Submitted 17 hours ago by MTZ@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/83b55224-8ff0-451a-b8f9-cc756b2b8c4a.jpeg
Wtf are you guys eating over there… Jesus christ, I wonder why Americans seem so crazy. Artificial food, artificial media, Artificial work culture…
And two weeks vacation, maybe, on a full year of work… What? And still no money in the wallet at the end of the day?
I get 40 hours of sick time off per year that I can use for vacation. This is the New York State minimum that had to be fought for.
I mean, yeah…a lot of people here have it very rough. I am lucky in that I work for the federal government and get 10 weeks plus holidays off. A lot of people here do not get that.
Two weeks? If you’re middle to upper middle class, sure. If you’re lower middle to lower class, you’ll get a week, if anything at all, unpaid. Sick? Unpaid. Spouse died? Unpaid. What, give people welfare? Not on my tax dollar, that’s communism!
The US stopped being the land of opportunity two generations ago, and only now people are starting to realize.
“You can have the funeral in the alley behind the restaurant during your lunch break. Throw your wife in the dumpster after you’re done.”
-Your manager
Highschool needs to teach financial literacy. $200 a month for insurance is insane. I pay that for 3 vehicles on full coverage (older trucks and suv, but damn).
Not saying this guy is wrong to be pissed but I see a lot of people who just don’t understand how to shop around for shit and just eat the cost.
How tf do you shop around for insurance.
My employer: you have 3 options. The high deductible HSA plan, the medium deductible plan, or the low deductible plan.
Even if there are other options that aren’t subsidized by my employer, you can’t change your plan most of the year because of fucking open enrollment.
How is this user error and not America being America?
people who just don’t understand how to shop around for shit and just eat the cost.
The problem is, you can shop around and find a good deal, but that good deal is “introductory”, only for new customers, so after a while the price goes back to “normal” and you have to do it all over again. Then you have to do that for every damn thing, it gets pretty tiring.
I tried reading the rest of the comments on this post but I think my soul broke, I wanted to reply to multiple of them but the words just didn’t come to me
I have had 1 week off the whole year. I have some PTO coming up. I feel guilty using it (even though I shouldn’t).
The comments are teaching me I grew up poor and still eat poor.
I mean I knew the second part. But those damn canned mixed veggies were disgusting.
My youth prepared me for this and my post-schooling education helped me minmax for it.
I still have a sweet spot for canned corn, especially creamed, as well as canned green beans.
Canned green beans have such a nostalgic taste, love them
This might be the most stereotypically American thing I’ve ever seen
In Britain it would be “try with BANGERS instead of blood pudding”
No one would call that donkeys anus in a temu bratwurst, a banger.
Not going to lie, I call this the “fuck we’re out of bread” when she says she wants a hot dog. I don’t care for hot dogs much, but I just leave them in the freezer door and they last.
When she says she wants a hot dog, she’s not talking about the kind you have to cook :-D
What a privilege it is to live in walking distance to a supermarket - this problem doesn’t even exist for me, being out of something just means I walk 4 minutes and buy it.
I mean, you’re not wrong.
I grew up poor, mom had 0 cooking skill, mac and cheese and sliced hot dogs was pretty common.
I can try to spin that positively as ‘at leasr I have more experience being broke than most people who are new to being broke’, lol.
Man hotdogs in KD is still awesome. Hotdogs in beans is also great.
I mean it’s just some pasta and seasoning that you add beef to, it’s not even that weird
claps
…y’all didn’t grow up eating kraft mac n hot dogs cut up in it?
o.o
Sorry, but this is like one of the many litmus tests for people who think they grew up in the middle class and then actually find out they grew up poorer than they initially thought.
Another good one was having canned mixed vegetables more than a couple times a week.
You’re overlooking an important detail - kids love that cheap, shitty food. It was also quick and easy to make, so their tired, overworked parents were easily persuaded to make it.
Naturally there’s a line where it becomes too much, but even rich kids love hot dogs and Mac & cheese.
Grew up poor, didn’t know it. Lots of Mac 'n Cheese w/ hotdogs and canned vegetables. I remember the first time I had a fresh green bean, I was put off by the texture. Wasn’t used to vegetables with structure.
It could still be very much middle class. Parents make it out of nostalgia from when they were kids, instead of making it out of necessity.
I really disagree with this. My parents grew up in the 50s and just thought this kind of highly processed food was normal and easy. There were also commercials that constantly reminded them to buy it. We could 100% afford better food, this is just what they wanted 🤢
I figured out we were poor once I hit middle school, and me asking about this and further realizing the truth of it… well of course that sent Republican dad further into an insecurity/rage/alcoholism loop.
Being honest would have been too difficult, I guess.
Middle class isnt a clear cut distinction anyway. It mostly serves to divide those of us who live off of labour rather than ownership so we go after one another instead of the capitalists.
I mean, maybe, but in my case I’m sure a good part of it was neither of my parents were good cooks lol
If I didn’t watch them make it, it was pretty hard to tell if the veggies were canned or not; they boiled fresh veggies to the same consistency as the canned ones.
Ours had a can of tuna and some frozen peas in it.
No way we did that too! I still do it every once in awhile, not because it’s that good but fit the nostalgia
What is the word for laughing and crying at the same time?
