You’ve lived your experience of it. It’s quite obvious that the experience is different for different individuals.
But when you’re at the grocery store and you’ve got $20 to spend for the whole week, $3 worth of rice or ramen will go a LOT farther than $3 worth of broccoli. And if it takes you $1.50 in bus money to get back and forth to the grocery store, or you get that one ride a month to schlep groceries in, you have to buy food that won’t go bad in a few days. So your pantry is gonna be pretty carb heavy.
I’m sure there’s a psychological aspect to it as well. When you’re broke, food is a subject fraught with anxiety. When you’re flush, it’s the first area you’re likely to “overspend” in. When I’m flush, food almost equals entertainment; it’s a luxury item that I can indulge. When I’m broke it’s a reminder of how broke I am. And the further psychological issues are that after you’ve worked all day at a minimum wage job, with other people who are probably demoralized by their lot, you’re probably more likely to be morally, emotionally, and physically exhausted by the time you get home, and a side trip to the organic market for fresh vegetables just presents a bit more of an obstacle. Money can’t buy happiness, but it can sure help relieve some stress. Again, more individual experiences; it’s ungenerous of you, Duckster, to dismiss the entire low-income population as lazy and self-indulgent just because you, as an individual, respond differently, psychologically, to such personal economic challenges. I daresay you’re in the minority, if you’re cheered up and energized for kitchen theatrics by poverty.
Besides, it’s inarguable that organic health foods are more expensive than bulk generics. And many things do cost a lot more when you’re poor. For example, if you never quite have $54 dollars all together in one place, you can’t buy a bus pass. Then you have to pay $1.50 for every ride. Besides, you may think, maybe I won’t need $54 worth of bus money this month. This means, for one thing, that every single bus ride to the grocery store has a surcharge on it, and one more obstacle to overcome. It also means that, in all likelihood, by the end of the month you probably have, in fact, spent more than $54 on bus rides that month. The same economics of scale works in your grocery bills. It’s cheaper to by some foods in bulk, but you may never have bulk cash, and you have to buy things in smaller–and more expensive–quantities. And think of a McDonald’s meal. To make a hamburger at home you’d have to spend more than $4 or $5; ground beef, buns, ketchup, mustard, cheese, etc. Sure, you will then have the makings for more than one meal, but when you’re poor a burger in the hand is worth two in the fridge: if you only have $5 to eat with today, you’ll get a more satisfying meal, now, at McDonald’s, than if you girded your loins with Ducksterian discipline and industry and spent that $5 on brown rice and kale.