The cost of the materials is only a small part of it. Preparing and cooking fresh food requires much, much more effort than prepared packaged foods. Microwavable or similarly low/zero-prep food products require very little labor, require only a few steps before they are served, and create almost zero items to be washed and cleaned. You would be surprised how much cheaper a flat of microwave burritos is compared to an equally caloric-dense flat of fresh or bulk goods.
Also to consider is the cost of a skilled laborer -- someone who can actually cook -- versus a minimum wage worker who only needs to unwrap a package, press a button, and plate it.
Given the success of various "healthy fast-food" restaurants, it seems nearly everyone can be taught to cook the simple stuff.
But I was thinking, here, of quinoa prepared in a rice cooker (comparable in difficulty to microwaving a burrito), salad, and pre-made vegetarian chili. There's no way the total cost of this is higher than calorie-equivalent microwave mexican fare.
E.g., Costco organic quinoa is about 700 kCalories/USD (plus 25g protein, 15g dietary fibre). Given a big enough rice cooker, I could teach any minimum wage employee how to spend 30 minutes and prepare quinoa enough to feed a school of 6000 for around a dollar per student. With another 30 minutes I could even make it palatable.
I don't want to undermine your basic point here -- I hope that you're right. Quinoa in particular might be a problem though, since it's already increasing in price due short supply. Mass adoption by America's schools would probably result in making it unsustainable both for the schools themselves and for South American communities that rely on it.
It doesn't look like quinoa can only be cultivated in particular regions, but rather that it takes time to get good crops going. The price should come down in a few years.
Deep-frozen vegetables are even cheaper than fresh ones and still have nearly all the nutrients, plus they usually come cleaned and preprocessed. Put it in some boiling salty water, wait a few minutes and you're good to go. How much easier can it get?
Mmm mmm. I remember as a kid, my favourite food was plain boiled vegetables. Like all kids, I just couldn't get enough of them. How I'd pester mum again and again to boil up some vegies. Yummy!
Very true. It's definitely easier to make packaged food cheap than to make fresh food cheap. Regarding labour costs however, there's also a chance that the people currently pressing the microwave buttons, would actually be able to (and perhaps even enjoy to) cook real meals. In that case these costs need not necessarily be much higher.
> Preparing and cooking fresh food requires much, much more effort than prepared packaged foods. Microwavable or similarly low/zero-prep food products.
Microwaving corn on the cob is pretty much as low effort as it gets.
Someone has to remove the husk, de-hair it first, and chop it to size, not to mention dress it with butter or etc. Each single one. Compare that to the amount of effort it takes to microwave a 20lb bag of creamed corn that is already dressed, and ready to be scooped onto a plate.
Go inside a small kitchen at 4pm or so and watch the amount of effort it takes to even chop onions in preparation for dinner service.
No you don't. You take the whole thing, with the husk on, and microwave it. Then you give it to the kid, and they pull the husk off, eat it, and throw the husk and cob into the compost bucket.
If you are worried about healthy meals, you probably don't put butter on it at all.
Also to consider is the cost of a skilled laborer -- someone who can actually cook -- versus a minimum wage worker who only needs to unwrap a package, press a button, and plate it.