Have you ever starved?

[PC2]

$100 of groceries and i would drop weight to the point i'd probably have to be hospitalized...

Huh, it can vary a lot. I think I personally eat $200 in groceries per month. I don't look at the prices every month but I think a dozen eggs is only $2 and a gallon of milk is between $3-4. I shovel a bunch of them into my cart whenever I go. They don't cost much and have a lot of nutrients and protein.

I guess $100 is a little low per person though because even baby food costs more than that per month. Shouldn't "need" $300 though.

[Witchblade77]

Huh, it can vary a lot. I think I personally eat $200 in groceries per month. I don't look at the prices every month but I think a dozen eggs is only $2 and a gallon of milk is between $3-4. I shovel a bunch of them into my cart whenever I go. They don't cost much and have a lot of nutrients and protein.

I guess $100 is a little low per person though because even baby food costs a more than that per month. Shouldn't "need" $300 though.

I challenge you to actualy TRACK how much you spend per week. actualy look at prices. write it all down. and also consider your size and activity levels (someone working minimum wage job, constantly being on their feet is going to burn more calories, among other things)

[PC2]

I don't know where you live or shop, but $100 worth of groceries will best case scenario feed one small person for 2 weeks with a LOT of work/time invested from that person spent cooking and prepping (and they need to have the knowledge and skill of someone like June from Delish to pull that off, not to mention time). when was the last time you actualy shopped for groceries and tracked how much you spent on food in total??? dude...

$25 per person per week WAS doable like 20 years ago. it hasn't been even remotely doable for at least a decade.

P.S. you also obviously has never applied for or been on welfare, cause only person who has exactly zero actual knowledge vs what conservative news feed you - can make the "you could just apply for welfare" claim so flippantly.

Okay well maybe the numbers are a bit off. I spend like $500 at Costco when I go but that includes stuff that is not necessarily monthly or even food. I don't have a spreadsheet for this kind of thing...

[callipygoustp]

I once starved myself to death.



... I got better.

[Fencers]

There's no need to steal food in order to get food in developed countries though. So why steal when you could just go on welfare?

Welfare varies by a lot of factors depending on income (if any) and where you live. It is not applied equally across the board and not everyone can qualify. Getting welfare is not always easy and may not even be enough.

I had an aunt who was totally devastated financially after being diagnosed with cancer. After a lot of stuff happened with her job, medical care, insurance, et cetera- she needed welfare for basic food needs. The state of Florida denied her application twice. Then she had to wait a few months for aid after she could prove she was too sick to work; the aid was a sum of $35 monthly in food welfare.

She was relatively fortunate she got aid compared to others and had family help her out continually. It would be very lean living without the aid she got via welfare in Florida.

People in less fortunate circumstances such as the community center I volunteered at in High School and when I moved to Masschutess and later Chicago; can have a very difficult time getting any ongoing aid.

Some people at the poverty line actually don't qualify if they have a steady income. Which on paper might make bureaucratic sense, but functionally depending on circumstances such as location, health or family might be very little if any budget for food.

Sometimes people that used to be fed at the center, used to carry food back to their family members. I saw this happen all the time.

And food prices have gone up at a relatively steady rate; https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-produc...?chartId=58350

It is not a matter of needing to steal for food. It is a matter of people should not need to steal for food. This is not advocacy for stealing food but does mean if someone stole food then value or access to food is faulty under such a circumstance.

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I don't know where you live or shop, but $100 worth of groceries will best case scenario feed one small person for 2 weeks with a LOT of work/time invested from that person spent cooking and prepping (and they need to have the knowledge and skill of someone like June from Delish to pull that off, not to mention time).

I agree $100 is not much depending on location and living circumstance. However, it is quite possible to feed 2 people at least 2 meals a day for about $100-200. And you wouldn't need to be overly skilled, just organized.

The problem is not the budget, but knowledge and the distribution of time. Not everyone's 24 hours are equally distributed.

I am certain in my current circumstance of feeding a family of 4 in Chicago, Illinois could be done for less than $400 a month. Way less. People do it all the time.

[Shadowferal]

Isn't he already doing that?

