alt Hacker NewsIf you want a fast, healthy, balanced meal for $4 or less, the obvious choice in America is a frozen meal (aka TV dinner).
You can microwave it in 4-6 minutes; ingredients are often flash-frozen, locking in nutrients; and food-safety concerns are addressed at scale, rather than in a hit-or-miss way in a tiny storefront.
So perhaps, instead of advocating for more tiny restaurants that would likely need to skimp on safety considerations, we should be advocating for more microwaves available in grocery and convenience stores, so people can select a frozen meal, heat it up, and be on their way.
Not sure I can accept most of your assertions, but anyway, I left America in 2008 and IIRC there were microwaves available in every 7-11 even then?
There were't any $4 healthy bowls of anything, but there were $2 "red hot beef & bean" (& fake soy filler) burritos which hit the spot if you'd failed to find a way to eat real food...
The problem with the microwave solution, I think, is that pretty much only burritos and pasta can be packaged in a microwavable way that still tastes good? And maybe like a few kinds of vegetable side dishes.