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And it's always wrong in the weirdest, someone-has-to-be-fucking-with-me ways. I ordered a sausage, egg, and cheese McMuffin for breakfast the other day. I hate their cheese, so I ordered just sausage and egg.

I opened the wrapper to my sandwich, and I had a sausage patty and 3 slices of cheese. It was rung up correctly, so I truly have no clue what was going on in the back.

“Hate cheese do we?! The Netherlands send their regards!!!”

Ok that made me actually laugh out loud.

I've had weird mess ups like that too. I ordered a crispy chicken sandwich and discovered they forgot the chicken part.

Everytime I go the order is either wrong or they need me to park by the door and my order isn't ready for like 5-10 minutes. Completely negates the entire point of "fast food".

Only ever go there now if I need a coffee on the road.

In the UK there's theirs is probably the worst coffee available.

In Canada theirs is probably the best, so not sure if it's different or we are just really screwed when it comes to coffee.

McDonalds upped their coffee game in Canada to compete with Tim Hortons. If you cross the border into the US, you can get to enjoy McMud.

My god it's shite in the UK. £2 latte. It's £1.50ish more to get a drinkable Costa or starbucks or Nero or whatever the fuck is around.

On the flip side, one of the best ice coffee's was McDonald's in Malta.

I stopped going there after eating my first BigMac. How can people eat that vile stuff?

I mean it's a burger, it's not that bad

That "thing" was as far from a burger as culinary possible while still consisting of comparable ingredients.

And it tasted like shit.

Sounds like you just had a badly made one. Not all franchises are equal.

A well made big Mac tastes good. There's a reason it's been around this long.

Most don't know how to cook for themselves properly

I know how to cook for myself properly. I just don't want to.

Haven’t eaten a meal there in a decade now. Go for ice cream like once every two years. Went this summer. $6 for 2 cones. Bruh. What!

Whaaat? Their "dollar cones" are like a whole thing in the summer, even up here in Canada, the land of "just because" price gouging.

I think we lost dollar cones where I live around 10 years ago

Was about to say this. The best way to handle this is break their economic projections.

I stopped going there when they discontinued the Arch Deluxe. Fuck the haters, that shit was delicious.

My all time favorite as well

Same. Price is ridiculous and last time I waited 40mins for my order. Fuck this place.

Look at the bright side - you're gonna be more heatlhy by not going there!😅

The pandemic has raised and leveled prices of pretty much all restaurants. This has two results:

  1. Everything is expensive

  2. There is no reason to eat at fast-food joints, because the final bill will be almost identical to a much better tasting local restaurant or burger joint.

This is what I'm seeing too. If I want food out, I might as well go to a place where the napkin may belong on my lap.

Decent Italian restaurant entree is close to the same as a fast food combo. About as filling and more healthy (depending on choices).

And, as a bonus, rhe wait time in rhe local restaraunt won't be any longer.

We all know, in the end, it will be Taco Bell that wins the fast food wars.

Dude Taco Bell is one of the worst offenders. I don't eat there anymore but I know they're charging up the ass for rice, beans, and what can only be described as meat product that barely meets the legal definition of "beef."

Charging you up the ass so you can blow it right back out!

*not because “hurr Mexican food give diarrhea”, but because Taco Bell use shit ingredients and don’t pay their workers enough to give a shit to clean well

Yes, Taco Bell has a reputation. I love real Mexican food.

Can you believe that all these people don't know how to use the three shells!?

What seems to be your boggle?

HONK John Spartan, you are fined 10 credits for violation of the verbal morality statute.

Have you had it recently? When I was a teenager there was a "taco bell challenge" to see if you could eat 20 dollars of taco bell. It would be impossible to eat that much food. Now it's like 2.5 things off the menu.

RIP cheese bean and rice burritos...now they're $2 or more depending on the store..such a rip off.

I remember when they came with Pico and were still 1$, good times.

The pico is what hurts the most. Now to recreate the same thing it's like $3... it's insane.

