a function of "easy to find". Food deserts are a problem with regards to a lot of families only having little access to fresh foods. When you have to drive 30 min to the IGA, maybe you overbuy compared driving the 5 min to shop at the dollar general. The consolidation of big supermarket chains contributes to the creation of food deserts.