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Comment by sdo72 | Hacker News Reader

I don't think it's even about low carb vs. high protein to begin with. Many countries and regions in the world are fine with a high-carb diet, and people there live long, healthy lives.

Americans eat so much processed food simply because it is much cheaper than fresh food. Processed food is made to get consumers addicted (through convenience, taste, etc.) and encourage them to consume much more. Fresh food is almost the opposite.

I grew up in a country where freshly made food is actually cheaper than processed food, even to this day. People who stick to a traditional diet are mostly thin, while those who stick to a processed food diet gain a lot of weight.

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> Americans eat so much processed food simply because it is much cheaper than fresh food.

I don't understand how people come to this conclusion

Beans/grains/legumes are cheap

Frozen veg is dirt cheap (and retains its nutrition as good as, or better than fresh). In-season fruit and veg

Which foods are more expensive?

People are door-dashing their salaries away and complaining about the price of fresh food...

Convenience and addiction makes more sense, certainly not price

Yes, but look at the comments. Americans are obsessed with meat. They actively believe that mostly meat diets are somehow much more healthy than mostly carb and vegetable diets.

None of them want to eat only grains and vegetables, and meat is both the most expensive food and also the most damaging to the environment, which I guess is a second thing Americans seem not to care about.

Yeah you're right. Influencers have more, well, influence than scientists these days unfortunately

Scientists have never really had that much influence. See: high priests, religion, politics, &c.

Something like 15% of the Americans I know are vegetarian or vegan. Though you've characterized the others well.

I think we need more education around glycemic index. Protein and fats burn slowly enough that they're not going to spike your blood sugar. Many Americans think that they're the only nutrients with that property.

> I don't understand how people come to this conclusion

Then maybe you shouldn't speak on it until you understand how they came to this conclusion. Knowing you have opinions based on ignorance and refusing to change isn't a good way to live.

You're misunderstanding what I meant

Put another way: it doesn't make sense for people to come to that conclusion because it's so obviously wrong if they actually check prices

I then give examples

You are assuming access to a grocery store. Disproportionately poor people live in food deserts and have to rely on dollar stores and other things where fruit and vegetables are expensive.

Also, if you are busy single person, basically anything not shelf stable is expensive because you have to buy it in high quantities and it will go to waste if you are not skilled at storage. I, a mature adult, know how to store things, but as a younger person things went to rot a lot from inexperience.

Then there is prep. I spent literally all day on sunday just preparing food for the week. It's about 10-12 hours. That's what 2 hours a day to cook during the week. I have lied to myself and said, "oh, I'll cook something" and then eaten out all day from being busy or being exhausted. To save money stuff I could jam into the microwave was cheaper.

This is how you get there. I cook from fresh vegetables all the time now, but I have the time and energy for it. That just wasn't true at all when I was younger.

> an estimated 13.5 million people in the United States have low access to a supermarket or large grocery store [0]

That's 4% of the population. Food deserts explain some of it but not the majority

The rest yeah I absolutely agree with. People are stressed and time deficient, don't have food storage and prep skills

Maybe in a roundabout way it just comes back to money? If you need to work or study too much and don't feel you have the time to cook, you'll get the easiest options you know

Part of it can be overcome with strategy. I spend 15 minutes a day on food prep and couldnt imagine how I'd make my diet healthier. I'm sure what you make is much more elaborate though haha

0: https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2011/december/data-feat...

> poor people live in food deserts

food deserts are fake. In college I was poor and took a 45 minute public transit commute (2 hops) to the shop-rite. Granny cart and all

You don’t see those 45 minutes as a trek out of the food desert?

You're absolutely right but Americans don't consider rice + legumes (the standard international poverty meal) to be a "real meal" like the rest of the world.

In general the American diet is very meat-based. Once you hold meat as constant, you realize that fast-food or ultraprocessed food are the cheapest way to get a meat-based meal. E.g. McDonald's is probably the cheapest way to buy a hot meal containing beef (and it used to be even cheaper, you could add fries+coke for just 50c in the past). A lot of poor Americans eat hotdog sausages, microwave meals etc just to get some kind of meat even if it's low quality.