Preach, even then it's just tomatoes and onions. Since cilantro got phased out.

Wait really? Damn how much are they really saving removing what makes pico pico...

I honestly think it had to do with a salmonella problem, Jimmy John's stopped offering alfalfa sprouts for the same reason...miss those too.

They're fucking up right now, but I'm hoping they pull through as the great prophecy has show.

Watch Idiocracy. It's free with ads on YouTube. Good movie. Better timeline than what we've got right now.

I believe they're referring to Demolition Man.

I've never had it in my life.

Honestly the only thing you're missing out on is the Mexican Pizza. That's the only thing the Bell has that I cannot find at any Mexican restaurant, and I live in San Diego, where you can throw pocket sand in any direction and 3/4 of the time you'll hit an authentic Mexican food truck/ restaurant.

It's worth trying if you're interested, IMO.

Nothing mind-blowing (except the morning crunch wrap, which is mind-blowing). But they are pretty consistent, and have a lot more options than most fast food places when it comes to healthy-ish options.

It's not Mexican food, it's not even tex-mex. It's just taco bell. It's its own category of food. Go in without preconceived ideas of what it should be and you might find that you enjoy it.

Fries from fast casual local joint: $3.99.

Fries from McDonald's: 4.39

Local joint fills the bag like Five Guys. McDonald's barely has fries in the fries sleeve.

It's just not worth going there unless I use the app and that's only for when it's got one person.

It’s just not worth going there unless I use the app and that’s only for when it’s got one person.

You look at the privacy policy or app permissions for the McDonalds app? The thing is datamining your life.

Also waive your rights to class action law suit against McDonald's

Look at permissions.

  • retrieve running apps (why does it need to know what else is running on my phone?)
  • View WiFi connections (allows accurate geolocation by retrieving available WiFi networks and comparing them against a database server side)
  • connect and disconnect from WiFi (why ever would this be needed to order food? might be part of the above geolocation system)
  • full network access (can access local area network, not necessary to just make HTTP(s) requests to a server
  • Read Google service configuration (hard to find info on this one but appears to grant access to some account IDs and perhaps the Google login ID)
  • Use accounts on the device (probably to see what accounts are available- more tracking

Now look at the data safety thing:

  • Financial info may be shared with other companies for advertising or marketing
  • App activity may be shared with other companies for advertising or marketing
  • Device or other IDs may be shared with other companies for advertising or marketing

Personally though I think you could argue the 'data safety' screen is fraudulent- it mentions nothing about collecting location information, so why does the app need location info? Even if they are just collecting which mcdonalds you are near, that's collecting location info.


Then you have the issue of the terms of service. As others have mentioned, if you agree to those terms, you waive your right to participate in any class action lawsuit against McDonalds. And even if you ignore this data collection issue, that right there should be a big reason to say HELL NO to this.

True, but on Android you can turn permissions off.

True, but you're still agreeing to the ToS that waives your right to sue the company. Can't turn that off.

Not all of them. Phone ID for example, I think phone number also, and unless you force it to sleep whenever not using it, it can collect your IP address when at home on Wi-Fi which can be used to locate you.

Not since android 10 (maybe 8?). To access WiFi network info or information about the connected cell tower requires the location permission. Also the device id is unique to each app. So app A and app B on your device will see different device ids. Deleting and reinstalling the app will not generate a new device id, however.

They've been huffing their own farts. They've used ad placement about having legendary fries for so long that they actually believe it. Last time I had McDonald's french fries about 5 years ago they tasted like shredded and compressed napkins, smothered with salt. No thanks, at any price.

We went to Subway a few weeks ago without paying attention to the prices and it was over $30 for two 6" sandwiches, chips, and drinks. What in the absolute fuck? Oh, and then of course the stupid credit card machine asks for a tip with 20% prefilled. A single 6" sub is $10 now. We won't be going back.

I stopped when our local store had a footlong for $15

$5 ! $7! $10! $15, Footlong! $5 ! $7! $10! $15, Footlong! $5 ! $7! $10! $15, Footlong!

