provided they have the financial means to be eating something less processed of course
They're victims of a shitty world that heavily advertises to them every waking second, distorts choice, and constantly saps away everyone's energy, time and interest to look after themselves (and others).
Remember, primitive human societies >5000 years ago were pretty much exclusively eating organic food, fresher than any food you've ever bought in a store ever, which was probably picked that same day. At least one meal a day was probably cooked by a person or people in your community that loves to cook, is very experienced with it, and knows your exact tastes, needs and preferences.
Yet if I want a same-day-as-harvest organic food, prepared by a dedicated, skilled chef who knows my personal palette, I have to be a multimillionaire. I'm lucky if I can even get real, unadulterated food that isn't mouldy, never mind the rest of it.
Only in the past ~5 years have I realised how most fruit and veg are just now mealy, old, and unpalatable now. I've found one brand of apple in one store that actually where they're picked in the past year, never mind day. Berries are all sugar and water now, flavour is gone, overfarmed soil has meant a lot of vegetables have a lot less nutrient and taste. These things actually used to be far more desirable to eat, but we're being hoodwinked into thinking this is normal and edible products of nothingness are called "food" instead.
I'm not sure if it's my place to feel any way about this, because it really isn't my business. I would also like someone to define this "slop"? Honestly microwaved meals at least where I am are perfectly ok basic food, there is nothing wrong with them.
I'm also going to question if people that "refuse to eat anything but slop" actually meaningfully exist. Every person on a more restricted diet I have ever met has had some reason for it, like my kid who is ADHD and never was able to eat all that much variety even though it was on offer.
There is a lot of elitism around food tbh and many foods that are "slop" to some are just food to others. There are also people who are sensitive in ways that only allow somewhat restricted diets. Then there is depression, alienation and other pretty big things that probably play a role in how motivated people are to cook for themselves. Stress, disability, age, being overworked and so on.
Also some people can't cook, maybe nobody taught them or maybe they just don't care about food that much, which imo is fine. In this day and age we can buy perfectly ok ready meals, so is this really a problem if somebody chooses to do that?
There are also differences in access to produce depending on where you are in the world.
There are also a lot of racist brainworms around food that often show up in the whole foods eating circles so I would also consider that when putting value judgements to foods. Maybe not do that at all?
A middle class lifestyle seems so depressing. I'd rather break my back cooking than be sitting at a desk all day. My kitchen job drains my energy for home cooking and other such activities which sucks, but I think I'd be a lot worse off if I were in some middle class nothing job.
these are all really good points tbh. I assume that I know the type of person that the OP means, and I do know maybe 2 people like that, but besides those two my experience matches yours, that there is always some reason behind it. its way too easy for these types of posts to devolve into "DAE hate <group that likes thing>" so probably better to just avoid pointless posts about it
When I think of microwave meals I'm thinking of like hungry man meals and other such TV dinners, which are not what I'd qualify as nutritious or good tasting or even "ok", (and I don't have a refined palate like, at all, I eat tons of garbage, that one just never appealed to me)
Yeah that's just me. I ran out of effort to even put things in the air fryer most of the time so I switched to microwaveable frozen meals. It's honestly healthier since the meals usually have some vegetables and are very controlled portions calorie wise.
you could try mixing it up with some bags of microwave frozen veggies. toss some salt or lemon pepper on there and you're good to go
Yeah and especially frozen Indian stuff from Trader Joe's can be way healthier and tastier than the easy fried options! Sorry you're having to deal with feeling like that. Glad you're feeding yourself some okay things!
It may be hard to easily distinguish poverty and fatigue from voluntary and willing choices.
Living in a food desert and being poor is one thing, but then there's being the vestige of the middle class and choosing Hot Pockets every day.
Thank you, at least you understood what i meant.
Im not judging anybody who cant afford something more, or someone who's spectrum disorder makes them gravitate towards particular foods.
The vegetables, fruit, and bread in my small town grocery store are literally molding and rotting on the shelves. Frozen things are sometimes the only thing I can safely feed my family unless I can drive a half hour to a bigger grocery store, and then those things are rotting after 3 days instead of the next day.
The empire is crumbling.
The vegetables, fruit, and bread in my small town grocery store are literally molding and rotting on the shelves.
This is America? 😐 What the fuck
It has, in my experience, made hosting events with food and meal sharing in households more difficult for me. Trying to do both "no onions" and "gluten free" made me give up meal sharing in that household.
everyone is focusing on the "I just can't be bothered, I have too much else going on/am too depressed to care/etc." type of person, which is probably more common (it's basically me most weeks) but I assume you're asking about people who legitimately just have an extremely bland restricted palate and don't like to try new things outside of it, which I think is a separate category really.
