this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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A Boring Dystopia
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That's the key phrase in their post. They simply don't want to, so they've come up with excuses to justify that stance. Raw ingredients are always cheaper, but you have to put effort in to see the savings, they don't want to.
There is more upfront cost in acquiring some stuff, and that has to be amortized over many meals. Some spices are just... expensive if you're not using the whole container, so if the recipe calls for a pinch of something that's $7 for a one-time use, it gets pretty crazy pretty quick. Not that I went through this very recently.
I moved into an apartment with my girlfriend about 7 months ago and we had the same problem. Cooking everything ourselves was causing our grocery budget to balloon out of control because we had nothing in the pantry, no spices, no oil, no sauces, nothing. So every new dish was an extra upfront cost that would really only get used one time and then go back in the cabinet.
After about 3 months, it somewhat stabilized now that we have all the staples and it is cheaper to buy raw and cook ourselves, especially if you buy in bulk and freeze leftovers.
You can also soften the financial blow by eating more simply with less spices and fats, but that's definitely a tough pill to swallow for many.
You are absolutely right. Getting started is hard, and I think your point is similar to the Boots Theory. Luckily, the savings that can be had by buying basic staples and eating simply will compound and can be rolled forward into the next grocery trip where you can buy a spice or two.
Unseasoned rice, beans, or pasta is not anyone's ideal meal, but if you're truly in such dire straits that you cannot afford a spice, then the only way to move up is to buy as much bulk staples as you can on each grocery trip. Eventually you'll have enough of the basics that you can skip buying any staples and start buying spices.
Another issue many people have is just buying name-brand, or shopping at convenience-oriented stores. If you shop around, you can often find really good deals. I've also found that shopping at ethnic stores is really good for deals on bulk staples like rice and beans.
Calorie per cost isn't a useful measure unless you're a livestock animal. Heavily processed bullshit with more calories will leave you hungry in much less time than a well prepared meal with lots of unprocessed fiber.
I get that, and I had a similar problem when I was first living on my own. I specifically remember deciding to make lasagna from scratch, and when I went to the store to buy the ingredients, it came out to over $50 for one dish (this was probably 10 years ago too, so maybe more like $75 today).
These days I could make a very similar lasagna for about $15, and that would be enough for dinners for entire week or more. It's definitely not easy, but if you shop around I'm sure you can make it work. There are also a lot of online communities devoted to this very topic. Reddit had r/eatcheaplyandhealthy. Maybe you could start the same community here on Lemmy.
You have no fucking idea what you're talking about.