this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
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[–] NocturnalEngineer 43 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (5 children)

The healthy food options are also usually twice the cost too.

[–] lonerangers1 56 points 5 months ago (4 children)

ditch all the sugar drinks and drink plane old water, like out the toilet.

Rice and beans can be made in 1000 different ways. $1/lb uncooked.

Eating out is almost never a healthy option.

Healthy and expensive don't correlate in my outlook. I spend less eating better. Factor in not eating out and my pockets are fat, but not my ass.

[–] BombOmOm 30 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

Eating out is almost never a healthy option.

This is a big deal people often don't realize. Even something as simple as an alfredo pasta will have way too much butter in it when you order it at a restaurant. (Why do you think it tastes so good?) An entire stick of butter for a single serving is quite common.

Not only is cooking for yourself significantly cheaper than ordering food, you are also significantly more aware of the calories you are putting into the food.

[–] agent_flounder 8 points 5 months ago

And that wouldn't even be so bad if we ate a reasonable portion of it. But cooking at home is preferable.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Even something as simple as an alfredo pasta will have way too much butter in it when you order it at a restaurant.

Hell no. It will have too little and probably doesn't contain proper parmesan, either. Also it's not actually simple, it's minimalist, but hard to actually get right -- Italian cuisine in a nutshell. I almost wanted to say "and be extended by starch slurry" but then realised that pasta water vs. starch isn't really something one should complain about, if anything that's a fault of sub-par noodles... anyway:

The butter unhealthy / saturated fat unhealthy thing is due to plant fat manufacturers trying to sell hardened fats as healthy giving us the wonders of trans fats, flanked by the sugar industry's "fat makes fat". While I'm at it the cholesterol stuff is the equivalent of "dead firefighters found at conflagration site, thus, abolish the fire department". Not to mention that dietary cholesterol has no correlation to blood cholesterol. And how could I forget the tobacco industry which was very successful in blaming the cardiac arrest epidemic on anything but smoking by concern trolling the scientific process.

There's processed foods which are perfectly fine but as an experiment try avoiding anything that has been invented in the last 100 years or so for a while and observe the difference. There's certainly restaurants around which cook like that but it's not going to be the ones people with two jobs eat at.

Oh and I don't think the science is completely in yet but it seems that the "gluten intolerance" epidemic is due to increased use of glyphosate directly before harvest to make wheat grow faster: It's not the gluten but some people's stomach just don't take the residue as well as others. So YMMV on being able to get proper ingredients for that experiment.

But I'm sure the free market will fix everything.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Too many people think eating healthy means broccoli needs to be 100% of your calories.

[–] Alexstarfire 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I prefer plain water myself. Not your bougie plane water.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (2 children)

The planes collect it as they fly through clouds. Imagine drinking water that's touched the ground...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Ground is almost 100% dirt. Drinking groundwater is just asking for trouble.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

But all plants come from the ground! It's 100% organic water it has to be healthy, it says organic on it!

[–] A_Random_Idiot 3 points 5 months ago

the blue hawaiian water that collects near the back is the best water.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 5 months ago (2 children)

This is so fucking false its hilarious.

It's cooking -- cooking is cheaper. Cooking anything is cheaper than buying boxes.

[–] dexa_scantron 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Cooking costs time and energy, which not everyone can afford.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

That's a different argument and much more valid.

[–] dexa_scantron 2 points 5 months ago

Beyond the time/energy cost, you're comparing two different things: cooking healthy food from scratch vs. buying boxed 'unhealthy' food. Buying boxed 'healthy' food is more expensive than buying boxed 'unhealthy' food, and cooking 'unhealthy' food is cheaper than cooking 'healthy' food.

For example: I could make a huge mess of white rice and oil very cheaply and quickly. Every other ingredient I add will raise the cost and time investment. People say, "oh, just throw in some eggs/grilled chicken breast/fresh veggies and you have a cheap healthy meal!" but it's still a lot more expensive to do that (in both money and time) than to just make rice.

[–] Linkerbaan 12 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Until you go on vacation to a "poor" country where it suddenly costs virtually nothing.

Are Avocados a conspiracy?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Avocados spoil quickly, so they have to be transported faster. That means the further you get from the source, the more expensive they are.

More durable produce can be shipped slower, or can sit on the shelf longer, making it less expensive.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Which is why all known "advanced" civilisations (scare quotes for lack of better term) have formed around some kind of grain. Wheat in Egypt spreading to Europe, rice in Asia, Maize in the Americas: All basically don't spoil when stored properly, because dry they can be transported well, and they're also all nicely divisible. Ask the Irish whether the English wanted them to pay taxes in grain or potatoes.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

Perks of living where all the food is produced.

[–] BombOmOm 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Domestically produced crops tend to be much cheaper. Think corn in the US. The stuff is so cheap they even turn much of it into sugar for foods and ethanol for cars.

[–] Dran_Arcana 8 points 5 months ago

If you need to eat half as much it kind of works out though.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

I spend about $12/day on ingredients, which is about the cost of a single meal at McDonald’s which is far less healthy. I don’t think that actually stands up when you look at the prices of cheap food (chicken, rice, beans, other legumes, potatoes) plus the costs of sides (fruits, vegetables).