Hamburger Helper Sales Rise as Americans Try to Stretch Their Food Dollars

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/business/hamburger-helper-food-prices.html

[Sighlass]

It was on sale for little over a buck the other day... I bought some... little salty for my diet.

[roamer_1]

I never could eat hamburger helper. Makes me sh*t bricks... No, I mean real bricks. I could build a house.

[Cyber Liberty]

I never could eat hamburger helper. Makes me sh*t bricks... No, I mean real bricks. I could build a house.

The salt would kill you first.  Mrs. Liberty is far too good a chef for me to even think of eating that slop!

[Wingnut]

Up next, NYT claims Americans have resorted to eating cat food.

[Cyber Liberty]

Up next, NYT claims Americans have resorted to eating cat food.

I don't see the benefit of eating HH, to be honest.  I don't think of it as very cheap, and you don't have to be on a salt restricted diet to say, "Woah, that's bad for me!"

[roamer_1]

The salt would kill you first.  Mrs. Liberty is far too good a chef for me to even think of eating that slop!

I like the taste of it. I like that it is fast and convenient. My whole problem with it is that four or five days after I eat it, I am involuntarily turned into a masonry factory.  Same with Tuna Helper.

In fact, I used it for the baseline for my own Double Cheeseburger Macaroni Casserole, which is far superior and contains no concrete mix of any kind.

[Hoodat]

Who can afford hamburger?  Yesterday, I paid over $20 for three pounds of ground beef to make spaghetti sauce.  Chicken is still a bargain.

[Wingnut]

Who can afford hamburger?  Yesterday, I paid over $20 for three pounds of ground beef to make spaghetti sauce.  Chicken is still a bargain.

You could always cook a dog.  I hear Ohbama found them tasty. 

[roamer_1]

Who can afford hamburger?  Yesterday, I paid over $20 for three pounds of ground beef to make spaghetti sauce.  Chicken is still a bargain.

70/30 is about 4 bucks a pound around here.

[Wingnut]

I like the taste of it. I like that it is fast and convenient. My whole problem with it is that four or five days after I eat it, I am involuntarily turned into a masonry factory.  Same with Tuna Helper.

In fact, I used it for the baseline for my own Double Cheeseburger Macaroni Casserole, which is far superior and contains no concrete mix of any kind.

Good news is you could make a mud hut out of them.  Stacking shit so high made easy.  Ikea

[roamer_1]

Good news is you could make a mud hut out of them.  Stacking shit so high made easy.  Ikea

I thought of that. Not very cheap, and certainly not very easy, even after you get past the leading corners. 

Nope. Bad idea. No concrete in the ol bung hole, thank you very much. 

[Sighlass]

We did process two of our male ducks the other day... haven't had duck in a while.

Neighbors gave us 5 ducks and we raised them in the chicken electric fence not know which were male/female. After a while the males make a different sound than the females so we could id them. Our church has a group process day a few times a year where you take your foul and everyone works to process them.

My search engine is "Duck Duck Gone".... (ok, bad joke).

[mystery-ak]

Well I think the last time I had HH was when I was first married....is it still the same?

I you are on a budget and can afford hamburger just get a bag of buns and make hamburgers got to be better than HH...

[Smokin Joe]

Well I think the last time I had HH was when I was first married....is it still the same?

I you are on a budget and can afford hamburger just get a bag of buns and make hamburgers got to be better than HH...

Hamburger, an onion (chopped), macaroni, a can of stewed or diced tomatoes. Salt and pepper to taste. "Hangover soup".

[mystery-ak]

Hamburger, an onion (chopped), macaroni, a can of stewed or diced tomatoes. Salt and pepper to taste. "Hangover soup".

Add some chili powder, cumin and pepper flakes and you have chili mac...

[Smokin Joe]

Add some chili powder, cumin and pepper flakes and you have chili mac...

[roamer_1]

We did process two of our male ducks the other day... haven't had duck in a while.

Neighbors gave us 5 ducks and we raised them in the chicken electric fence not know which were male/female. After a while the males make a different sound than the females so we could id them. Our church has a group process day a few times a year where you take your foul and everyone works to process them.

My search engine is "Duck Duck Gone".... (ok, bad joke).

You're gonna get a kick out of this one...
So I have a townie friend. He bought him one of them mini-ranches, a little 5 acre piece, and set himself up to be a gentleman farmer.

Well, he knew that chickens were the 'entry-level' animals... So he builds himself a big ol coop - Bought him a Home Depot shed and planted a chicken run around three sides of it. And in this monstrous coop, he sets 4 young hens and a rooster.

Well, chicken math, and all that... and chickens did what chickens do... He was trying to be all natural, so he let broody gals set.

Soon enough he's over here crying to me, because these damn chickens have overrun the place - They don't fit in the chicken run anymore, roosters kicking the crap out of each other all of the time... and they are sh*tting absolutely everywhere... He'd given away all he could along the way, but these dang chickens were eating him out of house and home... He had a flock of 50 by then...And he was miserable.

Well, YOU know how this goes @Sighlass ... I set him down and splained the error of his ways, and the ultimate sum total of chicken math.

I suggested he should partition off a bro pen, separate all the roosters but one or maybe two, and put em in there.From now on, all roosters in the bro pen. THEN I told him that any rooster that hit the 4 pound mark or better, needed an immediate trip to freezer camp. He needed to murder em, eviscerate em, and stuff em in a freezer bag, and begin the process of turning em all into poo.

