It may be more a matter of time, if someone is working several jobs it might be hard to cook... though of course dumping a can of beans into a pan and laying out a few slices of meat or cheese shouldnt be too hard.

I wouldnt compare the cost of eating out to eating in, though, those are two different experiences, I think it would be better to look at stuff within the supermarket... ie processed cheese food compared to actual cheese, that sort of thing.

Remember that post a while age about the lady who bought a lot of food for 40 bucks, but most of it was crap by anyone's standards, whether you're on the low-fat, low-carb, ww, all-natural, etc?

I don't know about the rest of the world, if I'm eating at McDonald's 'cause it's cheaper, I'm not buying Big Macs. McDoubles are a dollar a piece...family of four equals four dollars and on an expensive day small fries are a dollar a piece, so that's eight dollars total...compared to $14 for roasted chicken.

Now, I'm not saying there you can't eat healthy and cheaply, it's just not easy. Parenthood isn't easy, and it wouldn't shock me if childhood obesity showed more than just a correlation with poverty, but also multiple children households, and single parents.

Obesity in the US also has a lot to do our culture. Drive to the neighbor's house 50 feet down the street. Don't let the kids play outside, they might get abducted. Add the attraction of the Internet, of iPods and iPads, and kids just don't move enough.

Obesity in the US also has a lot to do our culture. Drive to the neighbor's house 50 feet down the street.

I don't know that I buy this. I was never a very active kid. I played a lot of video games and read a lot of books, and my mother was overprotective, so I didn't wander far or get much exercise. Today, I'm a sedentary adult. Yet my weight is fine. I've always been what's considered a healthy weight, but I'm more comfortable at the lower end of my healthy weight range. Whenever I've needed to drop a few pounds, I've done it through diet alone, and without starving myself.

On the flip side, my father had a physically demanding job all his life, yet he was always overweight. I know anecdotes are not the same thing as solid research, but I see these scenarios played out over and over again among people I know.

Walking 50 feet down the road to the neighbor's house or playing Simon Says outside for a half hour can't possibly burn that many calories in a day, even if you look at the activities cumulatively.

There are lots of cheap as hell ways to feed a family. I had five mouths to feed, including my own, and made very little money at that time.

Who the hell is paying $14 for a chicken? I can get one for less than $4. Buy the whole chicken. That's the trick. When my children were small, that was my favorite dinner time solution because, at the time, I could get a whole chicken at the military commissary for $1.50. Chicken, mashed potato flakes, and frozen peas and I was feeding everybody really well for less than $2 a person.

Ham was a good one as well. Quite a bit more expensive, but with a 50 cent box of scalloped potatoes and a salad, It came in well under $5 a person and felt like a real feast while there were lots of leftovers for several ham and egg breakfasts.

Rice and beans are always good for mileage, too.

Having said that there are many good and healthy solutions for family meals that require a bit of time and creativity, nothing is cheaper and easier than mac and cheese with hot dogs.

I used to curse my children because, inexplicably, none of them liked spaghetti. That used to drive me crazy. Who the hell doesn't like spaghetti? And it's so damn cheap!

I understand the argument that it is cheaper to feed your children with junky sort of boxed meals, but I was poor as hell when my children were coming up and they turned out to be well fed, active, healthy, and definitely not obese. But, then again, I was a genius at that shit.

Oh, and buy the fatty hamburger. It's half the price and most of that cooks off. That with a little ramen, carrot, and celery, and you have a kid-pleasing yaksoba meal for pennies.

The "cheaper" argument has blown my mind for a long time. I can feed my family of 6 for $120 a week. We could not even eat off the $.99 menu at McD's for that. We eat a lot of beans, a lot of ground beef, and a lot of chicken with the bone in. We eat whatever fruit is on sale that week, ditto with veggies. Simple.

So delaying gratification is the key--not just to obesity but perhaps to poverty?

