A box of cereal is like $6 and all sugar. It will provide 3-4 bowls of cereal for that price, with no actual nutrition. If you can afford a box of cereal a day, you can live on instant noodles instead for like 3 days and have the 20 for a brand new rice cooker. Or just go to the thrift store.

Cereal is not a poor person food. It is not nutritious, cheap, or filling. It is an expensive box of sugar. I get that it can be hard to imagine conditions we haven't personally experienced, but it can't be THAT hard to do basic math and put yourself in that situation for one second to understand that eating cereal for every meal is not cheap or sustainable.

[–] frostysauce@lemmy.world 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Is there a word for mansplaining to poor people? Because that's how that came off.

[–] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

nah I've been eating from bins poor and you can also just eat beans from the can cold. I'm not saying you'll love life but you can survive around a year before serious deficiencies and it's much much much cheaper per calorie than cereal.

Importantly it also has proteins so you can actually keep working/moving around etc. You can basically only sell your body (begging, stealing, sex work, or labor) at that point so you need it to work.

Rice is bulk and calories but stale bread from supermarket bins is free and can be eaten cold. Steal bolt cutters from the back of a car at a job site and you're golden for getting into supermarket bins.

[–] UNWILLING_PARTICIPANT@sh.itjust.works 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I didn't even grow to that poor, but knew people who ate worse just because the battle of everyday life took every last ounce of gumption they had.

Luckily my ma knew about food and cooking, so we did alright, but I had a lot of little friends who were totally totally lost when it came to feeding themselves.

Hell right now I know middle aged men pulling six figures who are hurting nutritionally, and it's like impossible to educate them to a better way to take care of themselves, despite money not actually being an issue

[–] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I guess I was lucky in some ways because my family coming from Polish invasion survivors meant that I was raised with a strong emphasis on healthy peasant food. My grandparents in particularly always made sure we ate heartily, so when I was on my own for a bit and had to survive I knew that I needed crap like veggie stews and not instant noodles.

When I went to uni it was baffling sneaking in to the student accomodation to visit my girlfriend and seeing rich kids with literal fucking scurvy and shopping carts full of pasta and mince + instant noodles. Like friends, please eat a carrot.

[–] Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 8 months ago

That's a great last sentence, I might start using.

Friend please eat a carrot.

[–] Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Nah it's like $4 max or you go with generic, and it sure as shit is more then 3-4 bowls lmfao

[–] Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 months ago

Even generics are more expensive than that now a days. It's like 5 plus taxes for the small box or generics.