4 ms·

The economy isn't doing well at all, and people are flocking to the cheapest alternatives. Fast food is absolutely not the cheapest alternative. We cook about

by shpxnvz 15y ago

The economy isn't doing well at all, and people are flocking to the cheapest alternatives. Fast food is absolutely not the cheapest alternative. We cook about 95% of our meals, using roughly half organic ingredients, and seldom exceed $2-$3 per person per meal for our family which includes left overs. Our average is well below that. Fast food restaurants in our area typically charge $6-$7 per "complete" meal. When you cook for yourself you can take advantage of sales and bulk purchase discounts which can dramatically lower your ingredient cost. Whatever the reason is for people to eat fast food so much, low cost surely can't be it.

orangecat 15y ago
"Linux is only free if your time has no value."
- shpxnvz 15y ago
  Linux is only free if your time has no value. Americans average 2.7 hours of TV per day now (1). Exactly what monetary value do you assign to that time that makes it worth more than the same time spent cooking? 1. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm
  - Jach 15y ago
    Minimum wage is a decent metric for assigning a dollar amount to free time slices. Suddenly cooking all the time doesn't seem as beneficial money-wise. (There are a bunch of other, better, reasons to cook though.) Personally I don't enjoy the process of cooking or cleaning, so on top of the time there's also some psychological stressors involved, and I don't want the overhead of a bunch of cooking devices and spices and so forth that I'll only ever use a few times a year. I have the necessities for when I do cook and even that feels like a bit too much. If I ever have kids I suspect I'll be forced to change my attitude, or find a wife who absolutely loves to cook. Not giving your kids home-cooked meals when they're home the majority of the time seems near the line of parental abuse to me. Don't even talk about the parents who feed their kids nothing but McD's. Edit: I'm going to throw in a plug for http://www.cookingforengineers.com/ http://www.cookingforengineers.com/
    - roel_v 15y ago
      Out of interest, does that mean you eat out most of the time? Breakfast, lunch and dinner? How do you avoid getting tired of eating the same things? After eating out for a week when on a business trip or vacation, I get so tired of it that I'm happy to go home and just bake a simple steak or sausage with some broccoli, or whatever else most basic thing I feel like. Of course you can go to a restaurant and have a steak but they still never taste as... uncomplicated... as a home-baked one.
      - Jach 15y ago
        I find a mixture of eating out (and switching up places, e.g. for fast food I tend to go with Wendy's, Arby's, and mexican food), cooking full meals, and microwaving or oven-baking frozen stuff to suit my needs, as well as fresh veggies and fruit, cereal, and sandwiches. The majority of what I eat is definitely the third group of stuff-at-home-but-not-really-cooking type of food, and I'm pretty sure it's the cheapest. I rarely eat out at a sit-down restaurant since that defeats the point of saving time and also costs too much. (More than $16 or so a meal is "a lot" from my perspective.)
  - icebraining 15y ago
    Lies, damn lies and statistics. Weekends and teenagers probably raise that average a lot. Besides, having free time doesn't mean you have it before meal hours, and even if you cook the day before, not every workplace has somewhere to heat the meal. By the way, some time ago when I was working far from home, I ate everyday at a MacDonalds - they had a cheap but excellent vegetable soup made right there in the restaurant. That counts as 'fast food', but it's far from the junk they usually sell.
  - roel_v 15y ago
    People's revealed preference is that they value watching TV more than they do saving money on food by trading the time it requires to do so. In other words, the 'cost ceiling' (I just made up that term :) ) of watching TV is higher than that of the potential savings of cooking at home. I'm not sure what you're arguing - you may make a different trade off yourself, fine; you may disapprove of other people's choices, also fine even if rather nosy. But apparently, people just like watching TV more and they're willing to pay for it. Additionally, I think your argument is flawed in that you don't account for other costs of cooking at home. For one, you need a kitchen, utensils, some basic skills and access to transportation to get goods from the shop to your home. All of which are not readily available to many low-income families.
    - shpxnvz 15y ago
      People's revealed preference is that they value watching TV more than they do saving money on food by trading the time it requires to do so. In other words, the 'cost ceiling' (I just made up that term :) ) of watching TV is higher than that of the potential savings of cooking at home. Yes. The point I was trying to make was exactly that - actual monetary cost is not why people choose to eat fast food. I'm not claiming that's a bad thing, either. All I'm saying is that it's irrational to argue that the monetary cost of cooking is higher. Additionally, I think your argument is flawed in that you don't account for other costs of cooking at home. For one, you need a kitchen, utensils, some basic skills and access to transportation to get goods from the shop to your home. All of which are not readily available to many low-income families. Real data doesn't support that claim. Based on U.S. Department of Energy data (1), 99.6% of poor households in America have a refrigerator and 97.7% have a stove and oven. The necessary utensils and cookware can be had for the cost of a couple of fast food meals at Walmart. I'm not sure what sort of transportation you are envisioning that can take someone to McDonald's but not the grocery store, but assuming that is a problem every county I've lived in has transportation programs for the poor. 1. http://explore.data.gov/Energy-and-Utilities/Residential-Energy-Consumption-Survey-RECS-Files-E/j3qe-tebj http://explore.data.gov/Energy-and-Utilities/Residential-Ene...
      - roel_v 15y ago
typicalrunt 15y ago
Fast food is absolutely not the cheapest alternative Well jeebus... of course I meant compared to sitting down at other restaurants. That's what the article was stating.

