The Roy Howard Community Journalism Center’s “What Is True?” team investigated claims by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture that the average American can make a healthy meal for only $3 to $4 per person.
CONCLUSION: The claim is true, at least in south Mississippi.
Our researchers were able to create several meals within the suggested USDA price point, but it wasn’t as simple as just walking in the grocery store. See how we did it:
When asked about the cost of groceries in an interview with NewsNation, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins laid out an example budget meal that has now gone viral.
“We’ve run over 1,000 simulations,” said Rollins. “It can cost around $3 a meal for a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, corn tortilla and one other thing. So there is a way to do this that actually will save the average American consumer money.”
The backlash to Rollins’ statement was swift, but others defended it. The Roy Howard Center researchers decided to ask, “What is true?”
Researcher Richard Cobb visited two Hattiesburg-area grocery stores to see if he could create meals for $3 to $4 per serving. Cobb also wanted to see what the nutritional values of these meals would be.
Using ChatGPT, Cobb generated a list of different menu options that should cost less than $3 per serving. Some of the meals generated included the following:
MEAL #1: Fried Rice
MEAL #2: Pasta with Beans & Red Sauce
MEAL #3: Bean & Rice Burrito
MEAL #4: Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup
MEAL #5: Loaded Baked Potato
MEAL #6: Ramen “Glow Up” with Egg & Frozen Veggies
Cobb said that a key part of making sure each meal stayed on budget was checking the cost of name brand products versus generic store brands.
To better understand and evaluate Rollins comment on NewsNation, Cobb said you have to learn to break down serving sizes. Think to yourself for a moment. Do you buy an entire loaf of bread, an entire pack of sliced cheese to make only one sandwich? Usually, you buy these ingredients to make multiple servings.
“This was a ‘Eureka!’ moment while conducting the research,” said Cobb. “Sure it sounds very elitist for someone to say, ‘You can make a meal for three dollars.’ The truth is you’ve been doing it for years.”
At $3 per serving, Cobb set his overall budget at $15 to cover five days worth of meals. Here is what he purchased:
— 12 count sleeve of tortillas
— 12 count box of protein snack bars
— 5 count packets of tuna
— 1 jar of peanut butter
His grand total was $13.82, or $2.77 per meal.
Now that Cobb knew he could stay on budget, he wanted to see how healthy these meals were. The meals he bought had approximately 440 to 720 calories per meal, depending on if you ate one or two snack bars. However, Cobb’s purchases did not feature any fruit or vegetables.
“I’m no dietician, and it may be subjective to your personal dietary needs, but the nutritional value of the products is likely equivalent to many fast-food meals,” said Cobb. “In a world of instant gratification and fast-food (I love Sonic, McDonalds and Hardee’s!), we’ve become accustomed to paying more for convenience, which can taint our perception of our daily real-world lived experience. Chances are you enjoy $3 meals all the time and have for years. The difference for most of us may be that our perception of what was once a splurge for a fast-food meal has replaced what is common.”
After the NewsNation interview, other people conducted similar experiments on social media with mixed results. Some were able to create meals for $3 to $4 per serving, but with varying levels of nutritional value. Moreover, people in areas with higher costs of living were sometimes unable to create a full meal within the set budget.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Prices are not necessarily indicative of nationwide pricing of the items mentioned/pictured and can reflect only the pricing of the items in the Hattiesburg-Petal southeastern), MS area as of January 29, 2026
*Contributor: Richard Cobb
