Jill Duggar Shows Us How Much Food the Family Really Consumes

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While most of the Duggar adults now appear on TLC's Counting On, we used to keep up with the giant family via 19 Kids & Counting. Jim Bob and Michelle had 19 children to take care of, and audiences were here for it. Now that the oldest children are well into their 20s and have children of their own, they are showing us how the family lived when they were younger--before all the TLC money came rolling in.

Recently, Jill Duggar gave us another example of the amount of food the Duggars had to buy and cook.

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Jill Dillard, the fourth oldest Duggar and second Duggar daughter, is notorious for sharing her family's recipes on Instagram and her personal blog. She recreates many of the recipes her family used to make when she was a child, and her recent Insta story highlighted a cornbread recipe. In the recipe, it becomes immediately clear how much cornbread the family would have to make in order for everybody to enjoy a piece.

Exactly how does cornbread feed 19 children plus two adults?

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Jill has kept quiet about much of the drama that persists between husband Derick Dillard and father Jim Bob Duggar. Instead, she has been posting family recipes and sharing favorites from her childhood. To many followers, the recipes come off as quite simple. Some even call the recipes gross.

In the recipes she has shared, it is clear that Jill favors many of the same ingredients as her parents. The foods are made out of canned goods and boxed ingredients, not the fresh food many people might expect.

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In her cornbread Instagram story, Jill shows how much work (and how many ingredients) go into make a simple side dish for the family. She introduces the recipe as her "favorite recipe for cornbread." She uses premade cornbread mix and creamed corn. Snarkers were quick to point out that this barely qualifies a homemade recipe.

In the video, Jill also says that her mother would make two large pans of the bread, so Jill was making just a quarter of the amount in a 10-inch cast-iron skillet.

The Daily Mail has reported that Michelle Duggar would spend up to $3,000 per month on groceries for the family. In one day, the family could consume 36 eggs, five pounds of turkey bacon, six loaves of bread, and three pounds of potatoes. No word on exactly how many pickles are included in the budget.

The Duggar family spends a lot of money to feed its children. One question remains: how much is it going to cost to feed the dozens of future grandchildren a family that large produces?