The song really is not as catchy anymore.....

Subway also used to be the "build your own sandwich" place. Locally, they've moved to a "catered" menu or some such nonsense, now it's just a run of the mill submarine sandwich shop.

I'm pretty sure you can't even get anything from the "old" menu anymore. the $5 footlong is now a point in history that will not be repeated, since all of those catered sandwiches are easily $10+ for a footlong, unless you want them to modify it in any way at all, because that will cost extra. Drink? fuck you, $3 for a fountain drink that costs less than $0.50 in materials, and you have to get it yourself. Want a bottled drink because you're heading out and don't want to spill it in the car? that's $4.50. want to make it a combo and get a uselessly small bag of chips or a couple of heated ice-cream scoop sized dobs of pre-made batter that's been heated? ha ha, PROFIT!

The prices are made up but being fairly regular at soubway, they're not far from the truth. the whole idea of getting a meal at any food place for $5 or less is basically impossible. I consider it a good deal if I'm getting lunch for less than $10. The nice thing is that burger king still has whopper wednesdays, where you can get a second whopper for $1. Makes the whole meal of two whoppers around $5, then I just pour myself a nice glass of go fuck yourself I'm drinking tap water, and I have an actually affordable lunch.

Thanks burger king.

Bk is my cheap option too. I can't eat 2 whoppers but they have a special for 2 whopper Jr's for 5$ going. When that isn't going I just get 2 double cheeseburger. Both come out to 6ish dollars which is a he'll of a lot better than 10+ I have to pay anywhere else near my job.

Corporations realized a few years ago that as long as they have a recognizable brand that they don't have to actually have a good or affordable product anymore. You see this with chips and other luxury foods like pop.
Nothing will change until their bottom line gets utterly destroyed

Look at it this way. When the minimum wage was RAISED from 5.15 to 7.25 an hour the 2 cheeseburger meal was $2.99. That's less than half of an hours work.

Now minimum is still 7.25 and that combo is easily over $7.25

This realization keeps pissing me off so much:

Big companies don't want to make a living, they want to make themselves rich.

It was $11 and change the other day for two of those little cheeseburgers and medium fry, no drink. Which, the medium fry is now a small. It's tiny.

There's one day a week where I work late and I just don't feel like cooking and I'm starving, and I just wanted to grab something quickly. I could have gotten a whole rotisserie chicken at the grocery store for $10. Except those are also tiny now, come in bags that leak grease instead of the cartons they used to come in, and the last two times I've gotten them have had several feathers fried to the wing. Which is why I didn't stop and get one ffs. Every goddamn thing is a rip off.

Drink water, cook at home, the healthiest for your body and your wallet

Well looking at how much the price of all staples in the grocery store has gone up in the last decade, I would say it is neither now.

Junk is still cheap though......

Drink water

Flavor can be nice sometimes...

a long time ago, I sat in on a lecture from a nutritionist and some of the stuff he said really stuck with me.

One of those things was that he was very opposed to things like juice, it's high in sugar and most of the "good stuff" from the fruit had been stripped away, making it tasty but ultimately not a very nutritious option. his advice was: if you want apple juice, instead, just eat an apple and drink water. Rinse and repeat for whatever beverage.

Personally, I quit coca-cola, it was a slow process, but it was for the best. Now I drink plenty of water and I just have to work on my diet a little and I should be fairly well-off in terms of nutritional health. Yes, flavor is nice sometimes, but ultimately, you're doing yourself a disservice. Even "calorie free" water flavorings have drawbacks, the chemicals used to artificially sweeten things have their fair share of problems; at the very least they a lot of controversial information about how "safe" they really are, and what effects they impose on your health.

Drink water, eat fruit, eat veggies. These are things that people of almost every walk of life do not do enough of.... unless you're a vegan.... I suppose. (I'm not)

There are options other than water, juice and soda. Tea, for example. It doesn't require anything to sweeten it if you don't want to do so and it tastes good.