What is the word for laughing and crying at the same time? Pseudobulbar affect which could be caused by a psychotic break since they’re driving us fucking crazy.
Protip: “hamburger helper” has always been the most expensive way to do this. Buy the raw macaroni and one of those seasoning spice packs (e.g. taco mix) if you’re not good with measuring seasoning or have none at home.
You’re not quite there yet. It still says ‘real cheese’.
It’s not “real cheese” it’s “Real Cheese™”, it really tastes like cheese.
Ah, Real Cheese brand cheese flavored product.
Minimum viable product kind of cheese
“Minimum viable product” describes a lot of the items that end up in my grocery cart these days – produce especially.
Sorry, I’m European, could someone explain what Hamburger Helper actually is?? I’ve heard the brand name before and assumed it was just some kind of seasoning powder for making hamburgers, but this image looks more like it’s more like powdered sauce base for a whole range of random meals?
it’s the kit to make the meal in the front, just need to add the hamburger… or hot dogs…
but yea it has the seasonings and the macaroni, and instructions, and that’s it
ooh, hamburger as in, ground meat? For me a hamburger is always the round puck of meat between buns, makes more sense if it’s just the generic name for the meat itself!
Lasagna, except way grosser.
What in gods name even is this product?
Pasta and seasoning. And cheese I guess. Intended to me mixed with ground beef in order to stretch it into more meals. It’s not awful, just poor people food.
Its food for the new poor. The generationally poor were eating chicken wings back in the 80s for $0.19 a pound and loving them. Now, after the dreadful gentrification of wings post-9/11 we’ve got ways to stretch a dollar you’ll never learn unless you marry in.
You mean pasta surrogate and cheese surrogate.
Coming in 2029 - SkwrlHelper!®
This is FAKE NEWS because Trump said the Economy is doing GREAT!
-Free Thinking TM Republicans!
Don’t use Hamburger Helper, switch to the store brand Lasgana Skillet Meal. It will taste much better. The people who make Hamburger Helper have seriously cheaped out on their ingredients, speaking as a childhood fan.
Les pieds de raccoon, such a delicacy
Not to mention la queue du rat, la tête de pigeon, and la langue d’une botte!
Hehe. I’m eating marbles!
Cronch cronch cronch
Hyper processed shit. I feel sorry for children who are fed this.
Last time I checked ground beef was $6 a pound. It is now a luxury I no longer buy.
For anything that calls for ground beef, I usually sub TVP or green lentils. Both are cheap, shelf stable and healthy options.
How soon till it says roadkill?
Poached venison.
Don’t need a tag if you’re not going to a game station, just gotta get a little bloody.
American food makes British food look yummy.
Given how strong the link is between cured meats and cancer and how that is quite public knowledge now days, I interpret this as Hamburger Helper telling me to get cancer. “You don’t actually want to live long enough to enjoy retirement, right?”
What retirement?
Care to share a link to a study for those “strong links”?
Everything gives cancer eventually, my hitlist is not a steack but processed food.
Huh, I thought it was common knowledge given the news headlines about it a few years ago. The World Health Organization considers it a Group 1 carcinogen.
It’s a very high confidence in the statistical significance, but a relatively low effect (in that the difference between eating cured meats every day and eating no cured meats ever has roughly a 1% chance of making a difference in cancer incidence).
Basically, about 4% of people who never eat cured meats get cancer in the GI tract (from throat to stomach to colorectal) at some point in their lifetimes, whereas people who eat cured meats every day get cancer in the GI tract about 5% of the time. On the one hand, that’s like a 20% increase in cancer risk, but on the other hand, that makes a difference to only about 1% of the population.
water pie all over again, but who can afford hotdogs?
I was about to say, hot dogs are more expensive per pound than ground beef.
Lips we hope. Honestly never got the aversion around what parts go into your processed meat, its a good thing to not waste meats.
Great Depression? Shit I was serving that shit with hot dogs in the 90s.
Meat!? In this economy?
Bold of you to assume you’ll still be about to afford hot dogs.
I used to watch this youtube channel, Depression Cooking, with this old lady who lived through it showing recipes she made during the depression. It was uploaded by her grandchildren. (This was about a decade ago, before she died). Hot dogs do feature into her recipes a lot, as they were made of less choice parts and less choice meats or parts could be mixed in to stretch it. Sausage in general is like that.
It is of course possible that sausages could be too expensive, but you see that more in a war/famine type situation, as the government procures food stores for fighers and trade routes collapse. So like, the Max Miller episodes on food of the Soviet home front.
Im sorry I find historical food so interesting.
Also, in these cases, get a chicken who can lay eggs (and be prepared to guard that thing, but you should also have eggs to share), or be ready to grow some beans.
I don’t know why they call this stuff hamburger helper, it does just fine by itself, huh?
Who can afford hot dogs?
Dont use hamburger helper, learn to make goulash. Its a pretty good recipe for beginners
The Poor People Useful Tips Recession Index
Fill that freezer with ground beef, salmon, steaks, etc
Also FYI hotdogs roughly contain about 2% human DNA in them.
But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Cheaper if you grind up your nearest billionaire and share with your community
MTZ@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Ooooh, do you have a nice recipe that you could share?
But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
They don’t actually do work so their meat is already tender like veal, just marinate well