The Food Discourse Is Ridiculous and People Who Don’t Know Math Are Being Silly

This post screenshotted below from Twitter has inflamed an already percolating food discourse on both Elon’s disinformation platform and Bluesky. Between the drones and the election, people are obviously bored and agitated, and I get it. But the recent food discourse has attracted some of the worst posters from all corners of the web, and their absurdity must be met with a forceful rebuttal in our age of misinformation. If you are blissfully unaware of what a not insignificant portion of the internet is arguing about right now, here is a short summary of how this has all unfolded.

i think it is really strange how many of you responded to those posts — which were just observations about cooking at home — as a personal attack or a lecture about your behavior. if reading a short post about being economical with food drives you into a rage, that’s your issue, not mine

— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) January 5, 2025 at 6:06 AM

I grew up a picky eater. I ate the little kid things like pizza and hamburgers and not a whole lot else up until I was 18. Having a girlfriend throughout college opened my horizons a bit, but I remained stubbornly childish with food going into adulthood. I moved to Boston and made spaghetti practically five nights a week before finding amazing delivery and take out in my area and abandoning my gross kitchen to the cockroaches.

Once it became impossible to ignore how economically unfeasible this was to live in a big city and order delivery every day, I moved to a roach-free apartment and began my journey as a cook. I started by making some really bad and overcooked Italian dishes, and eventually found my way to learning the basics of staples like rice and noodles and beans that could provide the base of a wide variety of hearty meals on a budget. I fell in love with cooking and began eating everything from every culture, and today it is a skill I use as much as any other. I genuinely do not understand those who look at cooking as a chore, as it is one way I find moments of peace.

Turning specifically to the guy in the initial quote-post professing his libertarian ethos, he does have a point about the value of time. Many people are overworked and underpaid and the little free time many have at home after work has serious value. If you don’t want to spend the time it takes to prep and cook, that’s fine! Just don’t pretend like a $30 burrito taxi is your only option, and please for the love of all that is holy, stop using the word economical because you clearly don’t know what it means.

Forney cites boomer tropes in his post at the base of that screenshot, so let’s explore some more. Know what my boomer dad loves? Hungry Man frozen meals. Ever heard of a frozen pizza? Let your subconscious finish this sentence: “it’s not delivery, it’s…” Do you even know what that other door on your fridge is?

People who are using “economical” and “food delivery” in the same sentence are completely delusional. QAnon is exponentially closer to reality than this bullshit. You can even get groceries delivered by Amazon. Here’s a $4.79 frozen pizza you can buy right now to have for dinner tomorrow. You are not savvy, you are a lazy boob pretending you are some modern revolutionary because you realized in your 20s that time has value and many of you would like to spend it eating imitation Mexican food.

And to the people like the one in the reply who assert that groceries cost so much that a burrito place like Chipotle is cheaper? Congratulations on your modern take on the G.O.A.T.’s famed quote of “it’s a banana Michael, what could it cost, $10?”

Here’s a can of black beans, some rice, chicken thighs, a bag of cheese and tortillas for $14.20 that Amazon will take to your door. Some like the one in the screenshot above may look at that and say “see! It’s more expensive than the same burrito which costs $10.48 after tax on the Chipotle app,” but those people apparently have never bought something from a grocery store or they did not graduate from elementary school. Take that $14.20 and divide it in half, then do it again. Imagine paying that much per burrito!

I can already hear the rising chorus of the therapy language crew mounting in the background from Jamelle Bouie’s mentions, aghast that I would dare suggest a solution that less privileged folks could not pursue, let alone someone with a disability or who is neurodivergent. Of course, cooking is a much less straightforward option for some people, but the drama that the therapy language crew brings to this is fucking intolerable, as evidenced by the relatively mild-mannered Jamelle Bouie not so subtly telling some of his followers that they need to seek professional help. There is a fundamental difference between saying “we should find ways to make cooking as accessible as possible,” and this kind of social media peacocking, with some people screeching that everyone who knows how to use a stove is ableist or unfairly privileged in some way. The internet has turned some of your brains to mush, folks.

And it’s not like this discourse to help the less advantaged isn’t happening. Just do what people who know how to search the web do and go to Google and type in the terms you are searching for, like “cooking with a disability,” plus “Reddit” and voila! Here is a thread of helpful people providing some solutions like Instant Pots.

On a per-meal basis, ordering delivery is the most expensive option by far, followed by eating out, and no amount of silly self-delusion will change that. This isn’t about the value of your time or anything to do with your personal struggles, but a fundamental fact about math that children learn in third grade and can be expressed through your very own bank account. Order all the delivery you want, just please stop poisoning the internet with your horrific logic. This nonsense is going to show up as a recommendation in ChatGPT one day and it’ll be all you jerks’ fault.