I've been saying this for a while now. If my wife and I stop at McD's for lunch it'll cost about $15. For less than that we could go to the supermarket, buy a pound of pasta (name-brand even, not store brand, and even when it's not on sale), a pound of chopped meat, and a jar of pasta sauce (also good brands, not store brands, I DID marry an Italian), and in 20 minutes you've whipped up a meal for four. It's simple, it's tasty, it's quick, and it's cheap.

I grew up poor (Dad was disabled at work and it took a couple years for disability-social-security to kick in, and workers comp for the month was less than double the rent). We ate lots of chicken (and like Whistledick, Mom bought wholes ones and cut them up because it was cheaper), lots of pasta (Mom made her own sauce instead of jars, it was cheaper AND better), and Mom bought what was on sale. We never went hungry.

Fast food was a rare treat because it was too expensive.

I grew up in Australia and moved to KY a few years ago and it amazed me driving up from Fl just how many fast food restaurants there are along the freeways here - when I drove from Sydney to my parents house it took me a good 8 or so hours and there was one spot halfway that had a McDonalds and a KFC that was it, not like here where there is something on every corner it seems.

I think that it is easier for people to pick up a few burgers and fries than actually going and buying meat and vegetables etc then going home having to cook then clean up after.

Fast food is a 'treat' for my kids like it was when I was growing up. I know a family of 5 that eats fast food every meal! and they are always bitching about how they don't have any money I am tempted to tell them to keep a track of just how much they spent for a week I'm sure it would have given them a heart attack faster than the crap they were eating.

We are not 'rich' but I spend less every week on meat and fresh vegies and fruit and make healthier meals than if we were buying fast food every day.

In addition, Amy, the coke and Doritos that you could go through in one afternoon would make you hungry again, sooner.

It may be more a matter of time, if someone is working several jobs it might be hard to cook... though of course dumping a can of beans into a pan and laying out a few slices of meat or cheese shouldn't be too hard.

Yeah, I've heard the "time" argument more than the "cost" argument. Going to the grocery store and preparing a meal (even a quick one) takes much more time than going to McDonald's.

My boyfriend does Big Brothers Big Sisters. He has been teaching his "little brother" how to buy ingredients at the store and cook because he found out that the kid's family has NEVER used the oven in their apartment -- because his mom uses it to store things in. The mother gets home from her second job at about 10 pm and then feeds the kids taco bell, Church's chicken and McDonald's because those places are open late, and they're right down the street. We live in a city with a crappy public transit system -- so even going to Wal Mart and getting cheap fruit and veggies would be a 3-hour ordeal.

I don't eat fast food precisely because it is so expensive.

You know, another aspect of this, is if you go into a grocery store there are a number of companies that make cheap frozen meals, and some even have pretty large portions for teenage boys in need of more calories. Marie Callenders large pot pies are $2.75 at my local Walmart. I usually make my own but when my husband and I were both working, we could split one, and serve a side salad, and there was plenty for dinner, for way less money than eating out.
You can eat on a budget without even a real kitchen if you keep it to a few basic appliances.
I recommend, a good pressure cooker, a slow cooker, and a rice cooker.
I think there are three big problems, with many poor people having crappy diets. The first is that they can't do math, second most have never learned how to cook, and the third is the government gives too many cash benefits which allows them to make poor choices with their disposable income.
I know a few families of four who live quite comfortably on less than 30k a year in their own homes. They are thin and healthy, but they can do math, know how to cook, and don't have addictions like smoking, drinking and drugs sucking up their disposable income.

My wife and I live well below our means, but we don't skimp on food. We do buy wisely, I believe. My wife doesn't eat red meat, but during the summer, she will have BBQ chicken legs 5 -6 days a week. We recently saw them on sale at Sobey's for $1.00/lb and bought about 25 of them for $21.

I have BBQ steak or ribs. I buy the steak when it's on sale. At the beginning of the summer I bought 14 rib eye steaks on sale for $7.99/lb. The steaks were about $7 each and I bought more a month later when they went on sale again. I buy the ribs at Costco because they are better than the ones a the meat market. They are 4(.99/KG ($4.54/lb) and I use ablit a pound per meal.

We stir fry vegies on the BBQ after marinating them in olive oil and soy sauce, so out suppers are very low carb and probably cost about $12.

