The $.50 version is barely food. The $1.69 is not much better, and still very unhealthy for you. Have ground beef and a fiber rich low calorie food like brocoli or whole wheat whole grain noodles or something.
Anyway you're not really helping the poor in practice when you do this. Corporations aren't hurting because one guy or even a dozen he inspires through HN stop buying a few boxes of kraft dinner.
If more people did it, and it became a movement, like buying clothes from the thrift store is becoming, then clothiers will shift business focus. Which to some extent they seem to have done over the past 20 years. But only slightly.
I don't agree with the person above you in as much as the way they are doing it is very individualist "vote with your wallet", and yes, you're right that it's very ineffective.
The more effective way is to form a group, call it a "club" or whatever, that does it. The group can then advertise to other people and get more people to join the club. Eventually, it becomes large enough to gain political power. This is called "unionizing" — people with a shared interest joining together for a common goal. Eventually you get large enough to hold the corporations over a barrel, either through strikes or a mass disinterest in buying products, etc.
The only reason we have a 40-hour work week is because of unionizing, it's a very, very effective tactic that is severely underutilized.
Anyway you're not really helping the poor in practice when you do this. Corporations aren't hurting because one guy or even a dozen he inspires through HN stop buying a few boxes of kraft dinner.
If more people did it, and it became a movement, like buying clothes from the thrift store is becoming, then clothiers will shift business focus. Which to some extent they seem to have done over the past 20 years. But only slightly.