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Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)

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41–50 of 56 posts

Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)

#41
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An automatic breadmaker costs less than $50 and makes perfect bread every time for 30c of flour and electricity. It takes 5 minutes to set up and you just wake up to fresh bread. That's less time than you'd waste going to the grocery store every day. I take your point about everything else, but bread is the wrong example.

I work two part time low wage hourly jobs, where am I getting $50 for a bread maker? Plus the Great Value white bread is 99 cents, and the packaging tells me it’s healthy. Why am I motivated to spend my scarce money on making my own bread?

Can make flatbread in any crappy oven. You should be able to get a used dirty one for next to nothing. Don't even have to clean it, just let it burn empty for 45 minutes. 75C (167F) should be enough but on the highest settings it doesn't take as long.

Baking bread in a pan/pot on the stove is also doable. Research the recipes a bit.

Also, there is nothing wrong with pancakes.

Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)

#42
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t hard at all. Didn’t take me three minutes. It’s even a major brand available at a variety of US supermarkets. It’s not niche or “organic”. https://giantfood.com/product/land-o-lakes-half-half-cream-1...

I don’t buy half and half cream very often. I did not know that for a basic product they were selling items that aren’t just milk and cream. Ignorance on my part? Sure, but there is over a hundred different things I buy. It would be doing a audit everytime I go shopping.

>> doing a audit everytime I go shopping

Well, yes. You should be thinking about what you purchase and what goes into your body.

Once a product is vetted, you should be able to keep buying it with only periodic refresher checks at the ingredients.

Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)

#43

Just don't buy those foods. Buy fresh vegetables, tofu, and meat from the edges of the grocery store. Simple. Done.

Tofu is heavily processed, try again.

A good proxy is looking at the number of ingredients. The fewer, the better.

Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)

#44
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An automatic breadmaker costs less than $50 and makes perfect bread every time for 30c of flour and electricity. It takes 5 minutes to set up and you just wake up to fresh bread. That's less time than you'd waste going to the grocery store every day. I take your point about everything else, but bread is the wrong example.

I work two part time low wage hourly jobs, where am I getting $50 for a bread maker? Plus the Great Value white bread is 99 cents, and the packaging tells me it’s healthy. Why am I motivated to spend my scarce money on making my own bread?

White bread can't be made healthy. It's white bread! Try wheat bread

Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)

#45
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple in theory, snobby in practice. Making food from scratch is a time luxury. It often benefits from good/expensive kitchen equipment unless you want to spend even more time and labor. Let’s take bread as an example. I can buy it from the store for a dollar or two pre-sliced with preservatives and processing, or I can make it myself, which doesn’t really save any money. The fresh kind from the grocery store bakery…

> The fresh kind from the grocery store bakery with no preservatives costs more and goes bad faster. Lesson #1 when you become an adult, bread goes into the freezer when you get home so that it doesn't go bad.

Frozen bread is useless! I would put bread in the refrigerator though.

Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)

#46
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fresh kind from the grocery store bakery with no preservatives costs more and goes bad faster. Lesson #1 when you become an adult, bread goes into the freezer when you get home so that it doesn't go bad.

Okay, so what am I doing about the fact that buying anything in the produce section costs a lot? The dollars per calories basically makes no sense if I’m on an extreme budget. I can buy a pack of strawberries that will last the family a day or two for $5+ and has a total of 200 calories in the entire package and we go hungry, or I can buy something processed that’s calorie dense. Or I can buy something calorie dense…

I will tell you what I did in that situation. I ate the cheap, processed, calorie dense foods, until such time as I could move to a major metropolitan area with better economic opportunities.

Moving to that area (Northern Virginia) was my focus. I did it through sheer willpower and determination.

I had to essentially abandon family and friends to do it however. But I gave myself a better life outcome.

Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)

#47

why does the USA not have the concept of buying home made meals from other people? I have never heard of a lunch box service or people buying one

It's assumed that they are a bad actor, and the food is prepared under unsanitary conditions.

Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have health codes and regulations to prevent commercialization of food production in potentially substandard conditions. It prevents both good and bad things.

now that is absolutely terrible isnt it, if a person wants to start a cloud kitchen even at home, they should be able to do so unless it causes a disturbance to neighbors. as long as regular inspections can be arranged, this should be a non issue for starters. i have a feeling the BIG FOOD industry has rigged this section of the law so that their authority on ultra processed food is not challenged

Pro Tip: You're going to need a floor drain in your kitchen as a first step.

Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)

#49

It's hard to get much more processed than sugar itself. Out of everything else, that should be one that's easy to remember. Pure white crystals often indicate the presence of a chemical in its most concentrated form. Among other dangers, are the hazard of overdosing more easily, intentionally or not.

One time in Hawaii I was looking at a "Sugar in the Raw" type sugar packet. The sugar was grown in Hawaii, shipped to California for packaging, and shipped back to Hawaii, and distributed in trucks to the restaurant.

Re: Ultraprocessed foods make up to 70% of the US food supply (2025)

#50
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work two part time low wage hourly jobs, where am I getting $50 for a bread maker? Plus the Great Value white bread is 99 cents, and the packaging tells me it’s healthy. Why am I motivated to spend my scarce money on making my own bread?

> where am I getting $50 for a bread maker Save up? Buy it from a thrift shop? Whatever it is, it's cheaper than your previous assertion that breadbaking is impossible without a $300 stand mixer. > Why am I motivated to spend my scarce money on making my own bread? To save money and eat better. Again I take your point. Being poor is mentally taxing and is the result of many things having gone wrong in one's past. Oft…

Just save up, bro. lol

I literally witnessed someone just a couple days ago try to pay for some food at my corner store with EBT, was told by the cashier it wasn’t accepted, so she emptied her basket of all the stuff she wanted and bought a single food item.

Except the item was $6 and change, and she only had 5 single dollars in her wallet. So the cashier out of sympathy just took the $5 and let her have it.

The fuck your mean, save up?

If you think bread is the wrong example then I’ll just point to the obvious high cost of fresh fruit and vegetables. An entire pound of strawberries has less than 200 calories. If you are counting pennies and dollars these kinds of healthy foods make zero logical sense to buy.

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