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.