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Comment by icantevenhold | Hacker News Reader

n=1 but when I was visiting the US I was amazed how expensive real food ingredients were and how cheap fast food. I was kinda broke back then and could rarely afford real food and mostly ate fast food. Where I live it’s mostly the other way around. Never really understood how that works

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Processed food ingredients in the US are highly subsidized by the US government. The resulting processed foodstuffs are shelf stable, widely distributed, and trounce local options in the market place through sheer scale. More often than not, "real food" == "health food" == "luxury item". It's unfortunate and unhealthy.

Why are they subsidised?I mean what if the rationale, is it through lobbying or as some policy decision

I assume that shelf stable foods are easier for people who live in food deserts or have uneven incomes to maintain. If you live an hour away from a grocery store, fressh produce becomes less of a priority. Honestly having to shop less often than weekly, makes you consider shelf stable foods more. Being low income, makes you consider them just because it's cheaper and I think it's reasonable for the government to prefer to finance food that can last a long time since recipients of the food might not be able to acquire it often.

I also think people forget that there are several regions in the US where keeping a couple weeks of food on hand is not just a choice, it's a realistic smart decision because of the common occurrence of natural disasters.

The majority of people in the US live more than an hour away for a grocery store?

I think >90% of people live in an urban area where that is not the case so I don’t think it would make sense to massively shape policy for those few that live in the country.

Actually (again n=1) the people that I met that lived in the country had vastly better and cheaper access to unprocessed food than those in urban areas.

I reckon it’s more a culture thing than anything based on “cold logic”

> Processed food ingredients in the US are highly subsidized by the US government.

The government subsidizes the crops used in processed foods, specifically corn, soybeans, wheat, sugar crops.

But these crops also supply animal feed, fuel, exports, and ordinary foods.

Fast food isn’t actually cheap compared to real food. Large fry at mcd is like $4-5 now. That gets you a lot of russets at the grocery store in comparison.

Most people don’t grocery shop for base ingrediants in the US. Produce section and base ingredients are like a small fraction of the grocery store by shelf area. Most people don’t know how to cook for themselves. Price out lean chuck from costco and estimate how many 1/8th lb big mac patties you can make from that.

not just you.

whole and fresh prepared foods are pricey in the US.

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