I just read a blog of Dr. Eades where he talks about recipes that are in a book called "Wheat Belly". I'll check it out and surprise my wife with a new low carb dinner when the weather turns colder and we reduce our BBQing.

That should be"

They are $9.99/KG ($4.54/lb) and I use about a pound per meal.

You have to take into account opportunity cost in preparing the food. It's higher these days because people don't know how to cook. I took my college class on a field trip and most of them couldn't do anything more complicated than heating up a hot pocket. Even making pancakes from a mix was new to several of them. Under those circumstances, fast food is cheaper overall because it saves the trip to the store, the confusion about food prep, the time spent making the food...

A couple items of junk food from the local convenience store will put one up around five bucks.

Across the street at the Mexican market, I can find enough produce to last me 3 meals for the same amount.

But the "poor" here locally would rather pay more for less.

the thing is... the measure of cheapness isn't one of absolute dollars. it's a matter of time/perception.

Possibly also fatigue. Did you guys catch this article from the NYT last month? seem right on to me:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html?_r=1

So, if you are working 2 jobs, or even if you aren't working but living on the dole, making the decision to just get food that's easy, rather than all the stuff you need to cook is a no brainer.

I'm not saying that everyone counts all the costs of food prep [what's your time worth] in that way, but it's easier to spend money than to spend time.

ESPECIALLY when you have other options with your time. When people talk about poverty in the US, it is relative to the standard of living in general. People are still likely to have a TV, DVD player, vidgames and so forth... Where in Afghanistan, not so much, prolly not even running water.

The difference in the amount of work needed to feed a family there to here, is astonishing, because they are essentially 17th century rural/agrarian. In the US pretty much nobody lives at that level.

The question is, what else would they do with their time? They don't have 500 channels in air conditioned comfort.

The dicisions that people make are relative to what their percieved options are, not just absolutes. And? people who are too lazy to get a job, why wouldn't they be too lazy to cook, too?

Likewise someone who works a lot of hours, what are their options in terms of not having to work more?

couple all this with the disassociation of costs involved, and it's no wonder people would want take out, rather than having to cook, and clean dishes.

We're going to McDonald's tonight because we have to leave before 5 to pick up and for a "first lesson" for The Little Guy's new Saxophone. Then we have our Pack Meeting for Cub Scouts at 6. We won't be done until 7, so it's a McDonald's treat night for us tonight. Haven't been to a fast food place for months.

I have a rice cooker (can't live without it anymore), a new pressure cooker I got for canning, and a slow cooker.

This past week I made beef stock and canned it. I also made apple butter from apples we picked at the orchard. Yesterday I made an apple tart as well. I still have apples, so turkey apple soup this week with homemade chicken stock and then probably apple sauce and homemade apple pie filling for future use.

I've been avoiding the processed foods at the store. I've been making my own soups and stocks, and even my own mac and cheese. I know what's going into my meals. I do used some canned items and frozen veggies because they are less processed than the store canned veggies.

I always have fresh onions, potatoes, carrots, and celery in the house. I'll get fresh tomatoes in season, otherwise I'll use the canned.

The other night my husband and I had tilapia filets and frozen brussels sprouts for a total cost of $4.32. And that was fish from the fish counter at the store.

Sorry, but I don't buy the they-don't-know-how-to-cook thing either.

I'm not proud if this, but this is what happened. I lived with my Mom until she died when I was 27. She did all the cooking, I could barely fry an egg. Mom was old-school, she believed a man was fed by his mother until he got married, then by his wife.

For the first couple weeks on my own I ate canned crap (chili, ravioli, etc), then decided that wasn't going to work. I went to the bookstore, bought a copy of Joy of Cooking (still my favorite cook-book), and (quite literally) taught myself to cook. Nothing fancy, but I could make white clam sauce (from scratch) or tomato sauce (from canned tomatoes). I could put together a stir-fry (that I figured out by trial and error). I could make a mean pot of chili.

