[chneu]

Whenever food stuff comes up it becomes very apparent that most people are super ignorant about food prep. I get the vibe it's mostly on purpose so folks don't have to prep food and can just order stuff or buy cheap. Idk, but it's very normalized nowadays to know absolutely nothing about cooking/baking. Its a weird status symbol thing, maybe?

I'm not saying folks make a conscious decision to never learn how to cook or food prep. I mean as a society, there are constant excuses given to us. Over time more and more people fall victim to saying no to learning. This reinforces itself, "everytime I try something I fail", so folks never learn. It's sad to see how widespread this mentality is. We trade our skills for convenience then complain when we have no skills and the convenience has worn off.

[dangus]

This ignorance comes from a barely-regulated advertising industry and an inadequate and highly unequal education system, which is a lot of the point I’m trying to make.

Don’t lose sight of what it’s really like to be poor. Being poor means having very little time, and mostly thinking about survival. Learning to cook from scratch is a real hobby and something of a luxury. This isn’t the pre-industrial era where peasants had ample free time, this is an era where the poorest people have the least amount of time. They and their parents work multiple jobs for long hours with no paid time off.

It’s also a system where healthier food costs more and there’s no good societal way to offset that and make nutrition more equally accessible. (Let’s not forget the federal government recently playing political games with SNAP)

Let’s also talk about food deserts. I am an upper middle class person and I once lived on the border of one of the poorest areas of a rust belt city with declining population.

I once went into a big chain grocery store because it was close by, but it was the B tier store for the poor local population.

I shit you not, they did not carry tortellini. One of the most common pastas you can find in an American supermarket. Not fresh, not frozen, not dry. They didn’t have it. I asked an employee and they said they don’t carry it, it wasn’t out of stock or anything.

This was a full grocery store, which the community was lucky to have instead of just a corner cigarette and energy drink store, and they didn’t have a basic staple pasta.

[Izikiel43]

Did they have vegetables, grains and some kind of meat? (Beef, chicken, fish?)

Tortellini are common, yes, but I wouldn't consider a grocery a food desert because of that. Food desert is the grocery never having stock of more basic things, like milk, oil, meat, that's a real food desert, and I've seen that happen in a high inflation country.