On Eating Good Foods Cheaply
I keep seeing reblogs of this graphic showing how it’s cheaper to cook for a family of four than to buy fast food for a family of four and how it’s super-cheap if you’re cooking vegetarian. (I looked for it, but Tumblr search sucks, and you get the idea.)
Isn’t it nice to feel superior that you cook and save all this money, and why can’t poor people do it? Aren’t they dumb?
Sure, if you ignore the startup costs that mean little to those of us who are “poor” in the “I just graduated from college and don’t have a job, but I do have this graduation trousseau from my parents that includes a full set of caphalon pots” sense.
But that’s not poverty.
A friend used to teach in Siler City, N.C., where there’s a chicken plant that employs lots of Hispanic immigrants. Working in a chicken plant is shittier work than I can imagine, but these people left home (mostly Mexico) to do it because they didn’t want their kids to work in a chicken plant.
Of course, working in a chicken plant doesn’t pay for child care, so lots of kids were left locked in a closet all night or with virtual strangers — anyone their parents could find. The kids who were locked in closets were there to protect them from the virtual strangers because lots of the kids who were left with virtual strangers showed signs of sexual abuse.
So when your choice is, lock your children (whom you care about enough to work in a chicken plant for) in a closet where they wet themselves every night or risk having them sexually abused, that’s poverty.
Where do you get money for a pot and a knife? Everyone you know is poor. You can’t borrow it from them. Sure, you can save the money for a pot by cooking, but you need the pot first.
And this ignores all the other obstacles such as access to the food, transportation and time.
“Oh, just start cooking” is a fine solution for someone with resources but not for the people who need a solution the most.
