• Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    33·
    7 天前

    Is this some marketing campaign or something.

    Why am I suddenly seeing so many posts mentioning some cheap American junk food I’ve never even heard of before?

    • Gloomy@mander.xyz
      16·
      7 天前

      Might be that it’s because Lemmy is such a small place. We had the hamburger helper meme in all yesterday and now people are posting about the general concept.

    • booly@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      6 天前

      It’s a couple of different factors at play:

      • Sales of this particular product are up and Fox News, the largest and most influential conservative media source, ran a story about it as if it’s a sign of the nostalgic return of something today’s old people remember from their youth.
      • Most younger people correctly recognize that this trash is actually a bad sign for the economy, because it reflects a shift down market where people are opting to make this stuff instead of the more expensive option of restaurants or takeout.
      • Consistent with worsening economic conditions, the price of beef in the United States is skyrocketing, so that the product itself is changing the label to recommend replacing the beef (which customers would ordinarily buy separately) with something else, like cheaper hot dogs.

      The political and economic discussion is happening in the United States, and that generally means that it spills out onto the internet where national borders are less significant for where conversations might end up.

      • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
        3·
        6 天前

        This makes me so fucking mad. It was already garbage poor people food, but the fact that food manufacturers are acknowledging that it may be too expensive to use the meat that is in the fucking name without actually doing anything to reduce prices is mind-bogglingly callous and/or tonedeaf.

    • Trainguyrom@reddthat.comEnglish
      7·
      6 天前

      It’s like taco meat mixed with Mac and cheese but with less flavor to both. Honestly anyone’s just better off making taco Mac

        • Trainguyrom@reddthat.comEnglish
          2·
          5 天前

          So usually when I make Taco Mac I use leftover taco meat and mix it with box Mac and cheese. It’s kinda a default leftovers meal for us since the kids will actually eat it and with good taco seasoning it tastes pretty good to us grownups too

    • ProfThadBach@lemmy.world
      5·
      6 天前

      Well what you do is take some hamburger mean and fry it up. Not as patty form but more like taco meat. There is a season pack that is pretty much taco seasoning and there is elbow mac in the box. After you put eh season in and stir it around dump the mac in and stir it around then add some water and let it simmer for a while. I was poor as a child and ate a lot of this shit. It was cheap and was designed to stretch hamburger meat out. There are different flavors but it all taste the same. When I was in the military we called it chilli-mac. Same shit. If I am hungry I will eat it if offered but I will not go looking for it.

        • hateisreality@lemmy.world
          2·
          6 天前

          Well it’s not all cheesy flavored but it’s essentially flavor *paste seasoning and noodles to be mixed with a pound of ground beef. For example beef stroganoff is gravy noodles

      • Threeme2189@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        6 天前

        Serious question, what’s the difference between “hamburger meat in taco meat form” and ground beef? Because it sounds like ground beef to me.

        • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
          2·
          6 天前

          Most people I know refer to it as ground beef when it’s still in the tube/tray/whatever before being cooked. Taco meat is ground beef that’s been seasoned, finely chopped, and browned in a skillet.

        • ProfThadBach@lemmy.world
          1·
          6 天前

          It is. I guess I should have been more precise but the name of the product is Hamburger Helper so I went with it.

    • slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.orgEnglish
      2·
      5 天前

      You can just order a hamburger via uber eats™ for only 30 dollars. Youtubers told me that’s really smart actually

      • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
        4·
        7 天前

        The bad tuna is out of reach due to price, Beef is about $5 a pound here (the amount needed for a box of helper) and even the bad tuna is almost $2 a can now. You need about 3 cans to make the amount needed so even the quasi cat food is more then beef.

        • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
          1·
          6 天前

          If you have a restaurant supply store in your area, and you can deal with enormous quantities of food and have ways to freeze what you make, they sell 4 pound cans of white tuna that are 2/3rds the price per pound of smaller cans. Or split with friends, I don’t know. Or try Walmart, they stepped up their grocery offerings, at least in Montreal, and boycotting the USA and Israel BAD aside, we gotta look out for ourselves first.

          • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
            6·
            6 天前

            I have tried to buy the giant cans of tuna before, as a single individual it is a terrible idea. Tuna freezes like shit, and when its bad its both ends bad. I used to eat quite a bit of the crappy cans of tuna when they where under a $1 per. But last time I was in the store the off brand “cheap” tuna was $2.25 (same price as the canned chicken oddly).

            I just point out that beef (at least in this part of Canada) is cheaper then tuna per 100g. These “saving” recipes are often out of touch and out of date.

    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
      2·
      6 天前

      in my experience the cost of fish in general depends a lot on how closely you live to the sea. i lived close to the sea for a few months during a job, and fish was really cheap there. can’t say whether it’s the same for the US.

  • Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.caEnglish
    5·
    6 天前

    So you know how in North Korea the government tells its citizens to forage for grass and stuff? How long before we see that in the States?

    • booly@sh.itjust.works
      4·
      6 天前

      How long before we see that in the States?

      We’re about 5 days away from federal food assistance being canceled for the month of November, so less than a week, maybe?

    • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
      3·
      6 天前

      I dont think thats a thing anymore, but there are tons of edible plants growing all around most people in the states. Sometimes youll hear about a recipe involving some random ground weed looking thing or dandelions or something.

      But yeah foods sort of fucked right now, I’m lucky I live near an aldis.

  • Voytrekk@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    2·
    5 天前

    I’m disgusted at the thought of eating hamurger helper. We ate it too often as a kid and it’s just worse than kraft mac and cheese. I’d rather add hot dogs or chicken nuggets to the latter if I need to have a cheap/depressing dinner.