Debunks all those arguments that say eating healthy is too expensive.
Where the fuck do you live where a pound of chicken breast is 98 cents
Eating healthy is still less expensive than regular fast food
probably an upper middle class neighborhood. food is less expensive in fancy neighborhoods
healthy foods are not this cheap in the hood and im so tired of middle class white people acting like healthy eating is cheap & simple
come down to the “scary” part of town and shop for food and your perspective will change on some shit
This whole post is bullshit and these prices are exaggerated af
chicken breast by themselves are like almost 10 dollars wtf is this trash
Yeah please Google food deserts.
Healthy food is literally more expensive in areas of concentrated poverty. They don’t get walmarts or a real super market, they have corner stores.
Where you live influences so much of what you can do
For fun, I did this myself. I’m not even in a food desert.
First result: (I used long grain rice instead of brown because there were no 1lb bags of brown rice) but everything else was exactly the same, down to the brand (if listed in item description, otherwise I just used the cheapest)
They claim the total to be half of what it really would be for me. Worth noting, this isn’t just an example of the items being dated, as their description of the cost of the frozen food is close to spot on.
(I’d also like to add: what kind of meal do you think you are going to put together with rice and peanut butter and diced tomatoes and frozen faux hamburger patties? And if this wasn’t about food shaming and was instead about eating reasonably on a budget those hamburgers wouldn’t be veggie, as real hamburger - while less animal friendly - is WAY cheaper)
Second result:
This one is closer to accurate? It’s $2.30 more expensive, but the only 1lb bag of mixed veggies I could find was actually more expensive than a 2lb bag of the store brand, so my cart had more food than in the picture. I’m still finding most products are consistently 150% to 200% the price listed in the image, but this one gets closer to not lying because, while I couldn’t find a 5lb box of Ore-Ida offered from my grocery store, by the cost of two and three pound bags I think it might also be more expensive than in the image above. Though if you’re comparing Ore-Ida to just buying potatoes I feel like it’d make more sense to buy them with oil or butter so you can, you know, cook them into something comparable.
Third result:
THAT IS 250% OF THE $6.39 CLAIMED ABOVE.
Where can you get a pound of chicken breast for $0.98 and how do I get there? My chicken breast cost alone set this above the total. And what are you doing buying fancy 100% whole wheat bread on a budget? That is $4 bread! If you are penniless you buy the processed $0.99 bread even though it’s basically hostess cake. Because you gotta make it last. These people have never been poor.
But once again their price for the “bad” food is spot on.
In price per ounce this is roughly the same to the 30oz package they were claiming above, though I don’t think this product has ever been sold in 30oz packages.
Fourth result:
vs a claimed $18.66. So twice what they say it costs.
Meanwhile, their claim for what you can get at Dominoes for $20 seems understated
And the actual total for the exact order they described is $4 cheaper than they give. They say it’s $20, but
That is $15.99, and the pizza is extra large. You’d have to pick up to avoid delivery fees, but you have to drive to grocery store too, and then you have to cook.
Fifth result:
vs a claimed $21.68
(and never mind whoppers, at BK you can get 10 chicken nuggets for $1.50. So for $20 you can get 120 chicken nuggets. I don’t recommend this, mind. But it is a thing that is possible)
Sixth result:
the final and most egregious one
You knew that $20 was a lie when it had 3lbs of meat before even moving onto the vegetables and fruits. A note on this one: I couldn’t find sweet peas in a package of more than 10oz, so I got three packages and that still wouldn’t total two pounds.
The final point:
The whole “eating healthy isn’t actually more expensive!” thing is debunked by a simple trip to the grocery store. While going through and debunking these exact comparisons was interesting and fun, these exact comparisons aren’t even fair because they start out with a straw man. The debate isn’t Ore-Ida vs. Potatoes. I buy potatoes, and I don’t buy Ore-Ida (who has the money for luxury superbowl snacks?) It’s things like processed bread vs whole wheat. And you don’t need to do elaborate backflips to do that comparison.
Comparing like to like makes it obvious. It’s cheaper to eat unhealthy.
And sure I could buy bags of dry pinto beans and have to make them from scratch, but that takes dishes and time and isn’t actually that comparatively cheap to buying flavored rice and frozen burritos that I can make almost instantly and taste better.
Shaming people and their groceries is not the solution to these problems. If you think people should have more healthy food in their diet then ask congress to stop over-subsidizing corn so corn-syrup becomes less affordable. Advocate for an increase in people’s SNAP benefits. Attack things on a structural level. But shaming individuals for getting by in a system they didn’t ask for or create doesn’t help anyone. It’s purity-requiring, classist, superiority bullshit.
