Lawyers going after fast food...

Originally Posted by Sassafrass

Shoving Big Macs in your face as incredible rates for $10 is a really hard habit to break if you only make so much a week and can't afford nice, healthy, fresh food. McDonalds also offers fast food. People these days (or the blue-collared ones I know of) have little time to eat on their breaks and after hours. The kids, the chores, the bills - best to just swing by the drive-thru and grab a cheap burger on the way home.

It's so convenient, why would a person slave over a stove for much, much longer to cook more expensive food? The industry knows what they're doing. They make it so easy. If you're stupid, you can fall into the trap easily.

I don't know how you cook, but I don't know if any meal I've ever made for myself has been more expensive than $5 a plate. Not to mention I probably save time by cooking my own food over going out to buy it pre-made. I spend, maybe, an hour every third day cooking a meal for myself that makes enough leftovers to eat for lunch and dinner for a few days. It takes me at least ten to fifteen minutes in walking time alone to get to food for each meal.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Devo

Something tells me a lot of you don't cook meals with good meat and fresh veggies. Cause I can assure you it's more expensive than a fast food meal.

Here' what my mom is cooking tonight for 5:

Steaks that are 8.49 per lb, the package is about $13
Half a 5 pound back of potatoes, about $4 in value
2 lbs of zuccini, about $3 in value

So for one meal my mom has spent $20, if we went to say McDonalds we could get several items off the dollar menu including burgers and fries. Tally that up at it's $10, half as much.

My mom's cooking is definitely more healthy, we get protein/starch/veggies without eating a lot of preservatives, cow eyeballs (or whatever shit parts are in their burgers) and grease.

You're comparing steak to hamburgers. While in Irvine, I was able to buy 85% lean hamburger for $1.00 a pound when I bought it in 3lb bulk packages. I could make four quarter pound patties for $1, how many can you buy at McDonald's for that? I also just bought 5 pounds of potatoes for $2.50 today, not on sale, so I don't know why you're spending that much on them.

You should do a more fair comparison. How many steak dinners could you get at a restaurant for the $20 your mom paid?

Originally Posted by Devo

You also need to remember you're cooking for yourself. When you start cooking for a family, it actually becomes to cheaper to order everyone something off say the dollar menu.

And I still don't understand this. It doesn't matter if I'm cooking for myself or my family, the cost per plate is still the same; well under $5 each. Usually the cost per plate goes down since I eat more in one sitting than most other people. The only thing that sucks about cooking for a family is there's fewer leftovers.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Devo

My mom bought some organic stuff actually since those are even more healthy than stuff pumped with hormones or sprayed with chemicals.

Even still, you're not making a fair comparison. You're comparing canned tuna to caviar. You need to either compare how much it'll cost you to make burgers and fries at home or how expensive it would be for everyone in your family to go out and have steak dinners with potatoes and a side of zuccini.

Quote:

If you're cooking for yourself you buy less and can use up whatever servings you don't eat. I dunno about you but not everyone in my family eats the same amount of servings, so the cost per plate doesn't necessarily go down or stay the same.

How does economies of scale somehow get cheaper for when you're buying fast food but not when you're cooking your own food? If someone eats a larger plate of food normally, wouldn't they tend to eat more fast food which would be more expensive?

Say I make a casserole, $2 for cheese, $3 for meat, $1 for pasta, a few cents for an onion, a few cents for spices, a few cents for maybe some celery or peppers. Now, this feeds me for at least six meals. Let's say I make it for my family instead (which I've done a few times while at home). I eat more than my mom and about the same as my dad. It usually works out so my dad and I get two meals out of it and my mom will get three. Sure, it gets more expensive to feed everyone compared to if I was eating alone, but I'm also feeding three times as many people so you should expect it to get roughly three times more expensive (as you should expect the same thing at a fast food place).

The only style of eating out where I can't see what I've been saying is true is with Chinese takeout since you get so much food one person can never eat all of it before it goes bad and they wind up throwing some of it out.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

If you're just eating a big mac, you could easily make a slightly more healthy burger at home on your own. I paid $1 for a pound of beef at Irvine, so let's say I use a quarter pound, that's $0.25. Then there's the bun, I buy the cheap ones that are $0.75 for eight, so $0.10 for the bun. I personally only like ketchup and cheese on my burger, so maybe another $0.20. If you like other toppings on your burger, they're only a few cents each anyway.

You do realize that McDonald's isn't losing money on these dollar menu items, right? In order for them to turn a profit on them, they need to be able to sell them for more than they're paying, and since they're using less-than-grocery-store-quality ingredients usually, you're getting a better meal for at most the same amount of money.

Also, if you want to actually make fast food a decent deal, you stay away from the combos and only eat the main menu item and get water. Sodas and fries are just empty calories and $2 you don't need to spend.

Originally Posted by Devo

My point was it's expensive to eat healthy, so it's much easier to eat crap that doesn't cost as much for the average lazy and or unmotivated person.

So in order to eat healthy one has to eat steak and organic vegetables (which, if you're actually concerned enough to buy those kinds of veggies, you'll get a much better deal at farmers' markets than what you see in a supermarket)?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

If the fast food companies suddenly disappeared, what would all of those people that only eat there do? Starve?

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by a lurker

it's not difficult to figure out a microwave i mean

there's 'on' and 'off' that's really it

I take offense to that as someone who prides himself on his reheating leftovers skills.

Also, Patty, I'd consider frozen dinners as reheating foods, not cooking, since all the food in those things has already been precooked. All you're doing is warming the food up, something I do whenever I bring some Subway home because their soggy buns suck (and it's bullshit when they say oven toasted, it hardly even warms the bread).

Like how my mom will give me a frozen lasagana when she comes out to visit me at school. I don't say I cooked the lasagana when I heat it up, I'm only reheating something that's already been made by someone else. But when I do my tricky ravoli-pasta bake by boiling the pasta, mixing in some sauce, arranging it in a casserole dish, layering the cheese, and baking it in the oven it's home-made.

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Originally Posted by CloudNine

This is exactly my point. What if the only reasonable choice to make for a person is to eat fast food? They knowingly provide food that is subpar in quality and nutritional value without disgreard to the effects that it can have on its customers at such a convenience and value that people are unable to stop the use of the product. They are taking advantage of the people who either have the option of eating here or eating nothing. Does this sound like the moral high road to you?

Fast food has only been around for, at most, fifty years. How did all of these people which are currently stuck on fast food with absolutely no other food options survive prior to the growth of fast food?

FELIPE NO

Yeah, but also in those days people had much more home made meals and cooking took considerably longer. It's not like you need a woman home all day to bake bread, slaughter the chickens, and milk the cows. Nowadays a 30 minute trip to the grocery store takes care of all those things. And cooking doesn't necessarily take very long, just ask my favorite lady.

Hell, when I don't have time to make a meal I eat a sandwich, which is the same thing I'd be buying at a fast food restaurant. On days when I really didn't have enough time, I'd throw all the things I wanted to put on my sandwich in my backpack and make it while I was on my lunch break. Considering you have to wait for them to make your meal at a fast food place nowadays (you know, the freshness thing) it's not any longer for you to throw a few slices of roast beef on two pieces of bread than to stand in line and buy a Big Mac.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?