When you think of it in the context of a person with not much cash or time to work with, there's other advantages Little Debbie brings...

- It's extremely unlikely that any of the snack cakes in a particular box on the shelf have gone bad or have rotten areas. They must carefully inspect a bag of apples for brown spots or risk getting less usable product than they paid for.

- The snack cakes can sit at home for a really long time and still be usable. The apples have a much shorter shelf life. This makes bulk pricing more attractive for the snack cakes as there's a better chance all of the product can be used before it goes bad.

- The apples require more preparation, dependent on preferences. Yes, you can grab an apple out of the bag and chow down. A lot of folks will want to wash it first. Some will want to cut it into pieces, or peel it, or do some other prep to it before eating. Snack cakes are pretty much always eaten as they are.

Add it all up and it starts to become clearer why a lot of economically disadvantaged folks end up making "bad" choices around food. All of these points could be mitigated in various ways, but generally they would increase the financial and/or time costs.

Yep, totally agree. Point 3 is probably a bit moot with apples but applies to almost every vegetable out there. But IMO the best selling point for unhealthy, sugar-rich snacks is easy of storage. You go to the supermarket and can buy 1 month of snacks easily, you cannot do it with fruits.

I buy 3-pound bags of dried fruit all the time.

Dried fruits are not as good as fresh fruit though (and can be less palatable)

I don't think the evidence really supports the nutrition claim. The dehydration process might destroy certain vitamins at a chemical level, but those are extraordinarily cheap to replace (nobody in the developed world is at serious risk of deficiency disease) and the minerals aren't going anywhere as far as I'm aware. (Of course, our produce has lower mineral content than that of yesteryear, because of agriculture that prioritizes accumulating water and starch, and because of poor soil quality.) You just have to drink water along with them.

As for the taste, chacun a son gout, but I quite like them.

If you're going to use those excuses, don't forget to add that economically disadvantage folks can't buy in bulk because they don't have enough money, and live in food deserts where people can't buy in bulk, and they don't have anywhere to store those items.

1 box of snack cakes still has better shelf life than 1 bag of apples.

A pound of dry rice or beans keeps just as well, provides more food, and is cheaper unless you're buying basmati.

And require preparation vs shoving the snack cake in their / their kid's mouth.

It's good to keep time deficits in mind alongside financial deficits.

Very little time or work is required to cook dry rice. Bring water to boil, add rice, set timer. Actually not having time is very rare, limited to people with multiple jobs who never go home except to sleep. Those people exist, but they aren't typical. Most of the extremely poor I've met have an abundance of time and a lack of resources. Cooking is rarely something they need to avoid due to time constraints.

Now I'm picturing someone peeling their Zebra Cakes and cutting it into slices.

Modern apples have been bred to be larger and a lot sweeter than "natural" apples which are smaller and more sour. Not saying they are equivalent to a processed snack cake but they aren't especially healthy either.

That’s what I’m noticing about apples more and more these days: all of them are incredibly sweet like candy. The only variety I’ve found that seems suitable for regular eating ate the Granny Smith variety, but I hate their tough skins.

If you haven't tried Hidden Rose apples, give them a try. Besides being gorgeous, they have a tart:sweet ratio that's similar to Granny Smith, but with a texture that's further away from a baking apple and a thinner skin. Absolutely my favorite lately.

That snack cake can sit on the panty shelf for 6 months. The apple might have a week. Cheese and nuts can hang around a while, but they are super expensive and your ass will get just as fat if you over consume them.

Apples last much longer than 1 week, even if stored at room temperature.