this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2026
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Aside from all the other issues with this, $3 a meal per person is $270-$280 per person per month on food. Many people can't afford that anyway.

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[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Nazi Germany also promoted 10 pfennig meals for poor. Iirc that was groats plus pig lard and salt.

[–] communism@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I probably spend under 50 USD a month on food—not by choice, because I can't afford to buy more. I'm not hungry but I do yearn for being able to eat with more variety and to eat more expensive foods as a treat from time to time. So yeah, I think this is just out of touch, although I've never been in the US and I understand the food is both more expensive there plus people have more money there, so maybe it's less unreasonable in the US.

But if you consider that's per person, so a family of four would be spending well over $1000 a month on food under this plan, it's unachievable for most I would say.

[–] BabyTurtles@hexbear.net 30 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I mean the real funny part was "a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, corn tortilla and one other thing".

Eat like a privileged gym bro but just really tiny portions mkay?

[–] chgxvjh@hexbear.net 7 points 7 hours ago

The only I'm reaching my calories with this "recipe" for 9€ is by mostly stuffing myself with tortillas. Not very whole foods.

[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 34 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (5 children)

If people can eat for that cheap wouldn't it just be a negligible amount off the top of a billionaire's wealth to feed everyone?

Starting to think they don't care if we eat

[–] LeninWalksTheEarth@hexbear.net 9 points 7 hours ago

work until you die, while under a caloric deficit.

[–] DragonBallZinn@hexbear.net 9 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Not to mention just how stupid the porks are for quite literally going “whole hog” on this.

The porks aren’t hiring at the moment, and this is reserve army of labor, no? How are they supposed to actually have workers to stand by and wait for them to be in the hiring mood if all the workers they’re “saving for later” starve?

How are they supposed to actually have workers to stand by and wait for them to be in the hiring mood if all the workers they’re “saving for later” starve?

"The slave is sold once and for all; the proletarian must sell himself daily and hourly. The individual slave, property of one master, is assured an existence, however miserable it may be, because of the master's interest. The individual proletarian, property as it were of the entire bourgeois class which buys his labor only when someone has need of it, has no secure existence." - Engels

[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 11 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I think in the time of monsters a lot of this rational thinking is completely gone

[–] Self_Sealing_Stem_Bolt@hexbear.net 6 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Fsilsons with years of covid brain damage are running the show now. Theres nothing but the barest understanding of the ideology that justfies this shit. They are flying blind.

[–] DragonBallZinn@hexbear.net 5 points 7 hours ago

I am calling for all of us to collect these fuckups as receipts. Chuds pride themselves as white men naturally being able of running everything well, just collect these receipts and ask them again if they call rising poverty and inflation “well-run”?

All of this to appease the egos of 27% of the US population. I hate it here and I hate the Antichrist.

[–] Gucci_Minh@hexbear.net 16 points 10 hours ago

I wonder what their plan is once there's no more need for proletarians and we all starve to death. Do the handful of billionaires just hang out in New Zealand surrounded by robobutlers?

[–] LeninWeave@hexbear.net 8 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

That's only cheap if they're prepared meals TBH. If it's cost of ingredients it's not that cheap.

Still easy to feed everyone, though.

[–] Euergetes@hexbear.net 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 1 points 8 hours ago

Yeah first time

[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 22 points 10 hours ago

A spokesperson did say their analysis showed "hundreds of thousands" of other options to eat healthy for $3 a meal, built around foods including poultry, cottage cheese, frozen broccoli, sweet and white potatoes, frozen blueberries, whole grain bread and butter.

no beans or pulses lol

You always get the feeling this sort of thing is heavily informed by what I call "gas price thinking" in that the anchor point for prices is the cheapest once in a year fluke deal you could find and then assume that is what things cost all the time

[–] DogThatWentGorp@hexbear.net 15 points 9 hours ago

They'll literally do anything else before any kind of wealth redistribution, huh?

[–] CarbonConscious@hexbear.net 19 points 10 hours ago

I mean I like that something like this is being considered at least. It's always been a bafflement to me that the liberal establishment hasn't tried to trot out more of these actually ameliorative programs for food or housing, let alone health care.

It's always disheartening to hear the numbers about how much it would cost to just outright end homelessness, child starvation, etc. Because usually the numbers are less than that year's military budget increase. Like, we can't even pretend to try?

