provided they have the financial means to be eating something less processed of course

  • Strayce@lemmy.sdf.org
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    edit-2
    1 month ago

    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.