| Farmageddon said: I don't know, I'm from a different country and all that, but to me te idea that poor people wouldn't have a stove and some pans or know how to cook is ludicrous. Either you're very out of touch (and I don't mean that as an offense) or our definitions of poor are far too different. Be that as it may, getting cookeware and learning to cook is not that big obstacle you make it out to be. Fact is that eating is kind of really important and as people get poorer it's importance is made all the more obvious. So poor parents teach their kids these kinds of things, who in turn help them out. I realise what you're referring to as poor are probably not people at any risk of actually going hungry. But just as the miserable cook, so could them. It's their option not to. But none of this really matters when discussing meals on schools. Getting cooking equipment wouldn't be that expensive, specially not if the mid term is seen, provided they can cook cheaper than they can buy frozen pizza, let alone the long term with all the possible health ramifications. So the only question really is wether they could. Now, maybe you guys have amazingly cheap frozen pizza around, but in most poor places in the world it seems like it's pretty obvious to people that the more local and less processed your food, the cheaper. So if the cheapest of the cheapest people do it, it sounds kind of non-sensical that it's too expensive to be done, while fast food kind of stuff is not. Then again, I don't really know what is actually served or any of that, but as a principle it should hold. Oh, nothing really much to do with this, but a few days ago we were buying things for a barbecue and this girl wanted to buy some Ruffles. The price of that shit is scary. I calculated it, and it was as expensive as twice it's weight of bacon. A couple days earlier I had bought sardines by the pound (well, kilogram actually) and they were just shy of nine times cheaper, pound by pound, than that "economic" bag Ruffles. Wtf, who buys this shit :P |
You are fully correct. There is no significantly difference between access to foods and services among the poor in your country... Heck, its probably much better in America than Brazil, because I have litterally never met a single person that did not have access to a stove.
Additionally, your last statement about the cost of potato chips is entirely accurate in America. A bag of Ruffles costs about $3 USD here for 10 or 12oz of chips (about 1/4th of a KG). Comparatively, I can get 3KG of potatoes for less than $3 USD. Think about the caloric differnce between 3KG of potatoes and 1/4th a KG of chips.... Much food is like that. A Lean Cuisine meal of pastas, vegetables and chicken costs $1 for about 1/5th a KG (about 7oz) of food. Comparatively, I could buy about 1.5KG of each individual ingredient and make it myself for about $3 - ten times the meals for only three times the cost.
When you go to the store, you can observe people on food stamps. In the US, its essentially a credit card that people may purchase whatever they want at the store to use for food, because they are supposedly too poor to buy it on their own. 90% of the time, I can identify the people on these cards, because they buy soda pop, premade ready-to-microwave meals or meals that can be thrown on the stove and heated up, or bread and lots of lunchmeats (which are essentially 2X the price of any other cut of meat).
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
