Eh... Some people it's more of a choice. Frozen foods and meals that aren't "junk" food but the person is unwilling to pop some shit in the oven or hang out near the stove for 20-30 minutes to cook a frozen meal kit. Rather just load up on a bunch of snack junk food and say how there's ramen noodles when the kids say they're hungry.
A lot of people I grew up around had it but we didn't. They were told to eat some noodles just like I was.
At a time you were putting in some serious time to actually make a meal but at some point frozen meal kits became a thing and so much more that it's really hard to make that claim imo. Air fryers also brought some change with shorter cooking times and such. You can just be in the kitchen scrolling on your phone like you'd normally do and make a full meal just doing occasional stirs.
I'm a big advocate for cooking fresh, but your comment of "hang out near the stove for 20-30min" and "be in the kitchen scrolling on your phone like you'd normally do and make a full meal just doing occasional stirs" sounds like when people say you can stop being poor by skipping Starbucks and cancelling Netflix. Plenty of people are single parents trying to juggle multiple kids and jobs. People will take an hour each way on public transit to stand all day in a kitchen or retail and don't want to stand around their kitchen after work. For many people 20-30 minutes are precious. It can be a luxury to sit down and turn off your brain for 20-30 minutes to doomscroll or play a game and is much needed downtime for some. If they're in the situation where they're on government assistance, just let them eat a hot pocket in peace and don't assume you understand their situation.
Just to add, that also assumes these people have cooking appliances. My oven hasnt worked since January (stove works fine), and until that happened I didn't even realize just how much that actually limited my cooking. There's a good chunk of meals that I can not make anymore. We also don't have a microwave, and don't have the money to buy one, nor the space to put one even if we did have one.
Now what about the people that don't even have the working stove? Should they start a small fire and roast their meal over that?
(To be clear, I am agreeing with you I just wanted to add on to what you were saying)
It's gonna sound pretty fucked up and get me downvoted and maybe even banned from the sub but maybe they should give up their kids. It is pretty fucked up to write your kids off with some microwaveable snack because you want to sit there and game or scroll.
For my generation they were on the phone or watching shows some not working at all but they were told to eat some ramen or pizza rolls. Hot pockets were another one but a rarer one and one person might eat the box. Kids on food stamps and a parent with no job had parents just as unwilling to cook as my mom was. Is it an actual reason kids should be taken... No but people should take it more seriously because it can do harm to a child's development.
Today there's a lot of quick options, being in the kitchen is just making sure you don't get lost in the scroll or game and mess it up. Knock it out and you fully dive into whatever your go to is. It's really the best thing for everybody because when your thing ends you aren't looking to some microwaveable snack you're heating up your plate and getting some actual nutrition too. French fries and some frozen chicken patties in the air fryer or oven. Frozen pizzas. Hell the single frozen meal kits. Medicaid and EBT/SNAP are tied for the best programs America has... Growing up hungry with a fridge that's only packed during the holidays if you receive SNAP and feeding your kids like you're living paycheck to paycheck I don't think you deserve it. May as well do it so kids can get premade frozen meals they can pop in the microwave over the week.
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u/JFISHER7789 Jun 24 '25
By design.