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> That rules out cheap but filling Big Macs Big Macs are neither cheap nor filling. Fast food is extremely expensive. Anyone who’s ever been poor and collected

> That rules out cheap but filling Big Macs Big Macs are neither cheap nor filling. Fast food is extremely expensive. Anyone who’s ever been poor and collected enough to escape poverty understands this. Americans, as parroted by this journalist, don’t know what poverty is. How is it that you have 17,000 dollars per year and still struggle to survive? If you’re poor and eat fast food and keep your home stocked with disposable utensils: you’re hopeless, you're going to be poor forever. If you’re poor you can’t eat fast food if you want to stop being poor. You can afford dried lentils. Dried beans. Meat when it’s on sale. Apples when they’re 79 cents/lb or when you can get them for free. Americans just don’t know how to live without getting owned by the man. “Poor” Americans are overwhelmingly people who don’t understand home economics and how not to give all their money to rich people. They make one bad decision after the next. It’s a cultural problem driven by the absense of local community, support structure and values. What’s happened in the past hundred years is that capitalists have played divide and conquer with cultural systems to make people increasingly alone and isolated from one another, less economically viable and increasingly helpless. Cooking—a thing that every person on earth could do for nearly every meal they consumed–became a thing that's difficult. Cooking: Don't Try This at Home. It's simple: Capitalism doesn’t value consumer empowerment. It values consumer servitude. Instead of being raised by grandparents and community members, American children are raised in daycare. Instead of grandparents helping with cooking, working Americans are tasked with preparing food for the family, a task that is impossible. Things you could rely on from family and community are things today you have to get from corporations. We replaced family and community with government and corporations and this is what we got: A culture that says Big Macs are cheap and writes so as a matter of fact in the local newspaper of record.

falcolas 9y ago
Big macs provide about ~600 calories and 25g of protein for $4. The whole meal is over 1000 calories for $6. It's hard to beat in terms of speed or price. Nutrition? Yeah, pretty low (though it's a good source of iron and Vitamin A). Sure, I could make a meal with more calories for a little cheaper... but at a high up-front cost in money, and an prep/cook cost in time.
- linkmotif 9y ago
  Big Macs are shit salty food that doesn’t make you full and spikes your glycemic load so you’re hungry again in 30 minutes. The American idea that poor people get to organize their time the same way that non poor people get to organize their time is near the core of the problem. The argument that eating fast food saves you time is deeply troublesome because poor people, while disadvantaged in many ways like having to use public transit or not having transit, generally have the lowest premium on time because their time is worthless.
  - falcolas 9y ago
    Where else can I spend $6, and have 1000+ calories available to me the next minute? Assume I don't have prep time, because I'm not at home, or because I'm already late for my second job in an attempt to provide for myself at minimum wages. A lot of folks don't have the time or energy to stock up for, prepare and cook proper meals, whether rich, poor, or somewhere in between. Call it a tragedy of the modern times.
    - linkmotif 9y ago
      > Where else can I spend $6, and have 1000+ calories available to me the next minute? The supermarket. You’ll have 10-15,000 much better calories, but you’ll have to cook them in water before you consume them. If you can’t find time to cook and you’re poor, you’ll be poor forever. If you can’t find time to cook and you’re middle class, you’ll be poor soon enough. If you can’t organize your time to run your home economy, you’re going to be poor. Your home economy is the basis of all your wealth. It’s fundamental. If you “don’t have time” for that you’re a slave to The Man, parroting that nonesense for the privilege of eating inferior food other people prepared for you at a huge markup. > Call it a tragedy of the modern times. I am! :) It's the tragedy, really.
    - derekp7 9y ago
      Tuna sandwich -- half can tuna, mayo, relish, bread, cheese, 360 calories for about $1.02. Prices and calories derived from serving sizes on the various product labels, looking up the products on walmart.com. Takes about a minute to mix the ingredients together and make a few sandwiches. Can also bake a potato in the microwave, throw some butter, sour cream, shredded cheese, and seasoning on them. Baked potatoes (or skillet fried, etc) make fairly cheap meals. Pasta is something that is cheap and easy to make, for time management purposes, boil it while you are taking a shower in the morning. Throw it (along with some tomato sauce) in a ziplock baggie in the morning, take it with you for lunch. I realize that time is limited esp. if you are working 80 hour weeks at minimum wage. And then there is the time it takes to stop by walmart to pick up the ingredients. However many people that I know that complain about lack of time also spend quite a bit on either watching TV, or taking smoke breaks, or other things that would be better spent on meal preparation instead of running to McDonalds.

falcolas 9y ago

Big macs provide about ~600 calories and 25g of protein for $4. The whole meal is over 1000 calories for $6. It's hard to beat in terms of speed or price. Nutrition? Yeah, pretty low (though it's a good source of iron and Vitamin A). Sure, I could make a meal with more calories for a little cheaper... but at a high up-front cost in money, and an prep/cook cost in time.

linkmotif 9y ago
Big Macs are shit salty food that doesn’t make you full and spikes your glycemic load so you’re hungry again in 30 minutes. The American idea that poor people get to organize their time the same way that non poor people get to organize their time is near the core of the problem. The argument that eating fast food saves you time is deeply troublesome because poor people, while disadvantaged in many ways like having to use public transit or not having transit, generally have the lowest premium on time because their time is worthless.
- falcolas 9y ago
  Where else can I spend $6, and have 1000+ calories available to me the next minute? Assume I don't have prep time, because I'm not at home, or because I'm already late for my second job in an attempt to provide for myself at minimum wages. A lot of folks don't have the time or energy to stock up for, prepare and cook proper meals, whether rich, poor, or somewhere in between. Call it a tragedy of the modern times.
  - linkmotif 9y ago
    > Where else can I spend $6, and have 1000+ calories available to me the next minute? The supermarket. You’ll have 10-15,000 much better calories, but you’ll have to cook them in water before you consume them. If you can’t find time to cook and you’re poor, you’ll be poor forever. If you can’t find time to cook and you’re middle class, you’ll be poor soon enough. If you can’t organize your time to run your home economy, you’re going to be poor. Your home economy is the basis of all your wealth. It’s fundamental. If you “don’t have time” for that you’re a slave to The Man, parroting that nonesense for the privilege of eating inferior food other people prepared for you at a huge markup. > Call it a tragedy of the modern times. I am! :) It's the tragedy, really.
  - derekp7 9y ago
    Tuna sandwich -- half can tuna, mayo, relish, bread, cheese, 360 calories for about $1.02. Prices and calories derived from serving sizes on the various product labels, looking up the products on walmart.com. Takes about a minute to mix the ingredients together and make a few sandwiches. Can also bake a potato in the microwave, throw some butter, sour cream, shredded cheese, and seasoning on them. Baked potatoes (or skillet fried, etc) make fairly cheap meals. Pasta is something that is cheap and easy to make, for time management purposes, boil it while you are taking a shower in the morning. Throw it (along with some tomato sauce) in a ziplock baggie in the morning, take it with you for lunch. I realize that time is limited esp. if you are working 80 hour weeks at minimum wage. And then there is the time it takes to stop by walmart to pick up the ingredients. However many people that I know that complain about lack of time also spend quite a bit on either watching TV, or taking smoke breaks, or other things that would be better spent on meal preparation instead of running to McDonalds.