Hacker News Reader

Comment by ng12 | Hacker News Reader

> The U.S. Congress, for one, should increase funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — food stamps — on which 50 million American families depend.

This is anecdotal but I used to work at a corner store in a poor neighborhood. We received plenty of customers paying with EBT but not once (literally, not once) did someone come in and buy peanut butter, pasta, bread, canned veggies, or any of the cheap nutritious foods with EBT. It was always junk food (or worse, candy and soda). It seems to me SNAP is a very small part of the problem compared to a lack of education and resources.

View on HN

I shop at a local Hispanic grocery store, and I'm always surprised how many people will buy soda, sugary breakfast cereals, candy, essentially boxed fast food, and other garbage with their food stamps rather than the great fresh produce, meats, seafood, etc. that's available. It certainly isn't everyone, but it does seem to be the majority anecdotally. I agree that education is a far more important piece of resolving this issue

Worth noting that processed foods also provide far more calories per dollar. So in a way, they're maximizing their limited funds, albeit with long term consequences.

Maximizing calorie per dollar almost certainly means boxes of pasta, jars of peanut butter, and bags of rice and beans. I think comfort, habit, and convenience have more to do with it than calories.

I think it's both!

I agree, it's unlikely many people have literally thought through "what single food will best maximize my calorie intake?"

However, it's relatively intuitive that spending some amount of money on cereal will get you further than spending the same amount on Apples. And so they buy cereal.

But all of those need time and effort to prepare. If you put a dollar cost on the effort involved McDonalds dollar menu might come ahead.

One should not underestimate the extent to which stress, depression, and anxiety can make us crave comfort food, and rob the energy to do things like cook your own meals. Especially if you're a working poor and already tired when you get home.

Not to mention mental health issues can also make "healthy" meals just taste like shit making everything worse and driving people to get more unhealthy food.

Definitely! Depression has a habit of blunting sensory experiences, including taste.

True, but that's a self reinforcing feedback loop.

Eat junk -> Feel like crap, low energy -> Eat more junk

Not a good long term strategy. There are widely available low cost foods that can help break that loop. Rice, beans, eggs, frozen vegetables... In fact frozen vegetables are often more nutritious than non-frozen, unless you're eating close enough to picking time.

Eat junk -> Feel like crap

Put a bunch of effort into making good food -> Feel like crap

Seems obvious what I pick.

> Not a good long term strategy.

That's exactly the point. When you're poor, you don't have the luxury of considering a long term strategy.

> that's a self reinforcing feedback loop.

That's exactly the point. You don't break out of those just by deciding one day to be rational.

People do it all the time. It's unfortunately the exception, not the rule.

One should also not underestimate the roles that culture and ignorance play in food selection.

Don't bend over backwards to excuse people of personal responsibility.

Looks like we should stop saying "comfort food" and just say "high calories/high carbohydrate unhealthy food"?

What you call it is immaterial, what matters is how it makes your System 1 feel. Comfort food is just a phrase I chose to use because that's what it is.

This could have to do with the fact that you were at a corner store, rather than an actual grocery store. I mostly buy junk food at corner stores too, because I buy groceries at the grocery store.

It isn't particularly surprising that those with less money would limit their purchases at the corner store to non-essential items. That is usually how corner, or literally convenience, stores work.

Same thing way back in the 80s. Only they would buy a small fruit (lime, lemon) for 10 cents with a 10 dollar stamp... then use the change to buy their liquor. And this was a middle class neighborhood.

Never saw stamps used for what they were supposed to be there for. Sad.

It is lack of education, but those lacking the education that really matters are those making the rules that fill the food supply. Nothing will ever change as long as those responsible are allowed to hide behind cultural beliefs that they control.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com