I thought he was gonna sick up. The shock on his face.... He couldn't bear it. I have seen that face enough times to know it's coming,  but it's still funny.

Then I told him he had to roll out his elder gals - anybody over 3 years that weren't laying good anymore, and murder them too.

It took him a couple more months before he manned up. He bought all the gear, and he, his wife, and I butchered 25 chickens in their first ever freezer run.

Sanity ensued. His egg production is way up (he can find em now, because they're laying in the boxes) He has a freezer full of meat, he's trimmed them down to something like 12 bright, new hens, and one rooster.

Now granted - That first run was gonna be a whole lot of soup and casserole birds. Pretty tough... But he'll get through em all right. 

[Wingnut]

We did process two of our male ducks the other day... haven't had duck in a while.

Neighbors gave us 5 ducks and we raised them in the chicken electric fence not know which were male/female. After a while the males make a different sound than the females so we could id them. Our church has a group process day a few times a year where you take your foul and everyone works to process them.

My search engine is "Duck Duck Gone".... (ok, bad joke).

Reminds of the lad who worked his duck into a good time.

[Sighlass]

You're gonna get a kick out of this one...
So I have a townie friend. He bought him one of them mini-ranches, a little 5 acre piece, and set himself up to be a gentleman farmer.

Well, he knew that chickens were the 'entry-level' animals... So he builds himself a big ol coop - Bought him a Home Depot shed and planted a chicken run around three sides of it. And in this monstrous coop, he sets 4 young hens and a rooster.

Well, chicken math, and all that... and chickens did what chickens do... He was trying to be all natural, so he let broody gals set.

Soon enough he's over here crying to me, because these damn chickens have overrun the place - They don't fit in the chicken run anymore, roosters kicking the crap out of each other all of the time... and they are sh*tting absolutely everywhere... He'd given away all he could along the way, but these dang chickens were eating him out of house and home... He had a flock of 50 by then...And he was miserable.

Well, YOU know how this goes @Sighlass ... I set him down and splained the error of his ways, and the ultimate sum total of chicken math.

I suggested he should partition off a bro pen, separate all the roosters but one or maybe two, and put em in there.From now on, all roosters in the bro pen. THEN I told him that any rooster that hit the 4 pound mark or better, needed an immediate trip to freezer camp. He needed to murder em, eviscerate em, and stuff em in a freezer bag, and begin the process of turning em all into poo.

I thought he was gonna sick up. The shock on his face.... He couldn't bear it. I have seen that face enough times to know it's coming,  but it's still funny.

Then I told him he had to roll out his elder gals - anybody over 3 years that weren't laying good anymore, and murder them too.

It took him a couple more months before he manned up. He bought all the gear, and he, his wife, and I butchered 25 chickens in their first ever freezer run.

Sanity ensued. His egg production is way up (he can find em now, because they're laying in the boxes) He has a freezer full of meat, he's trimmed them down to something like 12 bright, new hens, and one rooster.

Now granted - That first run was gonna be a whole lot of soup and casserole birds. Pretty tough... But he'll get through em all right. 

Son enjoyed your story.... He is a pretty good city chicken farmer... It is his game, I just built the chicken tractor.... He added the electric fence option a few month back so they have more roaming room and it keeps the stray dogs/cats/raccoons/possums/fox at bay.

[roamer_1]

Son enjoyed your story.... He is a pretty good city chicken farmer... It is his game, I just built the chicken tractor.... He added the electric fence option a few month back so they have more roaming room and it keeps the stray dogs/cats/raccoons/possums/fox at bay.

Funny how things are different place to place, yet still the same.
I did that chicken tractor thing for a while. Poultry nets and all that. Didn't work for me.

I had four of them units at my peak... But I still needed a coop. Snow. 2 feet of snow, heck, even 6 or 8 inches of snow, and them tractors were dead in the water... er, snow. Till next spring, pretty much. I tried plowing em out... plowing a run off of em... so they could move again. No good. Too much work.

So I built up. That worked alright... The tractors slid under a raised coop in the winter - But that was too complicated. The chickens had trouble laying up in the coop and the eggs would freeze down in the tractors.

So I went to a chickshaw - A kinda high-wheeled mini coop, highly dependent upon poultry nets... STILL no - Shoveling out and moving nets didn't work, and they'd short out in tall snow... predators delight.

So Coop. A nice, big, heated coop with a covered run...
WITH chickshaws. In the summer, chickshaws and poultry nets. Just like y'all down south.

In the winter, the chickshaws plug into the coop - the doors left open to the coop interior. an insulated poo tray is installed along the bottom of the shaws, and reusable insulated panels surround them. So the chickens love the palace... They'd still lay where they always did. They'd still roost where they always did. But the eggs didn't freeze, so long as I kept after em, the chickens had a nice heated shed with light control (helps with laying - Chickens don't lay well in short days) and a run I could cover in the deep winter, so they could still go outside and scratch.

All it meant for me was cleaning a coop all winter, and emptying the poo trays, which had a scraper in em that would self-clean em by sliding em out and back... and about 20 or 30 gallons of diesel for the heater... But better, unfrozen eggs, a controlled environment and a single path to keep plowed.

That's how it worked best up here.

[mountaineer]

Who can afford hamburger?  Yesterday, I paid over $20 for three pounds of ground beef to make spaghetti sauce.  Chicken is still a bargain.

Exactly. I wait for a decent sale price or a coupon to buy ground chuck.