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Comment by saiya-jin | Hacker News Reader

Is this actually true? Here in Europe where I live or travel you can buy dozens of great fresh salads at every supermarket, they cost reasonably and most folks dont need much bigger lunch.

The bigger issue I see is folks having weak will - why take that salad when next to it is well cooked sausage or pizza slice. When talking about it, few admit they lost the battle of will with themselves, most come up with some made up version of reality where its actually almost ok.

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In America, salads are much more difficult to find — let alone good ones. They're also priced accordingly, thanks to the magic of supply and demand.

So, even after an epic lunchtime quest of hunting/gathering, you might end up out 20-30 bucks for a depressing pile of iceberg lettuce, croutons, and shredded cheese. (In America, this is often called a "Caesar salad." Yes, really.)

Even if you do happen to be in the rare neighborhood that has a good salad connection, you're still committing to spending your lunch break furiously chewing raw vegetables in whatever few minutes you have left after running to go get your meal. This is what I did every day for months when I worked in an office, but let's not pretend it's ideal.

The dream would be fresh, cooked vegetables, so that one could get the best bioavailability. [1] But that is largely a fever dream, even in major cities. For example, I can count on 1 hand the number of restaurants I know where I could order a simple plate of steamed/roasted broccoli for less than 20 dollars.

[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878450X1...

You might be surprised how many Chinese takeout places will happily part with some steamed broccoli and brown rice for a reasonable price. Sure, it's not on the menu, and most of what is may well be covered in sugary sauces, but at least in my experience, they tend to be a pretty reasonable bunch when it comes to just selling what they have for the right price.

Though I'm in the Northeast -- your access to wildly abundant Chinese takeout may vary.

"So, even after an epic lunchtime quest of hunting/gathering, you might end up out 20-30 bucks for a depressing pile of iceberg lettuce, croutons, and shredded cheese."

Depressing indeed! Where I live, it's like €1.50 per ~500g chunk of raw broccoli (just the vegetable, harvested, possibly washed and wrapped in plastic, transported to supermarket). Other vegetables in similar range, and no problem finding stores with a decent selection of veggies & fruit.

Are US farmers somehow unable to grow broccoli <$1.50/lb? Or food stores incapable of selling raw veggies @ reasonable prices?

I can easily find fresh broccoli for around $1.50/lb at several grocery stores near me here in the US. There's loads of stores with a variety of vegetables that are decently cheap and are also eligible under my state's food stamp/child food supplement programs for low income people.

Looking at price indexes from the US Fed it might just be cheap for me here. The average seems close to $2/lb.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000712412

I am hungry fairly quickly after eating that salad and have trouble to focus then. I can go by them, if the team I work for does not care about my output. But if I actually need to produce, I need different lunch.

Healthy and "have as little calories as possible just above the eating disorder line" are two different things.

You can supplement given salad, literally any salad, with something chunkier but still reasonably healthy that will keep you satiated for long. Can be anything from whole bread, chunk of some quality cheese, boil few eggs at home and just bring them, slices of good quality ham/sausages etc.

If you have some big blood glucose swings (which end up in cravings for example), I would recommend tackling that as underlying issue, great improvements of quality of your life lie there. You can train your body to almost any regime including healthier ones, the only requirement is a bit of discipline in the beginning.

I can also eat a bacon and spoon of sugar with it. Or steak. That is not the point.

And no, I can't train my body to almost any regime. My body needs nutrients and calories. When food does not have it, it is not healthy food.

My point was, people do not eat just salad as their only food, because despite having Fibre and vitamins, it does not contain what your body needs. And that "any calories baad" thinking is an eating disorder.

Aldi salads.. Cheap and good

Idk about Europe, but the US has a lot of so called "food deserts" where fresh food is miles away (like 20miles /32 km or more). These areas aren't just rural but often in poorer areas of Major cities and population centers. Plus, premade salad that isn't just lettuce can be relativily expensive.

I heard someone make the point that these "deserts" exist because their residents don't buy that sort of food .

I also live in Europe and also in my experience healthy salads are often an available choice. However, "salads" are often tricky, because the calorie count can go up very fast (eggs, cheese, side bread, crumbles, etc.), while thinking of eating "only a salad"

Eh, when you say a salad in Europe, there's a 90-95% chance that its only dressing is olive oil (and not much of it, just for the texture) and not heavy stuff like ranch or french dressing.

A teaspoon of olive oil is 120 kcal. 3-4 teaspoons is the calorie content of a meal. That's the equivalent of a liter of soda.

I think you mean table spoon, which is often enough dressing for one person, in my experience.

You're right.

A teaspoon is 5ml. At 0.92g/ml and 9kcal/g that would mean about 40kcal per teaspoon.

Sure, but the rest of the stuff (in what I consider salad base - tomatoes, cucumbers, maybe peppers?) is really small so it doesn't matter. A greek salad has cheese, yeah, that's a high calorie input but you don't eat much of it

If you buy it in a supermarket, the calorie count is always given on the packaging.

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