Online people hate McDonalds. Crap food and shit pay. Yet everyday there's a big lines at the McDonald's down the street. The world is odd.

The world isn't odd - it's just that people on forums don't represent the wider public, especially on a site like lemmy. That's why boycots don't work too - most often than not it's a loud minority screaming into the void.

Convenient is too good to pass up for a overworked and underpaid population.

I like McDonald's. I know, wrong opinion.

Maybe it's because it was an occasional treat when I was a kid, but there is something nostalgic about it. Sometimes I just want it.

But it's definitely hard when eating at McDonald's with our family of 4 is equivalent to eating at a fast casual place, and starting to approach the cost of a sit-down restaurant. The big happy meals are over 6 bucks now, and that's starting not to be enough food as our kids get older. If we get a value meal it's $8-10 each for me and my wife. So even if we go minimal, which usually results in people still being hungry, we are already at ~$30. It's not hard to get up close to $40.

Remember the dollar menu?? I mean if we break each of those meals down to their components of sandwich/fry/drink, if we stayed on the dollar menu what now costs $30 could have been bought for $12. Obviously inflation comes into play a little bit but I'm not sure prices needed to nearly triple.

Sit down restaurants obviously have increased a ton too, but if they have a reasonable kids menu we can do it for $50 or $60 depending on the place. Yes, more than McDonald's, but McDonald's also has no business being that close in price.

Only a few percent of people who use social media apps ever contribute anything at all. What you read here or anywhere are not the views of the majority.

I read a paper that suggested that the rule of thumb would be 90/9/1. 90% lurk, 9% comment, 1% generate content.

I dont eat McDonalds or Burger King anymore.

They price their food as if the minimum wage is a living wage. Shouldnt have to work for an hour or more just to afford a big mac or whopper.

I stopped eating burger king because the burger patty was becoming noticably smaller. Like absurdly so. Supposed to home of the whopper and the burger patty is becoming regular size. I stopped eating itbout of principle

Locally Wendy's is the only one really still doing a value menu. A couple of junior cheese burgers with some veggies and I'm getting close to the price of 1 burger elsewhere. That's a decent quick meal for me on the go. The worst pricing is A&W. They are the most expensive around now. They do have the upsell with the 100 grass fed no antibiotics line but it's still a fast food joint. A single burger shouldn't be costing almost a 10 spot with taxes.

Then I think I'm getting old as I recall the outrage of my parents and grandparents about how much the cost of everything was out of control while things were shrinking.

yeah, if I'm going to be spending 10 bucks on fast food

I'm getting little ceasers pizza and a pack of crazy bread.

not a single fucking burger

It isn't a lot but I think Biggie bags are still $5. They include a shitty burger, 4 nuggets, small fry and a small drink I believe. I think Taco Bell got rid of their 5 dollar box. I should see if there is a little ceasers near me.

Little ceasers is heavily dependent on the management.

When the manager is on point and cares, Its honestly some of the best pizza around.

That's because most of their money comes from real estate, not selling food.

https://www.wallstreetsurvivor.com/mcdonalds-beyond-the-burger/

What does that have to do with long lines of people going to McDonald's? They are just there to admire the real estate?

mc'ds is always busy near me but that's mostly due to a lack of drive-through places in this part of town. if you want something fast there are other places but you have to park go in sit down blah blah.

imho, the drive through is their last genuine advantage over any other place. the 'value' is gone.

In Ohio it's become so bad that it's literally cheaper to feed a family of four at a sit down family restaurant than eating at our local McDonald's and the food is measurably better at the mom and Pop places than what you get at McDonald's. It's just not worth it and they pay their people nothing so the food comes out wrong or cold because they just don't care.

We gave up on McDonald's some time ago and it'll take a lot for us to go back, starting with the removal of those "Now hiring: $14/hr!" signs out front that have been there for years. If y'all pay your people that little it's a sign to me as a consumer that my food isn't going to be made by people who care so why even bother?

