- One avocado
- One loaf of whole grain bread
- One package of low-cal tortillas
- A bag of frozen broccoli
- Five items off the dollar menu
One of these things by itself will feed your family, the others won't.
Avocados supposedly hit "record" prices of $2.50 each this summer [0]. I get 3 loaves of whole grain bread for $5 at my local grocer. Frozen broccoli is 3-4 pounds for $5 [1]. Low cal tortillas can get up near $5, I guess, if you get the fancy ones in a 10 or 12 pack.
Here are a few other things you can get for $5 (all taken from my local grocery ad [2]):
- 20 pounds of potatoes
- 3.5 pounds of frozen chicken breasts
- 3 pounds of ham
- 5+ pounds of produce: tomatoes, carrots, pineapples, squash, etc.
- 15 cans of store brand condensed soup
It seems to me like, if you're looking to feed the family, your $5 goes a lot more on this list than it does on the dollar menu. A pound of ham, a pound of squash and tomatoes, and a 10 pound bag of potatoes seems like a lot more food than two burgers, two fries, and a tiny salad. It seems to me like, if you can't do better than the dollar menu for feeding your family, you must suck at shopping [3]. Do you think "sucking at shopping" is really what fuels this meme?
[0] http://www.thepacker.com/fruit-vegetable-news/Avocado-demand...
[1] http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/FruitVegetableCosts/ has some fantastic data
[2] http://www.benewsjournal.com/Kent%27s%20Ads/Kent%27sBRIGHAM0... -- as for cost of living, prices out here are higher than they were in Seattle. Housing is cheap, but groceries are not.
[3] one of my friends who was on government assistance really did suck at shopping. I once went with him and convinced him to replace 10 pounds of meat (of the 20 in his cart) with a big bag of potatoes, as well as bulk carrots and such. At the end of the month, he was delighted that he still had food and had a little money left over.
I don't have a strong opinion about whether junk food is "truly" cheaper than "healthy" food (I cook every night and think it's generally a good idea for every family to get into that habit). I think it's a kind of a moot point, because what many poor families really lack is a history of having time in their schedules to cook. Cooking is a skill built through repetition and serving home cooked meals is a habit that is hard to establish.
What does bug me though is that every time this topic comes up, some nerd hits Google and finds either (a) some ludicrously unrepresentative price sample ("you pay $6/lb for chicken? i can get new york strip for $5.50!") or (b) some combination of beans and millet that will feed them just fine for a month on $3.
It is not enough, to win this argument, for the math to come out slightly in favor of home cooking. Home cooking needs to win on all three axes:
(i) price: home cooking has to be invariably comparable in price to McDonalds to win,
(ii) convenience: it's got to be straightforward to cook and to serve, bearing in mind that one of the hallmarks of low-income working families is shift work, and
(iii) palatability: this doesn't mean "it has to taste as good as junk food" (although realistically that is a factor); it means that you have to find one dish that you can serve four people and have them all come away satisfied.
None of those are easy to accomplish. Erin & I work hard to achieve any two. All three?
Roxie's is a local meat market where my family used to buy most of our meat (the other place being an illegal meat auction which was held in a strip club on Sundays...and yes, I'm being completely serious).
Here's their flyer: http://www.roxiesofquincy.com/daily-add/daily.pdf
I'm a stay at home dad who's done the shopping for many years. I shop at the closest store, tilt my shopping somewhat but not entirely toward sale items and generics, and don't do anything more extreme than grab coupons from the ads at the customer service desk. I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary, or anything that I'd expect "the poor" to have trouble doing. Everything I say here is a result of my experience feeding my family in a way that I think is pretty normal and sensible. In my experience, home cooking comes out way ahead on price -- it's not even close.
Thus, I'm very firmly in the camp that says "price" is not the major contributing factor to people eating crap. The two other factors you note, "convenience" and the "picky kid factor" (palatability), are the dominant considerations.
We avoid fresh chicken breasts; they're extravagantly more expensive than other better meat options.
But yes, my point is that price really isn't the issue, except that I don't believe home cooking is so much cheaper that it makes a real difference for people.