That said, $3 a meal as an answer to poverty starvation does give very how-much-could-it-cost vibes.

[–] WIIHAPPYFEW@hexbear.net 18 points 10 hours ago (3 children)

That’s like a single microslice of banana bread from a convenience store lmao

[–] infuziSporg@hexbear.net 2 points 1 hour ago

A single packaged slice of banana bread from the convenience store has you on the short side of economies of scale, twice over.

A banana bread loaf from a grocery store will cost around $4, for eight of those slices. If you buy the mix and make it yourself, it's $1.50 at most.

A bunch of bananas (1 kg), 1/2 of a 5-pound bag of all-purpose flour, 1/16 of a box of baking soda, 1/6 of a 48oz bottle of neutral oil, and 1 quart of whole milk will give you at least 3 good loaves that aren't loaded with sugar- close to a day and a half of caloric needs- and run you up about $4.90 at the grocery store.

I had to know this intuitively from the time I fed myself on $50 a month.

[–] SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 8 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

A candy bar is like $2, on what planet am I getting a chicken breast, broccoli, and a soft tortilla for $3????????

[–] segfault11@hexbear.net 7 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

they said a piece of chicken, technically one bite is a piece

[–] SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)
[–] HexReplyBot@hexbear.net 2 points 7 hours ago

I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

[–] DragonBallZinn@hexbear.net 6 points 8 hours ago

Something something cruelty is the point, but I hate being lectured on people on how that is “stealing”, but porky refusing to make jobs and fulfill his end of the bargain, let alone wage theft ISN’T stealing?

[–] SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 23 points 11 hours ago

I just spent $100 on groceries the other day, it only got me 15 things and my fridge is already empty.

[–] Wmill@hexbear.net 23 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

And when restaurants go under we'll be blamed for it too, honestly I do less then three but like that shit takes planning and effort and this person clearly hasn't shopped in ages for their own food shit is going up and makes planning harder

[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 10 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Infrastructure is also so often ignored. I know years back when me and my friends were poor a lot of them were in some sort of rinkydink housing on account of being poor and what you get his maybe a mini-kitchennette, usually with no freezer and a minifridge which makes buying cheap and preparing bigger batches to save time so much harder

[–] Wmill@hexbear.net 12 points 9 hours ago

True not to mention if I'm taking the bus or walking no way am I gonna bring home a 50 lbs bag of beans home and have to settle for paying more for smaller quantities

[–] chgxvjh@hexbear.net 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Then you have some recipes that work for, then some of the ingredients spike in price and it's no longer really feasible but you get told that rise in grocery prices is below inflation on average.

[–] Wmill@hexbear.net 1 points 5 hours ago

Yeah at this point I don't do recipes more stables with various flavor variations based on what I got on hand

[–] Abracadaniel@hexbear.net 15 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Something I learned from China travel videos is that $3usd gets you a great meal in many parts of China.

[–] Soot@hexbear.net 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

As someone who went to China, I can tell you that less than one dollar will get you a great meal, like enough steamed dumplings to fill you for a day. 3USD will be a hecka good noodle bowl, drink and dessert in the right shops. 7USD will get you a fancy sushi meal with all the extras.

And that was just what my dumb ass found, there are probably many cheaper, better places.

[–] Elysia@hexbear.net 14 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

doggirl-sweat That'd be about double what I aim for per month in Euro, as a fellow poor (though I have time to cook for myself, which saves a lot of money)

If that's an improvement... things are pretty rough

[–] InevitableSwing@hexbear.net 16 points 10 hours ago

What American pols (republican and democrat) never address is that due to structural problems it's insanely difficult if not impossible for poor Americans to eat healthy food. There are food deserts. Fresh fruit and vegetables are often hard/impossible to come by. Cheap food is pumped full of high-fructose corn syrup. Etc. These issues need to be addressed by state and federal governments.

Now that I'm thinking about it - I wonder how often AOC or Bernie talk about this problem. I have no idea. My wild guess is that they give it lip service once in a while.

[–] deforestgump@hexbear.net 5 points 11 hours ago (2 children)
[–] DisabledAceSocialist@hexbear.net 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)
[–] deforestgump@hexbear.net 4 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

If you can, try to use archive.ph or any other archiving service. A lot of folks have websites like this blocked or can't access them for various reasons.

I've changed it to a different site.