If I was at someone's house for dinner and I liked it, I'd ask how it was prepared and try it for myself. In short, I LEARNED, from anyone who was willing to teach me, and I did just fine.

It's not rocket science. It doesn't need to take a long time.

What year was that, Mark? My point is that if you found yourself in the same situation now, you might not bother to learn to cook (unless you wanted to) because prepared food is everywhere and easy and relatively cheap, especially when opportunity cost is rolled in.

I agree that cooking isn't rocket science. I cook for fun and what my husband and I consider an easy dinner is gourmet to most folks (rogan josh for dinner tonight because curry is about as easy as ordering pizza). But there is the opportunity today to make other choices and I suspect many people do. Saying that junk food is more expensive than healthy food is irrelevant when junk food is so cheap.

Amy, isn't a hot dog a "highly processed food?" I'm sure Bittman would think so.

"Sorry, but I don't buy the they-don't-know-how-to-cook thing either.

I'm not proud if this, but this is what happened. I lived with my Mom until she died when I was 27. She did all the cooking, I could barely fry an egg. Mom was old-school, she believed a man was fed by his mother until he got married, then by his wife."

Mark, I understand what you are saying, but unlike a lot of poor people in this country you didn't spend your formative years being handed your food through a drive through window or the other window in the public school breakfast and lunch line.

You had a concept that food could be prepared and that it came from combining raw ingredients in a proportional manner and applying seasonings and heat to them. Your mother cooked and so did your friends whose houses you ate dinner at, so for you, it was just a matter of learning a skill set to do what you already knew could be done.

I don't think you understand the kind of intellectual poverty many of the non rural poor in this country live in. They don't even have a concept of "food preparation" to start with.

Many of them are probably third generation of having their food handed to them completely pre prepared. It simply never occurs to them that there is any other way.

In other words, you are a smart guy and you had the basic concept of cooking as something doable by you, and you were determined enough to acquire the skill set.
Many poor people don't have any of these advantages, and the government makes sure that they are comfortable enough without acquiring any of these skills. Most never get the kind of motivation that they need to learn something that seems difficult and time consuming.

I call bullshit on the decision fatigue too. My mother couldn't have been the only person who planned out a week's worth of dinners and lunches on Sunday. It doesn't take that much zest out of life to know that steak is planned for Saturday and chicken is for dinner on monday.

It sounds to me like the poverty panderers are confusing junk food with what poor people used to get by on 80 years ago - beans, hamhocks, cornbread and lots of other corn-based stuff. I've talked to many old people around the country and their Depression diet was pretty starchy.

Most fatties wouldn't be caught dead eating poor anymore.

"It sounds to me like the poverty panderers are confusing junk food with what poor people used to get by on 80 years ago - beans, hamhocks, cornbread and lots of other corn-based stuff. I've talked to many old people around the country and their Depression diet was pretty starchy.

Most fatties wouldn't be caught dead eating poor anymore."

And if you are physically active, a depression era diet is not all that bad for you.
However, if you sit on your ass in front of the boob tube all day and wash the ham and beans and cornbread down with a quart of pepsi, it is going to be really easy to get too many calories.

Junk food may not be cheap, but sometimes the stores are practically giving it away, and it's hard for a bargain-hunter to resist. A local grocery store recently had a deal where if you bought 10 Kellogg's products, you got $10 off your order and a free gallon of milk. Those who cut coupons could easily get all of that for practially free. I didn't go for it, of course, because the last thing I need is to fill my house with pop-tarts and other crap.

"I understand what you are saying, but unlike a lot of poor people in this country you didn't spend your formative years being handed your food through a drive through window or the other window in the public school breakfast and lunch line."

I did. Still not an excuse. My mom was an attorney and dad, well our insurance premiums weren't high enough to let him cook. Until grand pa retired will lived on prepared foods in 80s and 90s. Now it wasn't as pharmacologically rich as todays prepared foods but still. I had a friend who was into cooking but neither parents were and I learned in my later 20s.

