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Comment by capote | Hacker News Reader

Interesting, same here but my parents are likely your generation. Grew up in 70s-80s communist Eastern Europe, lots of food shortages from government obsession with self-sufficiency. Stories of waiting in line for 3 hours for a maybe loaf of bread.

No sort of unusual relationship with food, especially compared to mine—I grew up with all the food I wanted and I stuff my face with pointless garbage every 30 seconds.

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My mother wasn't in the eastern bloc, but would recount that many times her "breakfast" was a carrot. I have family letters where they'd list their rations and various struggles to obtain food. Things were bad throughout Europe for many years.

I think your folks may have these issues if healthy food was "expensive" but sugary processed foods would be "cheap" and plentiful. By expensive/cheap, you can substitute waiting in line for price.

Rice and beans are a complete diet. Potatoes and milk are a complete diet. Frozen vegetables fried with spices are tasty, nutritious and very fast to prepare. Porridge, aka oats with milk or water is also dirt cheap and nutritious.

I spent an unfortunate length of time watching my pennies when it came to my foodbudget, in a western country. Being poor sucks but healthy food isn't expensive unless you mean prepared, ready to eat expensive food.

Will power consumes mental energy. Fighting the urge not to consume the cheap sugary food all around you is not something many people have the resources to do - especially the poor, who are under stress and therefore have fewer cognitive resources to devote to willpower. Drop the politics and think about things logically - then reintroduce your emotion. If you manage it you will be outraged at the disgusting setup of modern society.

If one is very poor, one cannot afford money to get prepared food and forced to prepare food themselves no matter how weak is the will power. And that will be much healthier. The problem is that in Westen societies such extreme poverty is rare and people can afford junk food and advertisements heavily inclines them to get it.

The problem is also that it is easy to buy some cheap bad food while not saving up for rent/car/school payment. In other words, even though we can't afford our lifestyle, food dolllars are the first dollars, and we go into debt for the rest. So we can over spend on convenient food while still being broke.

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