Also screw those self-ordering kiosks, those only exist because y'all are under-staffed and you're trying to make up for the missing staff by passing off the ordering part to the consumers instead of hiring more people.

14/hr in Ohio is actually pretty good for a fast food job.

That said, please do support the mom and pop over the fast food giant! You're keeping money in your community! So many (especially rural communities) have been drained of meaningful dining and shopping experiences by chains that contribute very little back to the local economy and the towns are in a state of disrepair.

$14/hr is like $1400/month after taxes, assuming you even get 40 hours.

That’s not even enough for RENT in most places.

That's why you hustle and have a second job, an Onlyfans, a Youtube channel, a Fiverr account, sell plasma, drive for rideshare, live out of your car and AirBNB the room you rent, sell drugs, turn tricks, and go freegan.

It isn't hard to make it anywhere if you have the motivation and can-do attitude.

What’s the point in letting us live if we can’t create value for all the billionaires?

I mean, you can get rent for $500-600 in some rural parts of Ohio. I don't know anywhere in Ohio -- unless you're going for literally the most expensive area -- that's $1,400 for a single bedroom.

For a high school student working fast food ... which is really who these jobs are best suited for $14/hr is a pretty great deal. I mean not 10 years ago, they were paying like $8/hr. I know inflation has changed things but we haven't seen 50% inflation since I was in high school.

But yes, it's not a comfortable wage, it's just pretty decent as far as minimum wage standards go.

Remember when McDonalds and Taco Bell had dollar menus?

Don't even get me started on taco bell. I ordered food for me and my GF, it was $29. I was so fucking shocked, I literally said "nevermind", dipped out of the drive-through, and we went and sat down at an authentic Mexican restaurant and had 2 drinks for 35 bucks.

These chains are smoking fucking crack. The people paying it are even dumber.

I remember when a soft taco was 39 cents.

They were at $.19 back in the early 90s.

Yeah, I can't remember the last time I went to McDonalds: Progressively shitty food, progressively higher prices, and increasingly lengthy wait times.

It's not fast, it's not good, it's not cheap, and it's not convenient.

There's better places for much less $$ nowadays.

I miss the times when fast food was fast, you place your order and pickup your meal right after without waiting more than 10 seconds

I actually miss when maccas used to make the stuff in bulk and chuck on a rack. you'd order, they'd grab your burger and stuff bag it and your done. now it's "made to order" and while it's admittedly pretty quick, during peak times you'll be waiting a while.

there was never an issue with the bulk system cause everything moved so quick anyway

I would not describe any of them as "pretty quick" but I do know how long it takes to cook a burger and it's never as long as I'd have to wait at these shitty places: It sure as shit doesn't take 10-20 minutes to cook a burger on the presses they use. These corporations understaff their restaurants and pay shit wages, so, of course, they don't get very good employees (or even if they do, why would they try very hard for that pay?)

I got McDonald’s today for my kids (as a treat), and it cost over $15 for two quarter pounders with cheese (one with bacon) and two small fries. That’s it. No drinks. Nothing else.

The last time I went to McDonald's I got two regular hamburgers and a medium fry, no drink. It was almost $10 after tax, the fries were cold and I had to pull out of the drive-through and wait for it.

I didn't eat McDonald's a lot to begin with, but it's just not worth it to eat there anymore. It was always crap food, but it was at least fast and cheap. Now that it's crap, slow, and expensive, there's absolutely no reason to go there. The entire time I was sitting in my car eating my sad little mostly-bun burgers and cold fries, I was looking at the Costco across the street thinking about how, for the same $10, I could have gotten a huge slice of pizza, a soda, two churros, and an entire rotisserie chicken.

That seems perfectly reasonable at the prices I’ve been experiencing over the last few years. In fact I think that same order at my local McDonalds would cost more.