Anyone can "cook" and contrary to Amy's belief most cooking is just that heating up a bunch of ingredients. I believe you are confusing cooking with baking. I taught myself everything from exotic french to country Italian, Candy making, home stocks and a whole lot of my own creations. I have on hand enough recipes to accommodate any diet except vegan, pandering to that I just refuse.

The problem is both far simpler and far more insidious then lazy or ignorant parents. It's prying the kids off that shit once they start. Giving up fast food for me was about as unpleasant as quitting smoking. Not sure how much of it was physical and how much mental but they were very similar. The first few weeks every thing tasted bland till my pallet adjusted to the lower salt levels. In addition to what I can only describe as withdrawal symptoms. My BP dropped 10-15 points top and bottom so standing up quickly was not fun. I was lethargic for a few weeks too. For a parent I can imagine that the addition of having to cook dealing with the resulting temper tantrums might be too much.

Vlad,

I get vegan by accident mostly. Because I'll make vegetable stock using olive oil as my fat, or I'll make a bean soup using vegetable stock and pasta... I don't do vegan to do vegan, but sometimes, some of what I make ends up vegan.

What I won't do is use fake stuff to make something that's not supposed to be vegan, vegan. Such as using fake eggs, milk, butter to make something. Gotta use real ingredients!

I also never understood the healthy = expensive food mindset. Shoot I've even heard people claim that eating out was cheaper, somehow. It goes counter to everything I know.
You are forgetting the really cheap and healthy eats, that where I grew up were a stable of everyones diet. Homegrown and hunted.
$5 of seeds in a few months becomes many lbs of the freshest vegetables there are.
$25 hunting liscense becomes 100 lbs of fresh venison. By 3rd day after deer season, everyonbe is pushing venison off on anyone they can, so being the relative of a hunter = free meat.

Astra: This was in 1990, hardly ancient history. There were plenty of McDonalds and Burger Kings around.

Isabell1130: I can only speak for the places I move around in (NJ and NYC), but if you don't know that there's another way to feed yourself besides over a plastic counter you never leave your home, turn on a TV or radio or read the newspaper. NYC now requires fast-food joints to post nutrition information, there are news reports frequently telling the world that fast food is bad for you. Grocery stores go out of business in poor areas for lack of business, and when they close the activists protest that they're killing poor people. Maybe schools need to go back to having "Home Economics" classes that, among other things, teach kids basic cooking skills. Of course the kids would have to go to school to make THAT work.

I'm really not trying to be an a-hole about this, but I do think that at some point personal responsibility comes into play. You can subsist on junk food or eat good, nourishing food for less money and not much more effort.

kimsch:I'm not saying that I have anything against making a vegan dish here and there. I have issue with vegans demanding that they get preferential treatment. Some dishes are best without meat, egg or dairy. However when I hear bitching about using honey as a sweetener as opposed to high fructose corn syrup I'm less that accommodating. I agree strongly about using real ingredients. Soy cheese is a crime against nature.

I dunno. I pack lunch for work every day, and it's a reasonably healthy meal. It averages about $2-$2.50 a day. The girlfriend hates making food and brings a frozen pot pie or a frozen French bread pizza to work, both of which are around $2 and are nutritionally pretty junky. But I can get two giant burritos at Taco Bell or two McDoubles for $2 and I wouldn't have to spend Saturday morning in the grocery store being irritated by morons.

I'll stick with the healthier lunch, but not really for economic reasons.

"I'm really not trying to be an a-hole about this, but I do think that at some point personal responsibility comes into play. You can subsist on junk food or eat good, nourishing food for less money and not much more effort."

No doubt personal responsibility does, but most on this board think that poverty is some kind of accident that happens to the intelligent and the stupid alike. It does not, While their are intelligent people who are poor (and most of them manage to live rather well in spite of it), there is a high correlation between being dependent on government and not very intelligent and OR well educated.
My mother taught special education and was then an administrator for years, and I spent quite a few years as an officer in the Army.

