A Boring Dystopia

Terms might be confusing, but as far as I can tell:

• Original source was doing food to feed for people one meal (four "individual meals" make up one "family meal") for $10
• Reporter got three "family meals" for $28, meaning four people could eat three times each, 12 "individual meals" in total

Bearing in mind that this appeared to rely heavily on prepared foods, this is not so bad.

I can get a pound of dried beans from Walmart for $1. Five pounds of rice for $3.37. 12 ounces of bacon for $3.94 - perhaps not the very cheapest source of tasty meat/fat for seasoning, but a convenient one. Spend a little for an onion, garlic, assume we have spices and can replace them from time to time....... I should end up with 6-8 bowls (using about half the bacon) so around $2 for half the bacon, less than $2 for the beans+rice, so add on a dollar for an onion and some garlic.... That's going to be less than a dollar per bowl. Rice and beans may not have "vegetables", but it is a complete protein and nutritionally sound.

It'd be easy to add some cheap veggies - things like frozen broccoli, corn, peas run around a couple of bucks for four servings; fresh carrots a couple of bucks for a couple of pounds.

You can eat cheaply if you have a little time to cook. A slow cooker really helps make this more accessible.

So while I detest Dollar General, the video is........ not completely terrible, just mostly terrible.

Yes, this is for real. Whenever I'm fortunate enough to leave the US and visit basically any other country I'm jealous of two things: the price of food (groceries are cheap even if restaurants are not) and the quality of food (even non-organic produce is just more vibrant).

It's been a thing for at least 10 years now that other countries have higher quality food for less money. It was probably true before that but in 2016 I was old enough to be living on my own and beginning to get invested in eating better food despite the damage it did to my budget. I might have to work my whole life and never retire but I am going to have my health as best as I can control it.

I went to Australia for a year the next year and was shocked by how affordable it was. Everyone told me it was ridiculously expensive, and yeah, eating out was easily $30 for a burger and fries or pizza but if I went to the grocery store or a market I could buy a week's worth of food for the same price. I then needed to buy a new pair of ear buds down there and I found out that electronics are also very expensive, ~50% more after the exchange rate. But the food was cheap. I paid $150/week for rent. And there was public transportation.

Fucking "richest country in the world" my ass.

I haven't bought ground beef in over 2 months. I'm in the Los Angeles area and it's currently almost $8/lb.