Ready to eat food at larger gas stations has probably replaced some of the cheaper fast food.

Why make 2 stops and all that.

for what it's worth, 7-Eleven® Bahama Mama is a high quality meat product from schmidts sausage.

Same with their dogs, excellent stuff.

Source: hot dog connoisseur and ex-cashier

> fast-food or ultraprocessed food are the cheapest way to get a meat-based meal

Are you sure? Let's take the example of the McDonald's Big Mac which is $6.72 [0]

The between the 2 patties, the sandwich contains 25g of protein (not grass fed beef) per sandwich. It's fair to assume the majority of the cost of the ingredients of a burger is the meat. The rest is pretty cheap because you only need a small quantity of it to complete the meal.

Here are prices of Costco grass fed beef patties: [1]

15 patties for $36.31 Each patty contains 26 grams of protein, which is more protein than both patties of the Big Mac combined.

cost per patty = $36.31/15 = $2.42

cost of Big Mac = $6.72

That doesn't even come close to the majority of the cost of the Big Mac. I could do a full analysis of each ingredient, but I think it's clear from this data that fast food is not significantly cheaper, especially considering that the Costco patties are higher quality.

Edit: formatting, and also burgers are super fast and easy to cook at home.

[0] https://www.mac-menus.com/big-mac/ [1] https://sameday.costco.com/store/costco/products/20021199-ki...

It's not just the price of the food, it's the time cost of going to the store, preparing the ingredients, cooking, washing dishes... You are looking at the issue through a myopic lens.

This should be top comment

When I was visiting the US I was shocked how much more expensive “real” food is. Here I am spending more if I eat out or processed food versus cooking my own food at home. In the US it was basically the inverse, didn’t make any sense to me. (N=1 and 10 year old experience, but it seems to have only gotten more extreme since)

I don't see this at all. Staple foods are cheap and abundant. Fruits and vegetables don't cost much at all. Some animal proteins can get a bit pricy (beef mostly) but chicken and pork aren't that expensive. Eggs are like $2 a dozen.

I love my meat but if I switched to a vegetarian diet it would be trivial to make varied, delicious meals at $1.50-$2 a portion.

Where? It's $4 for a dozen eggs where I am and I think that's pretty cheap. It's $5 for a bag of shitty apples. And then another $5 for a bag of oranges, so my kid can have fruit for the week. I cook from nothing but fresh and my kid gets one bag of chips or cookies a week. I buy 2lbs of meat for us both. I still spend over 100 dollars.

I guess we could have beans and rice every day, but I don't think it's a lot to give my kid a varied diet based on what's in season. Out of season is awful and that's how I ended up spending $15 on berries my kid wanted.

When people talk about these cheap meals, I wonder if they just expect everyone to eat the same thing every day at the lowest quality. I can go to a budget grocery store and get $3 eggs. That's true, but I feel like the local national chain should ve a good enough yard stick.

I do most of my grocery shopping at Target. In my large Midwestern city 12 large eggs are $2. A 3 lb bag of apples is $4. A 3 lb bag of oranges is $4.29.

>When people talk about these cheap meals, I wonder if they just expect everyone to eat the same thing every day at the lowest quality.

Eating cheap doesn't have to mean eating the same shit meal every day. I like to have a framework to work from where I have some structure but can vary it a lot based on what I want to eat. Rice+vegetable(s)+protein has endless variations. One week I might do a taco style rice bowl. The next maybe I do an Asian bowl. Stews are also great for this. By varying the ingredients a bit and using different spices I can get stews with very different flavor profiles that taste great.

I bought 12 eggs from trader joe's yesterday for $2, organics were $5

I get 18 eggs from another grocery store for about $5 and kroger has them really cheap too. Even Whole Foods has 18 for $5-ish in one brand and much more $$ in another.

Publix is the egg-gouger around me (and just overpriced in general)

IMHO the same cheap whole food meals are healthier than a variety of $2 frozen dinners.

You can hit a middle-ground with some frozen stuff to save a little time and money a few days per week too.

The messaging on the website pretty much agrees with you, then.

Except for the incredibly wrong and bad advice that Americans, who already eat too much meat, should eat even more meat, sure.

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