I can tell you that a lot of people no more think about cooking their own food than they would knitting themselves a sweater. Cooking, like knitting and gardening is something quaint that their great grandparents did if they even know who their great grandparents were. Most of them don't, and assume there has always been a McDonalds on every corner since Washington was president.
By the way, historical evidence seems to indicate, that modern America isn't the first place where the urban poor don't cook.
Evidence in Pompeii seems to indicate that only the wealthy houses had kitchens. Most common people lived off of fare bought from food stalls and bars.

Last year, I actually tallied up the cost of my low-carb diet vs. the higher carb diet I was on before. I also figured in what I was no longer spending on skin care products, medications and doctor visits. The results are here:

http://relievemypain.blogspot.com/2010/06/is-low-carb-expensive-diet.html

Like others, I don't buy the too expensive/too hard arguments. This evening, it only took ten minutes to poach two eggs and put them on a plate with tomatoes and an avocado. And I can make a hamburger for a fraction of the cost of a Big Mac, even using premium ingredients.

I can appreciate that folks are spending more time working and finding it harder to find time to cook. I already work crazy hours, and I'm going back to school to boot so I know the feeling. But for me the trick is to set aside a small spot of time once a week to cook several servings of something, then freeze it in small containers. Nothing fancy, just easy stuff that I can save and nuke up at work later. There are plenty of simple recipes online, including low-carb ones. I know if I don't cook for the week on Sunday I'll be blowing a ton of money on takeout. Not a bad incentive to drag my ass into the kitchen, and of course it's way healthier.

Hmm... I omce pointed out to a blogging doctor that his claim of how cheap food was had a few holes, I could not afford his "cheap" bologna at $2.80/pound, or even a box of "Uncle Ben" rice - but I could afford a 20lb bag of rice at $5.10 because it would last months if not years. Boring, and since I could also not afford butter/margarine - or even salt+pepper - tasteless.

But yes, I knew that things like that bag of rice (which took me six weeks to save up for) were available, where to find them (almost anywhere), and quickly learned how to cook it - instructions on the bag. OTOH, while I was in a shelter one of the others decided he would like some toast. Never having seen it prepared, he spread some butter on bread and then put it in the toaster... Would you trust him to heat a can of beans? I wouldn't, without being there to stop him putting the unopened can in the microwave.

I am considerably better off now, thank you, but will not order a pizza delivery. OTOH, I will buy frozen pizza rather than try to make one "from scratch." Scratch=cheaper? Not without, at the least, a dishwasher. And making several at a time, for - yes - freezing.

Remember, costs can vary a lot. If you lived downtown were I used to work, you didn't have a real grocery store, just a couple of convience stores with jacked up prices.

I had errands to run at lunch so went through fastfood. $1.90 for hamburger & fries - already had free coffee in my mug from work. I think soda's are about $2.

Last time I bought ground beef it was about $4/lb, bag of frozen fries about $3 for probably 4 servings. bun or roll, probably about 50$. so $4+$3+(.50x4)=$9 $9/4 = 2.25 plus condiments... looking quite similar to me.

When I was on tour with a theatre company, we used to stop at junk food restaurants because they were "cheaper". For example at Big Boy, the all-you-can-eat salad bar was $9.

I'm sorry, but for $9 I don't want an infinite amount of iceberg lettuce. For that kind of price, I want one serving of arugula or other dark green lettuce with goat cheese and walnuts.

the Former Banker is correct, and in bad neighborhoods the groceries are more expensive.

I have to agree on how hard it is to get groceries in bad neighborhoods. In my old neighborhood, the grocery store was about a mile and a half away. I kept in mind that I would be carrying groceries that distance, so I never bought much in a single run, and that jacked up the price, as well as the time it took to shop, since I'd have to go several times a week.

It would have been so much easier to buy from one of the seven bodegas between my apartment and the grocery store, and sometimes I did, especially when the weather was bad.

Has anyone taken a look at the coupon circulars in most supermarkets? It's mostly crap. If I'm really counting pennies and using coupons, I can stock up on Pop Tarts and Hot Pockets for the same price as the healthier stuff. And crap is crap everywhere, whether you are heating it in your microwave or eating out. If I had a choice between junk food I had to work a little to make and junk food someone prepared for me, I'd pay a few pennies more and go to McDonald's.