Yea...you got a point there. A sad one though. Even when he once tried to show some sort of, well I think it was something related to a sympathetic response, but it just came across as patronizing as fuck.

[Witchblade77]

I agree $100 is not much depending on location and living circumstance. However, it is quite possible to feed 2 people at least 2 meals a day for about $100-200. And you wouldn't need to be overly skilled, just organized.

The problem is not the budget, but knowledge and the distribution of time. Not everyone's 24 hours are equally distributed.

I am certain in my current circumstance of feeding a family of 4 in Chicago, Illinois could be done for less than $400 a month. Way less. People do it all the time.

those 2 meals a day. how caloric are they? how nutritious are they? are those 2 meals a day enough as daily sustenance? what is the size of people we are talking about here? (and lets assume they are not overweight, but even healthy sizes vary wildly. calories that would easily sustain me - would be starvation diet for my SO for example)

your family of 4, how old are your children? as in how much do they eat right now? how nutritious can you make that food? are those people who feed their family of 4 for less then $400 - the same people relying on community center meals parts of which they can bring home? subsidized school meals so that at least parts of their children's diet is covered outside of their budget?

and yes, both knowledge and available time is absolutely crucial. as is acess to decent refrigerator and big enough freezer to store both your frozen veggies/fruits AND your prepped in advance meals/leftovers that become other meals. assuming you already have at least bare basics of a workable kitchen.

here is the book that was published 6 years ago and it still makes disclaimers that your prices and availability may vary. https://cookbooks.leannebrown.com/good-and-cheap.pdf it also doesn't specify nutritional breakdown per portion, but from reading it back then and reading through again now, while it would be more or less enough for me (I would lose some weight eating that way, but not enough to edge into unhealthy territory, just on a lower end of what's still healthy for me), I would have to basically double the portion sizes for my SO. AND this was 6 years ago, prices have been steadily rising the entire time.

I used to think I was spending a lot less on food then I actualy do.. until I started tracking, genuinely tracking my food purchases. granted. I often splurge because I can afford to. and I live in a place where we have 4 different competing food markets pretty close by, not counting Walmart. god help you if you live in a food desert (and those absolutely DO exist)

[Rustedsaint]

Nope been pretty lucky in life myself,
Middle class family life allowed me to learn how to budget for food.
Family members around that I could do chores for extre cash/food in the times I were between jobs.
No addictions beside coke(the soft drink)

the worst I can think of is when I went to survival training camp in my youth , where they had us go “solo” and catch/find our own food. Long story short another guy stole several survival kit(fishing,wire for snares and canteen) so me and few others more or less went without food or water for like 36 hours before the damn instructor decided to check on us.

[Fencers]

those 2 meals a day. how caloric are they? how nutritious are they? are those 2 meals a day enough as daily sustenance? what is the size of people we are talking about here? your family of 4, how old are your children? as in how much do they eat right now? how nutritious can you make that food?

Oh yea, totally doable. I would be able to do this easily. Probably could get even better results and nutritional value than we enjoy now if I planned many smaller portions throughout the day. Though I am assuming most adults working a 9-5 probably only have time for 2 meals a day, maybe a snack.

No one in my family is big on snacks though- because we eat very well-balanced meals like almost every day. It is not a habit I ever got into throughout my life and my kids have only known eating the meals I prepare for them. I don't think that will be a big factor with thoughtful meal planning.

I have no assistance either. I do all the shopping, cooking, cleaning, and planning. I work a 9-5 too. It's a one-woman show over here, homie.

In fact, according to Nerdwallet's tracker in the last 30 days, I only spent about $107 on Groceries. That only tracks the one credit card I have linked for budget planning. More accurately, let us say I spent twice that in 30 days on Groceries; $207. I likely bought some misc. stuff like steaks for backyard grilling & such with my husband's debit honestly. Bump it up to $300 in 30 days.

I could easily knock $50-100 off and we would still eat fairly well. But I am privileged as fuck. Stupidly so.

and yes, both knowledge and available time is absolutely crucial. as is acess to decent refrigerator and big enough freezer to store both your frozen veggies/fruits AND your prepped in advance meals/leftovers that become other meals. assuming you already have at least bare basics of a workable kitchen.

