> Why is quality food reserved only for rich people?
Are you kidding?
Are you kidding?
Big food processing firms have been decreasing the quality of food over the years to keep the price low. No more yoghurt but "milk preparations". No more raw milk cheese costly but tasty. Biscuits are getting smaller. Fruits are tasteless and full of pesticides. Let's not even talk about swine, which almost no one knows the real taste anymore since it is produced in industrial facilities and then chemically processed to give it the "standard" tase and color. All of these were not happening on such a large scale 30 or 40 years ago.
My point is that there are other variables to take into account other than prices. Quality is one. You think you have more, but is it of the same quality as before?
You said quality food was reserved only for rich people. People with a median income in western countries can comfortably afford to regularly eat locally grown, ethically-produced, non-intensive farm-shop food if that's what they're into. Bill Gates & Donald Trump aren't eating higher quality food than they are.
Personally, I don't find it to be worth it, I don't notice the "quality" as much as some people seem to and I'm not willing to pay even a small premium for it. You've picked a few particular things, some of which only appeal to a very small niche market - you might argue that people have learned out "quality" in their tastes, but that's an opinion, not a fact.
I'm not sure what the parent meant by this. Quality what? Lobsters? Fresh fruit and vegetables; nuts, seeds, and whole grains; animal flesh - these are all relatively inexpensive compared to processsed "value added" food products, regardless of where you are in the world.
So - can I taste the difference? In what way is it "higher quality"? Is it a difference I'm willing to pay for or one that isn't really worth it? I think we've settled with what we have because the quality improvement just isn't that much, if it's noticeable at all.
I've compared many organic and local products side by side with commodity variants and found little to no difference to my tastes, so I have to wonder - is it worth it at all? Certainly not to my cheap palate at least.
This whole "I don't have enough time to not neglect myself" it just excuses all the way down. Everyone can find time to exercise and eat well.
People using "not enough time" as an excuse is just a symptom of low self-esteem and self-neglect, which is the real issue. That's the epidemic, and there's great inequality there, though it isn't tied to socioeconomic status.
I'm glad that you've never been in a position where you were under mental stress.
I have, and distracting myself only made it worse, and made it harder to come up with solutions. Why aren't the people who watch TV meditating instead? Rest isn't why people watch TV.
If the harder you worked, the more entertainment you needed, CEOs would be spending 12 hours a day watching TV.
Again, the root problem isn't socioeconomics. There is an inequality, but it's in mindset. It's inside, not environmental.
If you're working something unskilled or where there's no shortage of workers? And you're living paycheque-to-paycheque in the first place? That's mentally distressing on a long-term scale, on top of requiring more physical work. It's not something that's ever going to get fixed - education is unaffordable even before you realise that your kids are going to starve while you're seeking it.
CEOs do not do physical work most of their workday, by the way, so even if the point was solely about physical exhaustion your point would be moot. They are also broadly not worried about not being able to pay their bills.
Basically - there's an intersection of issues which low-wage workers suffer from. Job insecurity causes many of them. The solution is to ensure that people don't feel like they're going to struggle to keep their living-place and pay their bills when they lose their job.