The answer is NO.
The “fact” that junk food is cheaper than real food has become a reflexive part of how we explain why so many Americans are overweight, particularly those with lower incomes. I frequently read confident statements like, “when a bag of chips is cheaper than a head of broccoli …” or “it’s more affordable to feed a family of four at McDonald’s than to cook a healthy meal for them at home.”
(via sunfoundation)
this bullshit fills me with a very specific kind of rage. so, TIME TO DEBUNK!
- that meal from mcdonalds takes virtually no time to acquire AND is available almost anywhere.
- the second meal? that “salad” is lettuce … with nothing else, not even dressing unless its just olive oil or some milk i guess? gross.
- also thats the price of each serving, not an entire loaf of bread, a bottle of olive oil, etc. that stuff adds up which means you have to have a lot of money at one time to buy it all.
- that meal probably took an hour and a half to make, which is a long fucking time when you work multiple jobs or are caring for a lot of people or dont have help! seriously, if you are a single parent of three who works, is spending an hour and a half every night preparing a meal a likely option?
- same with beans and rice! also, you know whats a fucking bummer? eating beans and rice every night because you are poor. ask any person who has done it and they will tell you (you can start with me).
- there is a “nutrition” argument here that lacks a follow up: poor people are more likely to be doing physical labor and need more than 571 calories per meal.
- you know who is less likely to know how to bake or prepare a chicken? people without access to the internet, or libraries, or who werent taught how to by their parents because their parents worked all the time. access to healthy foods is a classist issue and classism is cyclical, you fucking morons.
- seriously, these sorts of infographics make me want to fucking flip tables. do you know why people don’t eat more fresh fruits and vegetables? because fresh fruits and vegetables are expensive, because they take a long time to prepare, because they dont live near a grocery store that has a decent produce section, because they dont have reliable transportation to get groceries to and from the grocery store, because they dont have the energy to plan all of the shit that is involved in making healthy, intentional, filling, balanced meals. basically: poor people get fucked, and then we get BLAMED for being lazy.
- eating “healthy”, aka access to fresh fruits and vegetables, is a privilege, first, foremost, always. so fuck you new york times and your ignorant goddamn infographic.
- there are SYSTEMATIC REASONS that we do not have equal access to fresh fruits and vegetables. they are very REAL problems. besides, you know, systematic poverty in america, the total mis-distribution of farm subsidies is a perfect place to start. read about that, then either get bent or start working on the actual problem.
In which fad dieters forget about the dollar menu
These comparisons are always so dumb. There’s no comparison between a fast food meal & a home cooked meal. When I was young, poor & working 2 jobs, I still cooked most of my food for myself because it was cheaper and cooking instead of sleeping was the only way I could actually afford to eat. But I also did not have kids to look after. If you don’t have a car & you don’t live in a city then you probably don’t even have easy access to McD’s. People talk about food deserts all the time, but reality is that there’s still a lot of the country that is poor & lives in the middle of nowhere.
The real comparison here would be pre-made food. For instance, it’s cheaper & healthier to buy rotisserie chicken, ramen noodles & frozen vegetables. Just dump the vegetables in the ramen and add half a chicken. Then you can make sandwiches out of the second half for another meal. Or you can buy minute rice, canned beans, salsa, cheese and whatever fresh veg you can afford to make a rice bowl. Add some eggs & have breakfast burritos with your leftovers.
The comparison should not be between only fast food & only home cooked meals. There’s a ton of stuff you can do in between that no matter how poor or busy you are.