I agree on having kitchen space and so on. I would generally include that as part of having access. If the grocer was across the street but you have no place to store the groceries, it hardly matters wringing hands about what access to grocery products means in a practical sense.

I don't believe in meal prep over much either. I think it is more of a hindrance. Space being at a premium for some can be solved in other ways.

here is the book that was published 6 years ago and it still makes disclaimers that your prices and availability may vary. https://cookbooks.leannebrown.com/good-and-cheap.pdf it also doesn't specify nutritional breakdown per portion, but from reading it back then and reading through again now, while it would be more or less enough for me (I would lose some weight eating that way, but not enough to edge into unhealthy territory, just on a lower end of what's still healthy for me), I would have to basically double the portion sizes for my SO. AND this was 6 years ago, prices have been steadily rising the entire time.

I am not sure where you are getting I said pricing doesn't vary when I specifically mentioned it does in previous posts.

However, one can eat cheaply & healthily relative to income devoted for food with planning. A lot of people in desperate situations and circumstances of extreme poverty have no income for food. That is way different than economical meal planning.

I used to think I was spending a lot less on food then I actualy do.. until I started tracking, genuinely tracking my food purchases.

I am a tracker and planner. Annoyingly so sometimes. I have budget sheets going back like 9 years at least in the basement on a hard drive. I am aware of my spending. Very.

god help you if you live in a food desert (and those absolutely DO exist)

The worst! I got involved with a project to set up meals and groceries at outdoor refrigerators around town. The fridges are stashed around the city. People can just get food.

https://www.thelovefridge.com/

[Nastard]

I learned a lot from this thread. World hunger has been eradicated because apparently it was all just a self-imposed place of mind. I'll tell the 690 million people worldwide who are going to bed hungry tonight that their stomachs are lying to them. Food is cheap and you can survive on practically no income. That is, so long as you buy overly processed food that will eventually destroy your digestive system. That's a positive thing because with a faulty colon you won't need to spend much money on food anymore, and soon after you won't need to worry about anything else either.

Guarantee the guy who says $100 is all you need is the friend you have that says "I'll get the bill next time" EVERYTIME you go out to dinner together. It's easy to spend little money on food when your Mom is paying for all the groceries. If he ever paid for any himself he'd know how far off his estimate actually is.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Usually that is correct to blame the parents. My parents taught me not to steal and that there is better pathways to getting food. Does that make them terrible people? In my opinion, no, it does not.

Your issue is with proportionality along with a few other problems. At no point is your need to own more than you need a translation in anyone stealing what you have because they are without is what is telling here.

The fact you would even go further and try to position yourself as ignorant as oppose to someone who genuinely doesn't give a fuck whether people starve to death or not provided YOU have your STUFF.

Proportionality Murdering someone who is innocent by someone paid to protect them is far worse than some POS who would loot steal or even burn down a Target that is a thing that can be replaced by insurance that already covers it. See that is relevant because like with people starving or i need of shelter or medicine for whatever reason, YOU place your value of the LAW as it pertains to things over people then no it is YOU that has a Warped fucked up view of reality.

Technology should never outpace our humanity PERIOD.

If someone is starving to death FUCK what you think they ought to do remedy that. Humans Need Food, They Need Shelter they Need Medicine, no debate.

This is not an emotional point this is a Point of Fact and if you didn't learn this, forget common sense a person would lack any kind of good sense.
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I learned a lot from this thread. World hunger has been eradicated because apparently it was all just a self-imposed place of mind. I'll tell the 690 million people worldwide who are going to bed hungry tonight that their stomachs are lying to them. Food is cheap and you can survive on practically no income. That is, so long as you buy overly processed food that will eventually destroy your digestive system. That's a positive thing because with a faulty colon you won't need to spend much money on food anymore, and soon after you won't need to worry about anything else either.

Guarantee the guy who says $100 is all you need is the friend you have that says "I'll get the bill next time" EVERYTIME you go out to dinner together. It's easy to spend little money on food when your Mom is paying for all the groceries. If he ever paid for any himself he'd know how far off his estimate actually is.

