Why my food bill is so hard™

Because food is the one bill you cannot defer, and that is the whole answer. Every other expense carries slack; a subscription can lapse, a phone bill can stretch, a want can wait, a due date can move. Food has no slack; the body invoices you three times a day, every day, and it never takes a rain check. So the food bill isn't hard because it's the biggest; it's hard because it's the least forgiving thing you owe. It is the floor of the floor. And a system that makes the most non-negotiable need the hardest recurring bill has its floor set wrong. On a fixed income food eats the biggest share; eating cheap costs your health, eating well costs money you don't have, and you land on a buck-fifty apple and two bananas, honest and clever and still not enough to live on for long. The middleman is in the grocery aisle too (shrinkflation, the markup between the field and the plate; the middleman you can't vote out, holding a fork). This is the floor argument at its most literal: a minimum floor has to be a floor you can actually eat on. (His coin; machine's read, refine to his.)