News
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
view the rest of the comments
Unfortunately, the cost of healthier foods has gone up at the same pace. Instead people end up eating less or giving up other necessities like downsizing their housing or moving in with parents.
Raw ingredients are still affordable. If you can cook, you are easily able to live on a healthy diet for small money.
Source: I learned to cook because we were poor.
Not really. An ever shrinking head of iceberg lettuce is about $2.50. A pound of the lowest grade ground beef is about $8. Bag of store brand buns is $2. A beefsteak tomato is $1.50. Pack of store brand American Cheeses is $4.50. Add in the other condiments that are harder to break down the price of, electricity/gas cost for cooking, water for cleaning, etc., and the cost for the cheapest, crappiest version of 4 quarter lb burgers is not much different than the $8 times 4 that McDonald's is charging and I guarantee the quality is lower (lower ratio of meat:fat in the burger, buns with more sugar and preservatives and less fresh, etc.) And this is just the consumables, not the having a kitchen to do this in, the pans, utensils, etc. Unhoused people don't have those things.
It used to be that because McDonald's, etc., got their stuff in bulk and used lower quality ingredients and low paid employees, they offered these products for very low profit because of high volume. Now the cost including labor, supplies, etc., is less than half of what they charge. So their profit margins are huge if they have the same number of customers. But their customer base is going to dwindle, and so the profit margins will shrink, but that's not a concern to corporations that only focus on today's stock prices and don't care about tomorrow.
If your replica the the mistakes of fast food, you won't get far. Have you tried other food options that are not burgers? Because burgers are a perfect example of expensive, but not really good food.
I was just giving an example. Sure if you avoid fresh produce, eggs, milk, or meats you might be able to make some cheap meals. But those things right now are very expensive. Beans are still pretty affordable for the nutrition.
Eggs and milk are still OK, pricewise, even if the prices have gone up. When it comes to meat, chicken is cheaper than beef, so there is no need to rely on beans if you don't like it.
The point is that a burger is basically a very bad food item that happens to be expensive, too. Not the best thing to eat in the first place, and from a fast food place even more so.
Eggs are around $6/dozen for the cheapest right now but have been as high as $14/dozen in the last year due to the shortages from processing company consolidation. And milk right now is $6/gallon. Plus with borderline cholesterol I avoid cow's milk. If a dozen eggs costs an hour's labor, that's not very affordable. Especially when rent costs more than most people make in a month. My partner lives with 3 roommates and only makes around $20/hr. Food has to be quite cheap.
It might sound expensive in comparison to prices here in Europe, but on the other hand, American income levels are much higher, too. So adjusting for that, they are way cheaper than in Europe. And we live, too. While paying e.g about 8-9 USD for a gallon of fuel due to carbon taxes.
Yeah, I doubt the median income is higher here, especially if you have socialized medicine. I make ok money, but the minimum wage here is still only $7.25/hr across the majority of the country, and the median income is around $18/hr. If you figure in the cost of health insurance average around $600/month. Though employers often cover a portion of the premium. And the median rent is $2000, much higher in cities of course. And gasoline in my city is over $5/gallon even with all of my tax money that subsidizes it. And of course, lower middle class pays the highest effective tax rates generally. So having a budget of $200-300/month for food is relatively normal for a single person with a median income.
I have to admit I'm an bit above the median income - but I'm still working my ass of for it. On the other hand I'm the sole provider for the family (my wife is handicapped), and I have two kids in University.
Health insurance is 570€/month IIRC for me, so it is not much different. The employer pays the same amount.
I'm lucky that I don't have to bother with rent, but it was a lot of bloody years without a single bit of luxury to afford that, even here out in the sticks.
People would murder here for such dirt cheap gasoline.
Tax-wise, it is the same here. The rich deduct themselves poor or have any amount of other tricks to avoid taxes, there is nothing to get from the poor, so we in the middle have to provide the mones so the rich can get their subsidies...
I'm lucky that my food budget is a bit higher than that, but even with 200-300 a month I could easily survive with healthy home cooking. I survived on much, much less during my university times.