I Guarantee the guy who says this shit sincerely doesn't give a fuck if people starve to death or not even if they needlessly cause it.

[Ryom]

I've never starved. My family was somewhat poor (a least our living standard sure was) back when my country was still a glorious communist paradise under the benevolent protection of the USSR, but luckily we never went hungry, let alone starving.

I also fed myself with a budget of 60-70€ a month (~80$) for a while around 10 years ago (and I could have gone lower), so, I don't know if prices are that different, but I'm a bit suprised that people think you can't live off 100$ a month. The very basics (bread, pasta, potatos, rice, some fruits and vegetables) are very cheap and it's fairly easy to put a simple healthy and nutritious meal together.
Generally food is one of the lesser expenses in first world nations, housing is the biggest issue here. In contrast in less developed countries food often takes up the lion's share of the entire income.

And yes, starvation shouldn't be a thing anymore because it's not like we dont have enough food. Unfortunately it seems on a global scale hunger is on the rise again in recent years, after decades of significant improvement...

[KGB2323]

The stages of starvation -

Glucose - Where your body consumes glucose for energy. Normal function.

Glycogen - When glucose runs out. Fairly normal function.

Ketosis - When glycogen runs out. A normal person will take about 3 days of not eating to get to this stage. Fat is consumed.

Starvation - When your fat runs out, your body consumes muscle and organs. Can take between a week and a month of not consuming at all to get to this stage.

Many people go into ketosis as part of a keto controlled diet.

I don't believe anybody in this thread who claims they have starved, have actually starved. Probably they just went into glycogen consumption and got hungry, not even hitting keto stage.


Although not impossible, it's highly unlikely that if you really tried to get food in a developed country like the UK that you could really truly starve.

Starvation deaths in the UK are around 500 per year and mostly exceptional cases. That's such a small % of people (and many of these are in care homes or hospitals with the official reason of malnutrition in the elderly where their bodies have basically stopped).

Whilst your quality of life will utterly suck and you will likely be ill, food banks are currently available for nearly everybody in dire need.

Failing that, it's easy to steal and eat. Even if you get caught you'll be fed in prison or jail.

There is currently literally food everywhere, for everyone.

[Shadowferal]

9 million people die of starvation and hunger related crap every year. That's almost 25k people per day.

[Serpha]

9 million people die of starvation and hunger related crap every year. That's almost 25k people per day.

That's just over 1k per hour, or 17 per minute.

[molliewoof]

ive tried fasting as part of a diet, wasn't for me so stopped, i wasn't starving or nearly starving but was hungry.

I agree with people that say you could live on a hundred dollars a month, a diet of yoghurt and mixed frozen fruit for breakfast, baked beans on toast or sandwiches for lunch and then stir fry with a couple of portions of frozen mixed veg and a portion of meat. I do the stir fry thing maybe twice a week and the portions are huge,

This isnt helpful if you dont have said hundred dollars to begin with though, those people should get the help they need from the state.

[Witchblade77]

Oh yea, totally doable. I would be able to do this easily. Probably could get even better results and nutritional value than we enjoy now if I planned many smaller portions throughout the day. Though I am assuming most adults working a 9-5 probably only have time for 2 meals a day, maybe a snack.

No one in my family is big on snacks though- because we eat very well-balanced meals like almost every day. It is not a habit I ever got into throughout my life and my kids have only known eating the meals I prepare for them. I don't think that will be a big factor with thoughtful meal planning.

I have no assistance either. I do all the shopping, cooking, cleaning, and planning. I work a 9-5 too. It's a one-woman show over here, homie.

In fact, according to Nerdwallet's tracker in the last 30 days, I only spent about $107 on Groceries. That only tracks the one credit card I have linked for budget planning. More accurately, let us say I spent twice that in 30 days on Groceries; $207. I likely bought some misc. stuff like steaks for backyard grilling & such with my husband's debit honestly. Bump it up to $300 in 30 days.

I could easily knock $50-100 off and we would still eat fairly well. But I am privileged as fuck. Stupidly so.

