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Comment by raverbashing | Hacker News Reader

> Last time I checked baking my own cookies is more expensive than just buying a bag at Walmart.

Yes, but most likely they aren't of comparable quality

Indeed, off-topic, but I find it fascinating that I can buy a year of Kosher, Vegan, Gluten Free Survival Food on Amazon from ~$1469.

https://www.amazon.com/NorthWest-Fork-Gluten-Free-Emergency-...

That drops to $1149 if I don't require Vegan, non-GMO, Kosher:

https://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Survival-Food-Emergency-Prepa...

SNAP benefits at anywhere from $134 to $192 a month are both more than sufficient for this. So why are ~42 million people starving in America? Answer (IMO): Cloud providers reduce the friction of GPU adoption the same way grocery and convenience stores reduce the friction of food acquisition, both in exchange for profiting off of it.

Normal food can be even cheaper. You could probably indefinitely avoid starvation with dried rice and beans, oil, and a vitamin supplement for $2/day (in NA), without a big upfront cost. Poverty is complicated.

You've ignored the cost of the home required to cook those things in, which is really the whole point.

(not directing at you, more explaining to those who didn't already know)

That recent Boston(?)-based completely automated rice bowl startup plus drone delivery equals solved hunger

Quite likely, the Walmart ones are better, at least if it comes to taste and looks. Unless you're an expert baker. And then your cookies probably still aren't better, you will just claim they are, and it's polite to agree with that assessment. In fact, it's polite in our society to agree that any half-good DIY attempt has better quality than commercial equivalent, even though it doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

> the Walmart ones are better, at least if it comes to taste and looks

And awful if you want anything resembling "real food". (Not blaming anyone for buying them, I buy pre-made cookies as well.)

But yes, getting a nice looking/tasting cookie might require a few tries.

Only with taste and looks. Maybe.

> Even Walmart’s “Great Value 100% Whole Wheat Bread” contains seven ingredients that Whole Foods considers “unacceptable”: high fructose corn syrup, sodium stearoyl lactylate, ethoxylated diglycerides, DATEM, azodicarbonamide, ammonium chloride, and calcium propionate.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2014/02/whole_...

If you had picked another example of pre-made food, I might agree, but cookies are really easy. Just follow the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag, you'll get something that is far better than anything out of a bag that's engineered to sit around in a store for months.

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