14 ms·

Good grief, I didn't plan to defend Macdonald's, but this sounds delusional to me. If you're trying to get food cheaply, unless your labor is pretty much free a

Good grief, I didn't plan to defend Macdonald's, but this sounds delusional to me. If you're trying to get food cheaply, unless your labor is pretty much free and you're incredibly efficient I very much doubt this is true. Assuming I were to prepare a home cooked meal from scratch, the chances I would get away with less than 1h of labor (including driving to markets, shopping, and preparation) alone justifies eating out (at a restaurant, forget Macdonalds). Certainly eating home-cooked food is healthier. And it's probably more delicious. And cooking can be enjoyable, but not as a daily grind. But don't make the cost argument unless your time is free.

kefka 12y ago
Don't make the argument "unless your time is free" unless you have 0-turn around time->money converter. Which, your argument is that "Time isn't free, so neener neener", which falls flat in its face. I'm not in the upper, or middle economic class. And making our own food is how we save a great deal of money, and also eating much healthier. We probably could eat on $50/wk for both my wife and I. But it would be junk food and bad calories and malnutrition. Last night, we had shrimp, tilapia, roasted veggies, and a capezzi salad. That would have been ~$40 each out on the town. It cost us $10 for both of us combined. And it was a half hour work for one of us. We can't even work a half hour on no minutes notice.
- Tloewald 12y ago
  Yes but your "free" time is valuable in a different way. I cheerfully cook for myself and my family on occasion, but having to do it all the time (for a family which has different conflicting dietary issues) is not much fun. (We don't eat out much for reasons of health as much as anything.) I just wouldn't make the cost argument -- it doesn't hold water.
bigtunacan 12y ago
Ok, I'll follow on just slightly here related to the cost argument. First let's take time out of the picture because there are too many factors to measure it properly... How close is a McDonalds, do you enjoy cooking, blah... blah... Instead let's compare on cost only... When I originally posted I did not mention the dollar value menu, that is what was immediately posted as a response by someone else. But since it is the lowest common denominator and the representation of McDonalds has cheap food... Let's try to approximate how much it costs in money only to make a "dollar burger". The dollar burger has only 1.5 ounces of meat. Today when I checked my local grocer 80% lean ground was $2.48 a pound. So that should make about 12 dollar burgers. ~21 cents per burger for hamburger Hamburger buns were 68 cents for an eight pack; that's 8.5 cents per burger. It was $2.50 for an 8 pack of presliced cheese These were much thicker higher quality cheese, and unsliced cheese can be bought far cheaper... But we splurged so that's another 32 cents per burger. 88 cents for a head of lettuce which will easily make 20+ dollar burgers so that's 4.4 cents per burger So we add this up and we are now at a burger that costs 57.4 cents to make. We still need to add a sprinkle of onion crumbs as well as a squirt of mustard and ketchup; I think we can safely assume that is going to cost less than the remaining 42.6 cents. So yes; in fact I can make an equivalent burger for less than it costs at McDonalds. If I was going to get a sandwich at McDonalds more likely I would end up with something that doesn't totally suck, like the Big Mac, which averages $4.79 in the US. For $4.79 I can make one hell of a burger.

kefka 12y ago

Don't make the argument "unless your time is free" unless you have 0-turn around time->money converter. Which, your argument is that "Time isn't free, so neener neener", which falls flat in its face. I'm not in the upper, or middle economic class. And making our own food is how we save a great deal of money, and also eating much healthier. We probably could eat on $50/wk for both my wife and I. But it would be junk food and bad calories and malnutrition. Last night, we had shrimp, tilapia, roasted veggies, and a capezzi salad. That would have been ~$40 each out on the town. It cost us $10 for both of us combined. And it was a half hour work for one of us. We can't even work a half hour on no minutes notice.

Tloewald 12y ago
Yes but your "free" time is valuable in a different way. I cheerfully cook for myself and my family on occasion, but having to do it all the time (for a family which has different conflicting dietary issues) is not much fun. (We don't eat out much for reasons of health as much as anything.) I just wouldn't make the cost argument -- it doesn't hold water.

bigtunacan 12y ago

Ok, I'll follow on just slightly here related to the cost argument. First let's take time out of the picture because there are too many factors to measure it properly... How close is a McDonalds, do you enjoy cooking, blah... blah... Instead let's compare on cost only... When I originally posted I did not mention the dollar value menu, that is what was immediately posted as a response by someone else. But since it is the lowest common denominator and the representation of McDonalds has cheap food... Let's try to approximate how much it costs in money only to make a "dollar burger". The dollar burger has only 1.5 ounces of meat. Today when I checked my local grocer 80% lean ground was $2.48 a pound. So that should make about 12 dollar burgers. ~21 cents per burger for hamburger Hamburger buns were 68 cents for an eight pack; that's 8.5 cents per burger. It was $2.50 for an 8 pack of presliced cheese These were much thicker higher quality cheese, and unsliced cheese can be bought far cheaper... But we splurged so that's another 32 cents per burger. 88 cents for a head of lettuce which will easily make 20+ dollar burgers so that's 4.4 cents per burger So we add this up and we are now at a burger that costs 57.4 cents to make. We still need to add a sprinkle of onion crumbs as well as a squirt of mustard and ketchup; I think we can safely assume that is going to cost less than the remaining 42.6 cents. So yes; in fact I can make an equivalent burger for less than it costs at McDonalds. If I was going to get a sandwich at McDonalds more likely I would end up with something that doesn't totally suck, like the Big Mac, which averages $4.79 in the US. For $4.79 I can make one hell of a burger.