Folks on HN are very much in the "Where" stage of life. No one here works 4 out of 8 hours just to pay for their food. Nobody should.
That said, you very much seem to be missing the point. Ultra processed food is far, far cheaper than whole foods. That is one reason they are more popular.
For example, it would cost me more just to buy the ingredients to make tacos at home than it does to go through a Taco Bell drive through and buy enough for the family already prepared.
We're not going to be moving to four hour workdays by feeding people food that costs twice as much and takes longer to prepare.
They started cooking because feeding the family of 5 at McDonalds cost close to $80.
There may have been a time where fast food was cheaper, but it seems we're past that.
As far as Taco Bell goes, a single crunchy taco is $2.19 and their fancier ones are closer to $5. When I used to eat there I'd usually get 3 tacos and a drink, so I'd be into that today for something like $10-$11. I cook tacos at home regularly for cheaper, and with homemade tortillas and grass fed beef no less.
How much would they eat from McDonald’s? And what size appetite are the kids?
Fast food has definitely gone up in price, but if you’re spending $80 at McDonalds you’re either a glutton or you don’t know what to order.
A “Big Mac Bundle Box” is $15-20 depending on region. It has two Big Macs, two Cheeseburgers, two fries, and a 10-piece nuggets.
If three of the five are kids (vs say 16+ boys lifting weights), I’d be curious how two of those wouldn’t feed the entire family for $30-40.
I’m not suggesting cooking at home is a bad thing nor that eating McD is a good one. But the details matter when you’re spending 2x more than it could be.
I also thought $80 for 5 was high, but that was his anecdotal number. I would have expected $50-60 pretty reasonably, and still st that point a family of 5 could eat for a good bit cheaper at home.
I'm sure it varies by region, but my grubhub app and the 12 pack of tacos (hard or soft) is $24.99 here so about the same as the $2.19 you found.
I had perplexity pro figure out the cost of purchasing the ingredients for comparable homemade tacos. With great value (Walmart store brand) ingredients it came to $20.04. $6.49 of that would be "left over" ingredients you don't use (mostly half a pound of beef you could use for something else later).
So you save $0.96 cents per taco by doing all the work yourself and using generic ingredients. Plus you get an extra half pound of beef for later.
So if your time is worth less than $12/hr it's a net gain.
I'm assuming it takes you only half an hour to travel, shop, and bring home the ingredients then half an hour to cook. If you live further away, factor in gas etc, the time it takes to do dishes, or are a slower cook then the break-even might come out closer to $6-$7/hr.
Tortillas themselves use very little, a cup of flour and a couple tablespoons of butter so maybe $1-$2? The beef we use is around $12/lb and we use 1/2lb to feed two of us. I don't have a cost on the seasoning, we mix it fresh as well so its negligible.
I'd assume we end up around $10 to feed two adults and spend around 45 minutes on the high end. We'd spend about that long to get to taco bell, though we live in a more rural area so that may be an over estimate for most.
I think this is mostly true in the US and a cultural thing.
In EU and SA for example I can buy “whole” food - just called food here - for a fraction of the price it would cost me to buy a bunch of cheeseburgers or some other junk food every day.
Is it? What is the cost of bag of rice? Potatoes? lentils?