When I was homeless, I'd go to soup kitchens for meals, and I would hit local food banks depending on how often they allowed people to come in.
When I was too poor to afford food, but had enough to support a place to live, I'd still go to the food banks, but I'd also apply for state assistance to purchase food with food stamps/SNAP benefits.
When the assistance runs out, because it is never enough to cover a whole month at a time, sometimes I'd go for the cheap fast food. I mean, a McChicken, or a McDouble goes a long way toward making someone NOT hungry for a day or two. That means when things get really bad, it is possible to get by on a dollar a day.
I mean, I would have gone into the grocery store for a can of something, rather than the fast food, if I had been able to afford heating what was in the can. However, when you are homeless and you don't have any way of making the meal hot... or you can afford the rent but your power and gas are out because you can't pay those bills, you still want something to hot to eat.
Although many poor people do survive on tons of Ramen, Pasta, Beans, and Rice. That's the bulk of what is passed out by Food Banks.
