I first saw the article you linked on a day when I'd made hamburgers and salad for dinner, and it didn't pass the smell test. I calculated the cost per person

I first saw the article you linked on a day when I'd made hamburgers and salad for dinner, and it didn't pass the smell test. I calculated the cost per person of a whole-dinner-plate salad (made from fresh veggies, including bell peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes, with dressing) to be about half the cost per person of a quarter pound burger. This was right after the Chile quake, which had doubled the price of some of those veggies. A McDonalds salad costs more than a Big Mac, not because veggies cost more than meat, but because McDonalds salads typically come with meat (chicken/bacon) that's as expensive as ground beef, and the salad veggies, cheese, and dressing are more expensive than a hamburger bun and condiments. (The prices of non-meat salads are anchored to the prices of the meat-containing salads.) I'm all for criticizing food subsidies, but let's do it honestly. Even with subsidies, ground beef costs about twice as much per pound as the veggies I commonly buy, and ground beef is at the bottom end of the meat spectrum. Subsidies don't make a Big Mac cheaper than a salad; price anchoring to chicken-bacon-ranch salads make McDonalds salads expensive.