I try not to make any assumptions cause it could just as easily be mental health or allergies or other things outside their control, but I do know one or two people who don't fit into any of those categories and are just like, big adult babies about it and try to drag everyone else with them to have pizza or chicken tenders or burgers for the 50th time because they don't want to have anything else or ever try anything new. Those people I think are a bit lame in a group setting, but harmless
this likely applies mostly to western, dual or single income adults trying to keep afloat with no household support:
i think time and exhaustion from work, family, etc are the #1 factors after financial means
it used to be convenience but i think that's cover (by the corps that sell the slop) for "everyone is so drained and few can afford professional chefs"
I'd love to see a full communist restaurant one day. I love serving people, making them tasty food. But because of alienation, I don't always love my job. I wish I could just keep on doing what I'm doing and make a livable wage. I'm doing better than I was on minimum wage, but 16/hr still isn't really worth it. Restaurants making all the food just makes sense. They have all the food, and all the staff to do it, I can serve 2000+ a day at the busiest restaurant I was at, I would love for 2000 people to just came by for dinner and didn't have to cook themselves. I can cook for them so much faster and better! People that hate cooking should just be able to go to place that serves that need, because I'm more than happy to do it for them.
Idk, I just wish that I could serve working class people who want to eat for their sustinence. Honestly expecting everybody to cook is terrible, especially when 1 person can easily serve 1000+ under the right circumstances I'll. We could just have social mess halls and serve a shit ton of people with no problems, for cheaper.
God yes. I've never actually worked in a kitchen (just finished grad school, trying to get some shitty email job), but I'd much rather cook for hundreds of people. It would take some learning (my knife skills aren't great), but if the world were better, I'm pretty sure I'm meant to work in a communist canteen. Unfortunately I don't think I could survive a kitchen as they exist. I'm also vegan. So as much as I'd love to spend my life cooking for people it's simply not in the cards. Instead I'm going to waste all my time and effort at some bullshit email job that doesn't need to exist. It's too bad, really.
Absolutely the best idea. Community kitchens also used to be a thing, people would use communal resources to get their needs met.
This is the future I want to live in and one I know would also be safe for my disabled comrades for example.
Mostly I feel angry on their behalf. Individual responsibility is a myth, and they're victims of capitalism too. Food decisions aren't just based on money. Cooking requires time, effort and skills that are fading from society as a whole, mostly due to people being tied up in generating revenue for someone else. There's the education angle, whereby people may not be actively aware what they're eating is slop; industry is constantly trying to dilute labelling laws and advertising regulations to enable this. There's also the issue of availability outside of financial circumstances; food deserts and food swamps. Then there's shelf life; hyper-optimised "just in time" supply chains have fresh fruit and veg hitting the shelf at peak ripeness, and keep it under misting sprays (that actively reduce shelf life) so it looks great and sells fast, but doesn't last more than a day or two in the fridge at home. Why would you buy a lettuce that'll be dead in two days when a microwave meal lasts functionally forever.
There's also psychosocial modelling aspects that are both leveraged and molded by marketing to make it seem "normal" and "acceptable". There's habits, which are again molded by marketing, especially to children. This also ties into the comfort factor via nostalgia. I'm sure most people have a favourite garbage food from childhood. It's probably not just one of the above factors, but it's definitely not as simple as "get money, eat better" -- the entire food system is basically aligned to make sure people eat as much slop as possible. It takes a disproportionate amount of time, energy and know-how to circumvent that as an individual.
"Financial means" is not really much of an exception to make. I'm sure there are some number of people who eat trash because they don't care that it's bad for them because they're too tired to cook well for themselves and they kinda just want to die anyways, I'm sure there are some number of people who because they're autistic or something can only tolerate a limited number of foods, I'm sure there's some number of people who could afford financially the ingredients to eat well but are kept from it for other reasons.
So the winning move is not to judge people based on extremely limited information. Who knew!
Trump sucks down McDonald's grease balls but has the means for fucking beef wellington 3 times a day... No accounting for taste I guess. Be a shame if all that processed shit gives him health complications tho.
you mean, like this?
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/avoidant-restrictive-food-intake-disorder-arfid/
I learned about this because I worked with a guy that had extremely narrow food tastes and was curious enough to ask a friend of mine with a bunch of credentials in the area.
I have some resentment, personally. Not that there aren't valid reasons for it, especially in our broken system, but I have a highly restricted diet (dozens of deadly food allergies), so I can't eat out ever (due to cross contamination being a roll of the dice), and even most prepared foods I can't have.
So I spend a lot of time and energy, cooking delicious, cheap, vegan meals for myself, despite having a blue-collar job. And it does bother me, seeing people who can eat 'whatever' just eating slop.
Even when I feel like shit, and eat 'slop', it's generally a stir fry, something like rice, (frozen) veggies, and sauce, thrown in a pan for five minutes. I rationally understand the various reasons people might not have the energy or cooking skills for even that, but emotionally, it does bother me.
