There is no getting around the fact that $12/day buys a lot of good groceries even in expensive cities. Cooking is trivially learned, especially these days with the Internet. The people claiming that eating on $12/day is challenging are really saying that they can't support their affluent lifestyle on $12/day. Which is true! But it reeks of learned helplessness.

As someone who lived decades of their life in real poverty, I find most of the discourse around a "living wage" to be deeply unserious. Things that are completely normal and healthy in low-income communities across the US are presented as unachievable despite millions of examples to the contrary. Living well as a low-income person is a skill. It is obvious that many people with strong opinions on the matter don't have any expertise at it.

The only reason I still regularly eat the same kind of food as when I was poor is that it is objectively delicious and healthy, cost doesn't factor into it. I can afford to eat whatever I desire.