I agree on having kitchen space and so on. I would generally include that as part of having access. If the grocer was across the street but you have no place to store the groceries, it hardly matters wringing hands about what access to grocery products means in a practical sense.

I don't believe in meal prep over much either. I think it is more of a hindrance. Space being at a premium for some can be solved in other ways.

I am not sure where you are getting I said pricing doesn't vary when I specifically mentioned it does in previous posts.

However, one can eat cheaply & healthily relative to income devoted for food with planning. A lot of people in desperate situations and circumstances of extreme poverty have no income for food. That is way different than economical meal planning.

I am a tracker and planner. Annoyingly so sometimes. I have budget sheets going back like 9 years at least in the basement on a hard drive. I am aware of my spending. Very.

The worst! I got involved with a project to set up meals and groceries at outdoor refrigerators around town. The fridges are stashed around the city. People can just get food.

https://www.thelovefridge.com/

ok, and I'm not being facetious here, completely and utterly serious. tell me your secrets. please. what do you buy and how much does it cost, how do you cook it especially without any sort of prep in advance (or do you still do some prep?). my comment on pricing varying referred to the linked book's estimate of $28 a week per person. when calculating costs I would personaly have with current availability, even accounting for in season or frozen produce only (and buying cheaper/on sale alternatives) I would still end up with more then that for me and more then double of that for SO (due to certain dietary restrictions). so I would genuinely love to know how do you manage. I'm assuming that you are averaging out the budget over months since not everything needs to be bought once a week (for example a bottle of olive oil usually lasts me a few months, as do most spices) so some weeks will be lower then others.

and yes, huge part of the problem is not having income to cover any kind of food purchases to begin with (while still somehow making too much to qualify for snap) due to other costs of living. in my experience it almost becomes catch 22. you might find a place to live that is a bit more affordable, but.. there is nowhere to get groceries. or you might have groceries relatively nearby, but your rent is just that much higher to make them unaffordable anyways.

[Fencers]

ok, and I'm not being facetious here, completely and utterly serious. tell me your secrets. please. what do you buy and how much does it cost, how do you cook it especially without any sort of prep in advance (or do you still do some prep?).

I don't have any secrets. I just do it.

I am a lifelong healthy eater. We are healthy eaters. I buy fresh produce in season, supplement with flash-frozen when out of season, or canned in the case of tomatoes (the quality is vastly superior to out-of-season tomatoes). Cheaper too.

Produce in season is super cheap and abundant. I just bought like 2 pounds of tomatoes for $1 and asparagus was like $0.99 a pound because it's spring, when Asparagus is at its peak. 10 lb bag of potatoes was 3.99 at the store last Friday. Tomatillos, cabbage, spinach, kiwi, avocados, and pineapples were all cheap lately. Almost everything was around $1-2 a pound.

Frozen produce is like $2-3 a bag in my local shops. Canned is like 0.50-1.00. Giant bags of frozen fruit are like $10 and it takes like a month for all four of us to burn through those for smoothies and bowls. A little frozen mango and strawberries go a long way.

In cases where I buy produce in bulk at cheap prices I use what I will fresh and before it goes bad- I use it in some other way. Such as pickling, dehydrating, integrating into soup which I might freeze in cubes, or simply freezing if I think I will use it again within the month.

Seasonal produce is cheap AF.

https://snaped.fns.usda.gov/seasonal-produce-guide

What I don't buy much of is meat. Meat is a splurge item. I prefer to feed myself and my family heavy vegetable & fruit-based meals with some grains and non-animal protein. No aversion to meat, I just think it is healthier to eat higher quality meat less often than lower-quality meat more often.

I also do not buy candy, empty-calorie stuff like those sugary kids snacks. I don't buy cow's milk. I don't buy overly processed snacks or foods, prepared meals, microwaveable meals, pre-cooked frozen foods/meals such as pizza, etc.

We don't eat sugar cereal. In fact, we eat NO cereal at all. Never personally bought a single box of cereal in my life.

No fast food, ever. I despise the stuff and it makes me sick to my stomach.

