Needing community support to buy 1kg of carrots is kind of insane.

> As I've said elsewhere, my relatives lived in the middle of nowhere, and had to travel 60 miles - an hour and a half each way - to go to the Costco to stock up on staples.

That's a very exceptional situation and not really representative of how most people live.

> You have to drive for 15 minutes to a grocery store??? Oh, misery. The world is coming to an end.

Well yes, polluting the world with inefficient land use forcing 100s of millions to drive everytime they want to buy milk is a problem.

This is specially a problem when you can only go when you don't have to work and maybe at those time there is also traffic. So you only go once a week or every 2 weeks, meaning you end up buying less perishable foods.

15min, lol, in 15min I walk to the shop, buy something and I'm back home already.

Also, simply complaining that people are how they are isn't helpful, its just a reality of the situation. You can either have an urban planning and infrastructure policy that supports what makes people lives better, or you don't.

As long as I can have someone peeling my grapes and feeding them to my\e one at a time, I'll be happy. I just cannot be incovenienced, it is the right of all Americans.

I really don't understand your attitude or even the point you are trying.

You act like suberbia exists without infrastructure and to support the live-style you advocate nothing needs to happen, its just free.

And what I am advocating is somehow a privilege that all Americans should be granted and this privilege is a luxury.

This is the exact opposite. A society driving every time they have to buy basic items, large roads connecting to even larger connecting roads connecting to absurdly huge parking lots going into gigantic grocery store to buy basic food comes at an absurd cost.

Please actually inform yourself on the cost of those infrastructures, there is a reason most US towns are basically bankrupt. Why so many roads in the US are falling apart, because you simply can't afford it with the property taxes the city produces. The amount of infrastructure required here is a gigantic privilege and the results can be seen in places like Detroit.

However the more dense mixed use development I advocate for is actually a huge efficient. Its less pollution, produces more taxes then it consumes, less traffic and so on.

There are good data visualization that prove this beyond a reasonable doubt, check out Urban3 (they have lots of resources on YT and other places presenting these results to cites): https://www.urbanthree.com/

ok.....

You are talking about city infrastructure and stuff that I'm not talking about. If you want to have a utterly completely different conversation about tearing down every single house and every single road, and do a big do-over, I guess we can do that.

But I'm just talking about how poor people can buy a tuna fish sandwich, dude.

Luckily, this is literally the only inconvenience that poor Americans face, and very manageable with all their free time. /s

Growing up, it took us 45 min one-way to drive to the closest grocery store my parents could afford. Thankfully we had enough space in the house to buy in bulk, but unfortunately that doesn’t help you with fresh produce. Did it kill us? No. Was it a shitty way to live? Yes. Even as a kid I recognized the stress it put on my mom.

I now live a mile from a grocery store, so I usually walk or bike there. Shockingly, it’s much easier to stay healthy and regularly eat fresh foods this way.

I don't understand - was this 45 minutes in a car or public transportation like a bus?

If you didn't have a car, make a friend. Find a friend that has a car that you can shop with. It's not that difficult and people like to help other people.

I don't know about your produce, but in my family, we all went to the orchards and picked our own. then we would freeze and can for 2 entire days.

My parents would buy an entire cow (we had a very big family), and hire a butcher to cut it up, and we put all that in two freezers we had in our garage.

Everything can be done, it just takes work and imagination to figure out how. I know, I've been there too.

And as I mentioned elsewhere, many in my family have lived in the middle of nowhere, and had to drive 1 1/2 hours to go to Costco. They did this about once per month and load up on the staples - bulk buying.

Actually, frozen and canned produce is much better nutritionally. This is because the produce is picked at it's peak nutritional value and taste. For fresh produce, a lot of times it is picked early because of transportation times.

I have a bunch of frozen and canned fruits and vegetables, they are great.

I could go on all day about what one can do. But it falls on deaf ears, all the time, like yours. Instead of being open, you shut completely down. Instead of saying, "Wow, how interesting, I don't think it can be done, but I want to know how you do it." But no, you answer with a sarcastic remark, so I know where you are at, mentally. Which is closed down and defensive.

I remember talking to a friend of mine - I told her she should purchase her next pair of prescription glasses at Zenni optical for $15-$40 for frames and lenses. I must have told her at least 6 to 8 times in our conversations, as we saw each other daily. She asked me how to save money, so not like I forced it on her. Well, after all our discussions, she went into a local optomitrist and spend $500+ on her glasses. Trust me, she was poor as f. This is why the poor stay poor. Even when I tried to help, she self sabotages. And this is by far the only person I've had this experience with, people who ask my help, and I give my opinion, and then they go off and blow their money anyways.

The point is that people don't care if you have suggestions of how to make their lives easier. They would rather do it the same way, even if it takes 45 minutes one way instead of finding a friend with a car to carpool with. Again, I don't know if that was your case, but other people have said they can't do anything because they have to ride public transportation.

It is sad, because here I am on this post, offering my assistance, and most of what I'm getting is vitriol, instead of people trying to learn, or even consider what I'm saying and simply ask questions to me as to how it is done.

Sad.

My guy, your tone and your insistence on the laziness and self-sabotaging tendencies of the poor would lend one to believe that you’re not being entirely altruistic. But fine, benefit of the doubt granted.

Of course it’s possible to eat healthily when poor, and I can appreciate your suggestions, but your example itself has demonstrated that it’s time-consuming and logistically difficult. It’s very fortunate that your family had the money and space to be able to buy in bulk, but you must recognize that this isn’t an option for everyone, especially on a strict budget. It’s also fortunate that your family lived close to orchards and had the space and free time to spend canning foods for later.

Please try to imagine how your solutions would be accomplished by someone who was already struggling with some of the other problems of being poor, such as lack of access to childcare, transportation, and/or medical care. It’s not impossible to manage all these things, but even with the suggestions you’ve provided, it’s another drain on one’s time and energy. Nobody wants that for their friends/family.

Zenni is legit though: quick, cheap, and passable quality. I tell everyone about them too. Weird that your friend didn’t decide to use them. I wonder if her optometrist warned her against the competition?