Do they have too much food? It seems to me that calorically dense foods that provide almost no nutritional value are “cheap” and abundant while healthy food choices are expensive and require time and effort to store and prep.

For example, if I’m living out of a car I’m more likely to use EBT to buy some bags of chips I can toss in the car rather than some cheap chicken and fresh veggies or eggs. How would I store chicken or cook any of it if I live in a car?

Yes, I know there are solutions here like small fridges and hot plates. But those cost money and require time and effort. Again, scenario is living in a car or the streets.

Btw calorically dense foods are, in fact, hyper nutritious. While you may imagine healthy foods to be green vegetables and raw meats, you can buy - from regular supermarkets - roast chickens ready to eat, salad bowls and fresh fruit. You need not even store it, but buy and eat on the go.

People repeat the myth that healthy food choices are expensive (they aren't) and time & space consuming to make (they can be) so often that most people believe it. But it just isn't so: you can eat at McDonalds every day, and if it's only a part of your diet, it's healthy. If you can get fibre and some vitamins elsewhere, and aren't overeating, the protein and calories in a fries and a hamburger are fine. Good, actually.

Healthy foods are simply principally marketed to, sold at a large markup to, middle to upper class Americans so they believe that's the usual market value.

Now, it can be expensive in time, effort and equipment for struggling, hard working, irregular shift workers. That's a different issue though.

Cars have space. A camp stove in the trunk and you can cook anything. Likewise a cooler and you can store things for a short time. Since you have a car you can drive to a supermarket regularly and thus not need to store anything for longer than the cooler can keep them fresh.

Food deserts don't exist if you have a car in any American city since it is never that far to a suburb. (if you don't have a car getting is much much harder)

I have done the above - as a contractor working in a place a significant distance from home on a short term job. There were a lot of people like me in the cheap hotels I was staying at. OTOH, none of us were homeless - the homeless generally have other issues making them homeless and so even though that options would be cheap and work that doesn't mean they would be able to do it

> Yes, I know there are solutions here like small fridges and hot plates. But those cost money and require time and effort. Again, scenario is living in a car or the streets.

There's at least one benefit to China dumping solar cells and other stuff all over the world: even as a homeless person... at least as long as you got a car, an EcoFlow Glacier and a shit solar panel are less than a grand, and it provides both a refrigerator, a small freezer and a way to keep your devices charging.