by shpxnvz 15y ago

orangecat 15y ago

"Linux is only free if your time has no value."

shpxnvz 15y ago
Linux is only free if your time has no value. Americans average 2.7 hours of TV per day now (1). Exactly what monetary value do you assign to that time that makes it worth more than the same time spent cooking? 1. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm
- Jach 15y ago
  Minimum wage is a decent metric for assigning a dollar amount to free time slices. Suddenly cooking all the time doesn't seem as beneficial money-wise. (There are a bunch of other, better, reasons to cook though.) Personally I don't enjoy the process of cooking or cleaning, so on top of the time there's also some psychological stressors involved, and I don't want the overhead of a bunch of cooking devices and spices and so forth that I'll only ever use a few times a year. I have the necessities for when I do cook and even that feels like a bit too much. If I ever have kids I suspect I'll be forced to change my attitude, or find a wife who absolutely loves to cook. Not giving your kids home-cooked meals when they're home the majority of the time seems near the line of parental abuse to me. Don't even talk about the parents who feed their kids nothing but McD's. Edit: I'm going to throw in a plug for http://www.cookingforengineers.com/ http://www.cookingforengineers.com/
  - roel_v 15y ago
    Out of interest, does that mean you eat out most of the time? Breakfast, lunch and dinner? How do you avoid getting tired of eating the same things? After eating out for a week when on a business trip or vacation, I get so tired of it that I'm happy to go home and just bake a simple steak or sausage with some broccoli, or whatever else most basic thing I feel like. Of course you can go to a restaurant and have a steak but they still never taste as... uncomplicated... as a home-baked one.
    - Jach 15y ago
      I find a mixture of eating out (and switching up places, e.g. for fast food I tend to go with Wendy's, Arby's, and mexican food), cooking full meals, and microwaving or oven-baking frozen stuff to suit my needs, as well as fresh veggies and fruit, cereal, and sandwiches. The majority of what I eat is definitely the third group of stuff-at-home-but-not-really-cooking type of food, and I'm pretty sure it's the cheapest. I rarely eat out at a sit-down restaurant since that defeats the point of saving time and also costs too much. (More than $16 or so a meal is "a lot" from my perspective.)
- icebraining 15y ago
  Lies, damn lies and statistics. Weekends and teenagers probably raise that average a lot. Besides, having free time doesn't mean you have it before meal hours, and even if you cook the day before, not every workplace has somewhere to heat the meal. By the way, some time ago when I was working far from home, I ate everyday at a MacDonalds - they had a cheap but excellent vegetable soup made right there in the restaurant. That counts as 'fast food', but it's far from the junk they usually sell.
- roel_v 15y ago
  People's revealed preference is that they value watching TV more than they do saving money on food by trading the time it requires to do so. In other words, the 'cost ceiling' (I just made up that term :) ) of watching TV is higher than that of the potential savings of cooking at home. I'm not sure what you're arguing - you may make a different trade off yourself, fine; you may disapprove of other people's choices, also fine even if rather nosy. But apparently, people just like watching TV more and they're willing to pay for it. Additionally, I think your argument is flawed in that you don't account for other costs of cooking at home. For one, you need a kitchen, utensils, some basic skills and access to transportation to get goods from the shop to your home. All of which are not readily available to many low-income families.
  - shpxnvz 15y ago
    People's revealed preference is that they value watching TV more than they do saving money on food by trading the time it requires to do so. In other words, the 'cost ceiling' (I just made up that term :) ) of watching TV is higher than that of the potential savings of cooking at home. Yes. The point I was trying to make was exactly that - actual monetary cost is not why people choose to eat fast food. I'm not claiming that's a bad thing, either. All I'm saying is that it's irrational to argue that the monetary cost of cooking is higher. Additionally, I think your argument is flawed in that you don't account for other costs of cooking at home. For one, you need a kitchen, utensils, some basic skills and access to transportation to get goods from the shop to your home. All of which are not readily available to many low-income families. Real data doesn't support that claim. Based on U.S. Department of Energy data (1), 99.6% of poor households in America have a refrigerator and 97.7% have a stove and oven. The necessary utensils and cookware can be had for the cost of a couple of fast food meals at Walmart. I'm not sure what sort of transportation you are envisioning that can take someone to McDonald's but not the grocery store, but assuming that is a problem every county I've lived in has transportation programs for the poor. 1. http://explore.data.gov/Energy-and-Utilities/Residential-Energy-Consumption-Survey-RECS-Files-E/j3qe-tebj http://explore.data.gov/Energy-and-Utilities/Residential-Ene...
    - roel_v 15y ago

typicalrunt 15y ago

Fast food is absolutely not the cheapest alternative Well jeebus... of course I meant compared to sitting down at other restaurants. That's what the article was stating.