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I'm pretty sure Ramen noodles actually aren't terrible, health-wise, as long as you don't dump in their flavor packet. That thing is basically pure fat.
Of course unhealthy food is a big factor in people gaining unnecessary weight over a gradual time period along with the possibility of one becoming obese but I think the issue is more of laziness and binge eating.
I realized many overweight people tend to binge eat EACH meal. Instead of watching one's portions, overweight individuals really tend to BEAST on their food. Not just once, not just twice, but every meal almost. Binge eating is a problem even if it's done once a day imo.
Laziness is a factor since most people just want a quick fix with their meals as preparing food and such can seem like a waste of time.
But anyway.. I don't necessarily think wealth between the poor and rich is the main factor.. It's more of managing how you eat and of course getting the proper exercise as much as possible
Not everyone poor is on food stamps. When we were really broke, my husband refused to apply for food stamps. According to the online calculator, we would have been eligible for $115/month. That would have stretched our food budget a lot further. My husband said he'd rather go hungry than take a handout, so we did. If I didn't know how to cook, we would have been much worse off.
So here's a question? Is it better to eat cheap, high carb food because that's all you can afford, or to get food stamps so you can eat healthier?
Well, tell your husband I salute him. There was a time when people took pride in not being on handouts and he sounds like a throwback to that era. I've also been unemployed and just lived off my savings.
If all you can afford is cheap food, you eat less of it (because you need less of it). In other words, you keep hearing these stories about how a Whopper could sustain a small African village calorically for a week. OK, so you cut it in half and share it, instead of two people each with a Whopper. Bonus: you also saved some money. (I do this, too, BTW, so I follow my own suggestions.)
I'm pretty sure Ramen noodles actually aren't terrible, health-wise, as long as you don't dump in their flavor packet. That thing is basically pure fat.
The fat is in the noodles, the salt and MSG are in the flavor packet.
Starches are cheaper than protein (meat, fish fowl, dairy), and starches are what make you fat. Some people can't afford to buy protein, except in the form of beans, so they live on rice and beans, or noodles, or potatoes. Those aren't "unhealthy" per se, but as a steady constant diet, they're fattening. On a minimal budget of food stamps, though, you can feed a family on that, see? Someone with kids to feed can't afford to give them meat, or not much. And they "extend" the meat by mixing it in with a lot of potatoes. You'd be surprised how many kids were raised on Spam that was fried and "extended" with potatoes or macaroni.
Is eating healthy too costly for people on food stamps or a low income?
I did an experiment where I ate nothing but non-processed foods for 30 days, so it was a very healthy menu consisting mostly of lean meat (not much of a red meat fan nor do I care for fish), fruits and veggies, and I did have milk. I shopped at the same grocery store I always do and my weekly grocery bill was more than double that what it is when I have a mix of processed and non-processed.
Being that I'm allergic to yeast and onions, which are in about 85-90% of packaged foods, and I try to avoid wheat, I don't eat a lot of processed foods as it is. Even still, I was shocked by how much more my grocery bill was.
I guess to truly answer this question for yourself, if you aren't already eating a completely healthy diet, try buying only healthy foods and see if it makes a difference to your food bill. Time of year will also impact this-I did it in the spring so a lot of produce wasn't in season yet and therefore more expensive: 78c for an avocado, for example, when they are as low as 58c in the summer.
The fat is in the noodles, the salt and MSG are in the flavor packet.
There's no fat in noodles, except for a little vegetable oil or sometimes an egg yolk is included in the mix. Noodles are basically flour, water, some egg white, and a little oil.
I don't know how to cook at all, for example, but you can sort of figure out how to make scrambled eggs pretty easily. And please don't say "they can't afford a frying pan." Look, the amount of money people get, they can afford a frying pan.
But living on, say, scrambled eggs because they are inexpensive doesn't really represent a balanced diet, either. It's better than living on potato chips, obviously, but let's not say that a diet of eggs (or a diet of oatmeal, or a diet of peanut butter sandwiches, or any other commodity that can be found in bulk at food pantries and other outlets that help feed the hungry) is balanced and utterly healthful.
FWIW, re: ramen noodles, the seasoning packets are mostly just salt. The real nutritional void comes in the with carbohydrate overload of the noodles, themselves. Noodles occasionally aren't going to impact you that much. Using them as a dining staple with no accompanying nutritious items? Not ideal, no.
Where I live, the farmer's markets are now set up to take EBT cards...but buying very much farmer's market produce at that particular price point will eat up one's alloted food assistance $$$ quite quickly. So is it better for a person on food stamps to use up their funds on a few handfuls of organic carrots and free-range eggs at the farmer's market, or go to the dollar store and get a bunch of cans of tuna and a few loaves of white bread and a flat of Maruchan ramen?
Availability is definitely an issue. I suspect that people often consider the urban poor, but rural folks living in poverty get hit by this hard, as well (and also suffer from a comparative dearth of social services programs, sizeable local charities, food pantries, soup kitchens, etc.). In my hometown (a rural, isolated Midwestern farming community over an hour's drive from any significant center of population), there is one food store, a regional chain grocer. There was previously a discount, Sav-A-Lot grocery store where people who could not afford the prices of the large regional chain could go to stretch their money further with discount brands and cases in bulk when on sale. That store closed, and now people have no choice but to pay the higher prices at the remaining store, which sets their prices quite high, due to there being no competition. It is very difficult for fixed-income senior citizens, the working poor, etc. When I go in there on visits home, I am always shocked by the prices...they are incredibly high for the area.
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