I meant, "for less than the healthier stuff." Too early.

I lived in Chicago for a month in a small apartment with a few burners, microwave, refrigerator and a sink. Basic amenities. My job was a mile away, and the local grocery store was some distance away from both my job and my apartment. It was tough to carry a lot of groceries back to my apartment and MonicaP is right - the prices were absolutely insane. It was so much easier to stop at a walgreens and pick up nuts to munch on and go out to eat at night because restaurants and fast food joints were everywhere.

Food deserts are a big problem in cities, which is where many poor people live. If there are no quality, inexpensive grocery stores close by, the amount of food you can carry/buy is limited to the cheap, convenient foods.

"Food deserts are a big problem in cities, which is where many poor people live. If there are no quality, inexpensive grocery stores close by, the amount of food you can carry/buy is limited to the cheap, convenient foods."

And how were these deserts created? I will give you a hint. If there is no demand for healthy, nutritious food like fresh produce, grocers will carry very small amounts of it and the price will be high because it spoils.
Stores stock cheap convenience foods loaded with preservatives, because that is what sells in these neighborhoods. Demand drives supply, simple economics.

Food deserts are caused by Bedouins; the people that live in said desert. Got to any ethnic neighborhood in the Bronx, Queens or Brooklyn and you see fresh food stands every where. Even in very poor neighborhoods. Now go to some of the projects where most of the people are native born Americans and the vast majority of them are on generational welfare. The issue has nothing to do with poverty or race, no matter how comforting both of these notions are to the extreme left.

Cooking your own food may not always be cheaper when you factor in the time costs of driving/walking to the store, shopping for food, cooking itself, and cleaning up afterwards. There's also the upfront costs of pots, pans, utensils, tupperware, oil, spices etc. You also need access to a stove, oven, fridge, and adequate counterspace and storage space.

And then there's the fact that what you produce may not even be good. It might be less expensive, but if it's inedible or even just tolerable, is it really worth it?

If you enjoy cooking and you're good at it (and the two usually go hand in hand), then making your own food is probably worthwhile. If cooking feels like a chore and you can barely come up with something edible, or you don't have access to a good cooking space, you might be better with prepared food that will consistently taste good and be hot, fresh, and available right when you want it.

This logic is why I stopped making my own salads. I realized that I was spending SO much money on ingredients, and often they'd go bad before I could eat them all, or I'd have imbalanced amounts (half a cucumber left so I have to buy some lettuce, now I have half a bag of lettuce and I need tomatoes, and so on). Now I get my vegetables frozen, and just eat salads when I go to restaurants. Yes they probably cost more, but in the long run I'm still spending less, and restaurant salads inevitably taste 10x better than anything I could produce on my own.

I think one thing that makes healthier eating tough is availability.

I live in a town (you can call it the boonies) where there is ONE store in the entire town where you can buy fresh veggies, versus four where you can buy junk food. Oh and remember I said the boonies so its not like I can just go to the grocery store anytime of the day (in fact the only reason I can even get to it during the week is because I get off work about 30min before it closes and I literally work across the street from it).

Frankly I think the only reason the obesity rate in my area isn't worse is because there are only three places to "eat out" (none of them major chains though, ma and pop operations).

From the "Information Age Sourcebook," 1982:

If a whole fryer costs 49 cents per pound:

67 cents per pound should be the cost of breast half without rib
65 cents for breast half with rib
55 cents for thighs
53 cents for thighs & drumsticks
50 cents for drumsticks
39 cents for wings

If the fryer's at 51 cents, then it's 70, 67, 57, 55, 53, 41

If 53 cents, then it's 72, 70, 59, 57, 55, 43

If 55 cents, then it's 75, 73, 61, 59, 57, 44

If 57 cents, then it's 78, 75, 63, 61, 59, 46

If 59 cents, then it's 80, 78, 66, 63, 61, 48

If 61 cents, then it's 83, 81, 68, 66, 63, 49

If 63 cents, then it's 86, 83, 70, 68, 65, 51.

Note that the ratios change as you move down the chart.