I just cook breakfast and dinner usually. I am not a big lunch person and so my kids are not either. My husband eats lunch sometimes or has a little something like fruit/nuts toward the middle of the day. But we usually will eat dinner leftovers for lunch if breakfast was skipped or something.

Breakfast is usually stuff like smoothie bowls, granola, fruit platters, cheese & bits of toasted stale bread I toss in some EVOO and pan-fry. We enjoy bagels on occasion, I can bake my own bread and it's cheap as hell to do so too. Jams and preserves are also cheap and easy to make. I can make my own nut butter- which is like pennies per ounce compared to the sugar-loaded stuff premade.

We rarely throw away any food. It takes a long time to fill my compost bucket. I would reckon we consume over 90% of our food without waste. I am allowing for discarding potato peels and so on- which one of course can eat and benefit from. I just don't.

my comment on pricing varying referred to the linked book's estimate of $28 a week per person. when calculating costs I would personaly have with current availability, even accounting for in season or frozen produce only (and buying cheaper/on sale alternatives) I would still end up with more then that for me and more than double of that for SO.

Allow for some give and take in a reasonable budget and I think it is very possible to eat cheaply relatively speaking. Of course, not every single family can live on a $100 exact dollar food budget. But I am certain that anywhere in the US, it can be done easily for many. And I am originally from New York City- where I could spend $50 and walk out with one bag of stuff.

Having special dietary restrictions is an outlier. I would not say that is the norm.

so I would genuinely love to know how do you manage. I'm assuming that you are averaging out the budget over months since not everything needs to be bought once a week (for example a bottle of olive oil usually lasts me a few months, as do most spices) so some weeks will be lower then others.

I only buy what I need, honestly. I have a running inventory in my head of all our food and pantry items. Again, I am the only person cooking this stuff. My kids and husband have no idea if we are running low on honey or paprika. I do.

If something is a particularly good sale or splurge that will pay off in the long run, I will buy it. For example, I saw my favorite brand of Pomegranate Molasses was on sale. So even though I had a half-full bottle at home, I know it tends to be twice the cost usually and bought a second bottle. I just apply that logic to everything basically.

What I do is set a target for myself when I go grocery shopping on the weekends. I try not to spend more than $50-60 at the grocery store. Anything I don't spend, I roll over into next week's budget and toss the difference in savings. So if I spend $30 at the store, the next week I will set a reminder on my phone that my budget is $20-30 and I will zero in on what I really need rather than "topping" off as I might otherwise do.

I started doing this to cut down on food waste initially because I use to do a lot of traveling. It was hard to keep fresh foods around and I didn't want to eat crap. So I just cut out what I didn't spend on the last trip and bought only what I needed at the time with the difference.

Hope it helps.

yes, huge part of the problem is not having income to cover any kind of food purchases to begin with (while still somehow making too much to qualify for snap) due to other costs of living. in my experience it almost becomes catch 22. you might find a place to live that is a bit more affordable, but.. there is nowhere to get groceries. or you might have groceries relatively nearby, but your rent is just that much higher to make them unaffordable anyways.

Oh I know it. I know plenty of people that were in similar situations.

[smityx]

what a fucking lie...

Parents probably shop(ped) at Wholepaycheck and they din't think twice about the cost of eating good food or where it came from.

[Frostfred]

- snip-

Respect for keeping that up. I usually find myself spending far more on groceries. Maybe around 80-90 Dollars a week just for myself. Esp. fresh fish and meat can be quite expensive. E.g. today for dinner I ate some salmon, the piece is around 6 dollar, + some side dishes. Together that maybe around 8-9 dollar for the meal. And that's just one out of three meals without snacks etc (granted, fairly expensive compared to other stuff).
This is somehow more than I spent in Europe (especially while living in a poorer country there). But I'm also trying lots of new stuff here in the US (as one can get far more international groceries), even if that's at times quite expensive.

@ topic: No, luckily not. I've led a quite privileged life till now. Grew up in a middle class family in the wealthier part of Europe. So I didn't have to starve as a kid, could get a good education and accordingly a job that pays well enough not to have issues with money. I also always shared the flat (currently a rented house with 4 other people). That saves a lot of money.