In 1930 about 1/4 of income was spent on food. In 1950 it dropped to 1/5. Today we're at less than 1/10. Sources: https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2013/august/price-infla... https://cepr.net/publications/in-the-good-old-days-one-fourt... And the price of food was definitely a consideration in debates over school lunches in earlier years: https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/exhibition/food-power-an...

Also, to suggest food has never been expensive in the United States seems quite a hyperbolic statement to make given the history of poverty in the 19th and early 20th centuries, at least up to the New Deal. You seem to be making a social (laziness) or political (greedy powers-that-be) point, but it's sort of irrelevant to people, including working class people.