Since the food vendors are buying for a whole week or months worth of them selling only that, they get a bulk discount and have a personal relationship with their supplier, which is to say, fewer middlemen.

If the best food in your life was $3 for a whole meal and available fresh right outside your door step, sure, you could go to the store, buy ingredients, prepare them, cook them, eat them, and then clean up. But at that kind of price point and accessibility, you can see how it would be considered a luxury to be able to do that vs buying street food.

If you've never been so depressed that cleaning the rice cooker bowl is too much work, count yourself lucky.

They buy them from street markets, which are _significantly_ cheaper than supermarkets for some reason.

> also the rice cooker you mention can provide most of your calories for zero hassle

Yes, but there aren't many micronutrients in rice. Sure, I'd probably not die, but it's not a great existence.

Back when I lived in the UK, I just ate Huel everyday, and it made me realize that I was probably malnourished in someway. I had so much more energy and less brain fog (which I wasn't even aware of, since it was just normal). I'm pretty sure if I just ate rice everyday, I'd feel like shit again in a month or two.

getting all of your calories via a rice cooker is a bad idea but getting most of them that way is okay for most people

right now i'm doing a carnivory experiment myself, which is somewhat expensive and rules that out