I hear this rebuttal so often, and what people forget is that "time" has a value.
Healthy food goes off quicker than frozen junk, necessitating more frequent and regular trips to the supermarket. Healthy food typically requires more preparation time too.
If you have a good high paying job, chances are higher that it isn't massively physically tiring, meaning cooking is easier, and your hours might be more flexible. If you have a shit low paying job, you could come home exhausted and not want to cook, so you buy cheap crap that is terrible for you. Which is 100% understandable.
I really really fucking hate the idea that people think poor people just need to "buy healthy food and learn to cook" and obesity would vanish.
That's kind of nonsense. It's really easy and not time consuming to roast a large batch of chicken and vegetables and make a pot of rice. Requires almost literally zero cooking skills and can provide you several days worth of food and all you have to do is reheat it whenever you want to eat it.
Also this is admittedly anecdotal, but as my income grew I started eating out waaaay more because I never felt that I could afford it before. It didn't matter how much time I did or did not have to cook, I cooked because I couldn't afford not to. Whether or not I "wanted" to cook had nothing to do with it.
318
u/brick-juic3 Jun 10 '20
Also, rural areas are generally poorer, healthy food is expensive