How your financial status affects your eating habits.
I was born and raised poor. By poor, I mean i was raised off those 89 cent packs of hot dogs. You know, the ones most people avoid because nobody knows whats even in them. They’re not real franks. Back when a box of a dozen Debbie snack cakes was a dollar or less, depending on whether or not it was on sale. I grew up on junk food, and it wasn’t a choice. Then if we ever wanted to be fancy we’d get to choose one thing from the McDonald's dollar menu. My parents were too proud to even apply for any form of government aid. Or maybe they just didn’t know about it, after all they were immigrants and didn’t even speak English for most of my childhood. But I didn’t mind, and I didn’t realize that what I was eating wasn’t exactly to par with what others consider real food.
In my young adult life, we were a little better off, but it was still cheaper, and easier for my forever working parents to continue feeding us with these discounted cans of off brand ravioli, and these surprise meat hot dogs. I didn’t know what Oscar Mayer was until about the end of 8th grade. Tyson? only found out about that in high school.
“But didn’t you see these in the store when you went shopping with your parents?”
No. I had no reason to look at things that had a price tag higher than what we normally bought, because we wouldn’t be able to get it anyways, so I just never payed attention.
Cue me moving out of my parent’s home. I now had to shop for myself with money I had to work hard for. Starting out at your basic coffee shop or retail job, it’s not like you have a real budget to work with. I wanted to buy chicken breast, and veggies, but the fact that I worked so many and such odd hours, didn’t guarantee that I’d even have time to prepare that food. Much less prepare and eat it before it’s expiration. Perishable food, at this point, was a risk. I could either buy the right kinds of food and risk it spoiling in my fridge before I even had the time to get to it, or I could play it safe and keep eating the way I had been basically since the beginning of my existence.
Did you know that the 99cent loaf of sandwich bread from stop and shop, dollar tree, and walmart, last close to about 2–2.5 weeks without spoiling? I bought artisan brean fresh from the oven one morning. Within 4 days, it had hardened and had mold growing on it. Fresh foods are for people who have the time to prepare and eat it right away, or have money that they can afford to let rot. I had neither. Cheap pasta’s, questionable breads and meats, and whatever donuts or leftover pizza I managed to bring home from my Dunkin’s and pizza shop job, were my survival.
Let’s so some math:
Simple Green Chicken, you can buy already seasoned or plain is 9 dollars a bag when it’s on sale. you have about 4–5 pieces of chicken. Each piece is good for about
A bundle of organic carrots is about 3.99
Let’s toss in a bundle of bananas because that’s a healthy cheap breakfast. 1.60
Great so for about 14 dollars you have enough food for about 2–3 days. 3 is a stretch. The calorie intake per day with this meal plan would be about 750–850. Which is unhealthy. So even eating healthy in this manner is unhealthy.
McDonald’s, Taco bell, Burger king…. They have value menus. So let’s keep the bananas for breakfast just because we can. that’s 1.60. and add lunch and dinner from their dollar menus for 3 days straight. This is close to about 7 dollars with tax. Maybe 8 because of the banana. The calorie intake will be a little higher, AND you have an assorted option of foods. Yes it’s unhealthy but it’s half the cost and you have more choices.
So in a month, the healthy fresh food would cost you a little over $140 a month. where as the other option would cost cost close to about $80.
Anually, thats $1,680 vs 960. I could literally pay a whole month of rent and utilities with the money I save by having a shitty diet plan.
Listen, I’m not doing this to defend crappy eating habits, some people just like junk food. All I’m saying is, that there’s more to a persons eating habits than meets the eye sometimes. I’ve been judged by so many of my friends who are doctors or accountants, who just didn’t understand how I can work so many hours, and still not have money for healthy foods. If I’m working in a low wage job, I don’t have the convenience of food that expires. I need whatever extra money I’m making, to make up for that gap between what you make and hour and what I make an hour. I get $9 and you get $18. Any extra hours I work, don’t indicate me making “extra” money, they indicate that I have to work twice as much as you to have almost the same as you. So what I eat is not my main concern, just eating is enough to satisfy for the time being.
((as mentioned before, this is no longer my current situation, i’m eating healthier and fresh foods almost daily although I do sometimes indulge in a burger now and then. This is just me expressing my frustration with people who say that eating healthy can be just as cheap as eating badly. It’s simply just not true in the majority of cases unless you grow your own food, but again, that would imply you have the time to tend to an entire garden))
p.s. sorry for not being a writer. Mostly just want to express my thoughts somewhere, and handwriting a journal gets straining.
