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a boring dystopia
late stage capitalism
Anyway poor people don't buy Kellogg's, it's overpriced. Poor people buy the generic cereals that come in those huge plastic ziplock resealable bags. Not only do they cost less but they have more intelligent useful packaging and the quality is fine too.
Almost every MaltOMeal cereal is better than the name brand version.
True. The really poor people buy the off brand Malt-O-Meal cereals.
Maybe the true cereals are the poor people we made along the way.
That's a profound statement, EdibleFriend.
I am as wise as I am delicious.
Don't do this, you'll be malnourished. Grains aren't a particularly good food group.
Potatoes don't require much prep, are generally cheap and filling, and will be much better nutrient wise. I'd still recommend rice and beans though. Canned beans work if you have no means to cook.
I seem to remember there being issues historically with poor people relying on potatoes as their food source
A lot of that was also the British taking Irish food supplies.
No way. The British would never take anything from someone else
It is not stealing if you declared it your land 50 years ago.
Yeah being on the genocide list of the English had more to do with that than the taters
Potatoes are also really easy to grow. If you ever forget about your potatoes and they sprout or you leave them in the sun and they get green, you can put them in a pot and grow fresh potatoes.
Fava beans are also extremely easy to grow.
"Fava beans are also extremely easy to grow"
They also pair nicely with liver and a nice chianti.
I recommend starting with the CEO of Kellogg.
Beans are cheaper dry than canned though. If you have the patience you can start them in a slow cooker before you go to work.
Garlic, onion, and peppers go miles in making beans taste good while also being cheaper.
A lot of people here are missing the fact that cereal doesn't require any additional cost, time, and/or effort to store and prepare (in a desperate situation you might even have it with water or dry if you can't access milk).
So while rice or potatoes might be a better meal, and the ingredients cheaper to buy (but not when you factor in cost and time of cooking), they may still not be an option for some.
For those who have never really been it - it'd blow your mind how expensive it is to be poor in so many different ways (a feature of capitalism, of course, not a bug).
Yeah, that is an excellent point. The time to actually prepare rice and beans comes at a premium when you're working multiple jobs to make ends meet.
Right, that's why fast food is thriving despite everyone knowing what shit it is - it fills a hole fast and cheap enough, and you're not using any of your own energy - physically from the utility, but also physically, and mentally, from yourself to prepare it (and before that you have to refrigerate ingredients or keep them frozen so you have to own and pay to run a fridge/freezer as well as an oven or toaster or hob, and before that you have to shop for ingredients, it all takes money, time, and energy of every kind).
The problem isn't how people go about trying to survive (like eating cereal for dinner), it's the people making billions off of the industries and institutions that require workers be in such a desperate state in the first place.
Yeah I know!
Not enough money to pay your bill it will cost you 75-90$ for being broke.
You buy small portions cause you can't afford bulk, it will cost you more in small portions.
You are alone ! No family rebate for you. You can't buy a home, well rent will cost you more than a mortgage.
Etc...
You can get a rice cooker for $20. Then, you can make rice and beans (with beans from a can) with virtually no effort.
You can also go from there if you have more time/money. Add cheese, hot sauce, salsa, avocado, make tacos, etc.
But I've survived many a meal with just rice from a rice cooker and a can of beans, and it's far more nutritious and has left me feeling far better than eating cereal would.
You can get a rice cooker for $20
If you need $20 dollars spare as the first step, and to continue to use electricity to power the thing as the second - it isn't accessible. Also - did it even cross your mind that if they could afford it, they would get one? It's not like rice cookers are this secret tool only a select few know about..
Seriously, I get that it can be hard to imagine conditions we haven't personally experienced, but it can't be that hard to understand what "dirt poor" actually means, nor to accept that poor people aren't poor by choice, nor are they surviving on cereals because they have better options they're just not utilising as well as you think you would in their shoes, which you are not, and clearly have never been, in.
for cash-strapped families
Is Kellogg's cereal even cheap at all?? I'm not in the US so I could only imagine but I'd guess it's not, is it?
Nothing here is cheap.
Gasoline is comparatively
Fun fact: if you were to drink a cup of gasoline, it would have enough calories to sustain you for the rest of your life!
Not really, no. I mean, it's cheaper than, like, steak, but it usually goes for twice as much or more than the store brand or bargain brand cereals.
People are broke and broken. They don't care anymore and settle for sugar frosted cardboard for dinner. This guy is up there smiling and thinking "all this misery is great for business!"
I can count my lucky stars my income level never dipped below the rice-and-beans povery level, but it has dipped below cereal made by Kellogs and General Mills. They're a false product like Nestlē baby formula as sold in Africa. They are expensive by the ounce and poor nutrition.
But if you are that dirt poor and have a 60 hour job then you may not have the time or energy to make rice. You're also stuck in bonded servitude. That is a profound level of fucked.
Pilnick is celebrating selling desperation food at inflated prices to slaves.
How long until French Revolution 2: Electric Boogaloo?
I'll ask Madame Guillotine if she is up for another round.
Meanwhile Rocket Mortgage over here telling me to refinance my house so I can afford groceries . . .
I really don't get this. Cereal is very expensive right now, at least here in the Midwest it is. I've seen small boxes upwards of $9. I'll admit that I don't eat cereal all that much these days, but I like it occasionally and when I went to pickup my favorite box, I decided it wasn't worth it. What cash strapped family is eating boxes of cereal for dinner when they could be eating much cheaper and filling foods like beans and rice? Heck, a case of ramen noodles is cheaper than cereal. Or maybe my area is the expensive cereal zone 🤷
That was my first response: who has the money for cereal in this economy? I tell you what, Mr. Kellogg, if it's breakfast for dinner it's going to be toast or porridge. I'm certainly not overpaying for glorified dried, smashed frozen corn.
Weren't corn flakes invented to suppress the urge to masturbate with their blandness or something?
I miss the days when psychologists thought everyone was obsessed with banging their parents and cocaine basically solves all your problems.
In what country is Kellog's cereal affordable to cash strapped families
I remembered being poor early in my life and eating cereal with water. Reading this shit makes me hate this man even more than I thought I could.
The thing that everyone ITT seems to be forgetting is that while yes making rice or beans or something similar can be cheap and also very filling. When someone is working 40+ hours a week at multiple jobs to keep a roof over their heads, depression is inevitable. Living paycheck to paycheck is stressful, anxiety inducing, and depressing. So when someone is exhausted and depressed, sometimes all they have the energy for is to pour a bowl of cereal, because anything beyond that is just too much.
Yes, cereal is bad. Yes, it's expensive. Yes, it's unhealthy. But what many people here are forgetting: There is a whole industry advertising cereal as a healthy breakfast (and now apparently dinner). You go into a supermarket and it is full of colourful boxes telling you what an awesome meal cereal is. Potatoes don't have that. There is no TV ad for potatoes. And yes, cereal tastes great, because of the sugar.
Every time I've eaten cereal for dinner, it was never because it was cheap. I've always had cheaper and healthier alternatives. Cereal for dinner isn't a poverty meal, it's a poor mental health meal.
I would eat vanilla-flavored sugar for every meal if my body’d be down for it