Happened to go yesterday for the first time in a year. Royale with Cheese, fries and a Coke was €12

But the staff get a liveable wage and the food is actually pretty good

Very interesting read - https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/born-in-the-usa-made-in-france-how-mcdonalds-succeeds-in-the-land-of-michelin-stars/

Huh, I guess Pulp Fiction was telling the truth about the Quarter Pounder with Cheese.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pkq_eBHXJ4

I'm pretty sure Maccas (or McDo as they say in France) started calling it that after the film

You know what they call a quarter pounder with cheese??

Shout out to taco bell, I can get over 1,000 calories for like $3.25

Taco bell is much more expensive than it was before their new ceo

Yeah but their dollar menu is still the best value in terms of calories per dollar - except maybe when you compare it to little caesars.

My taco bell doesn't have a dollar menu just a "value menu" where the cheapest thing is strawberry twists for $1.59

taco bell had me covered even when I had nothing

As a former employee, there's a reason for that.

Because of Prohibition's downstream effects?

No. Because of what can sometimes be found in the meat.

Employee protein or invertebrate protein?

Yes

Always respect the Bell

The things that fast food had going for it is that it was ready quickly, was cheap, and was standardized across the country. It's no longer cheap; between the waits to order, to pay, and to get your food, it's no longer fast; and my tastes have evolved beyond that if a five year old so I'm more willing to accept variety in my diet.

Nowadays, I only stop at fast food if I'm on a road trip and I don't want to get out of the car.

I was rushed one morning and stopped by McDonald's for breakfast on my way to work and got the 2 breakfast burrito meal. It cost almost $11. I will pretty much never be getting McDonald's again since that should be one of the cheapest things on the menus.

$11 for two micro burritos, a chunk of hash browns, and drink? That's straight up robbery.

Did you read the new TOS?

Reading this comment chain while eating a McDonald's BOGO double cheeseburger gave me the biggest laugh.

So stop eating there

Publicly complaining that a restaurant's prices are too high and their crappy food isn't worth it.....while still going there and buying their shit????? The logic behind that is mind boggling. Just stop giving them money. I didn't even know their prices were this high because I haven't eaten at a McDonald's in years.

Taco Bell is still cheap, right? Go there instead of McDonald's. Vote with your wallet.

One of the easiest tasks a human could face.

Inflation this quickly isnt real. It’s what happens when you come off a global pandemic with millions dead and corporations see they can freely abuse you by exploiting the public zeitgeist that prices are going up due to inflation.

I agree that McDonald's sucks and I don't ever go there but this isn't how economics works. The current inflation isn't an illusionary public perception thing it's a real and tangible transfer of wealth and erosion of the value of labor of regular people. We are heading towards a future where society's resources are no longer being allocated to us.

I keep telling people that those who are rich love blaming inflation, it barely affects their spending and will make their business more money...

This is an excuse to raise prices because of inflation. Those burgers cost them pennies on the dollar.

They don't need an excuse. I'm not making an excuse for them anyway, I'm saying focus on the real problem (to be clear, not inflation) instead of demanding sympathy from a corporation that was and will always act as your adversary.

remember egg shortage led to record profits?

McDonalds had remodeled their places to pretend they're fancier, but the food is still shit fare and the service has a lot gotten worse since they decided to have like two employees maximum per location. Portions have also gotten smaller, not sure if their excuse is that it's "healthier" or it's simply what fancier places do, but either way it's a rip-off and the only way the trend is going to change is if their precious stock price is threatened, which is only about 10% off its all-time high.

that bullshit where they started serving fries in those dollar shop shitty chrome baskets with that stupid overpriced "create your own" was the turning point I noticed when they lost track of what they were and suddenly thought they were a gourmet burger joint.

that initiative failed, the "gourmet" burgers are relegated to a niche menu item with like 2 choices that hardly anyone orders, so instead they just jack the prices on everything else as though it's "fancy enough". I only go there where there is actual cheap deals in the app, and for free coffees earnt through the app. their everyday prices are a complete joke for what they provide

Omg that guy is annoying.

It's just a gimmick

You need personal space when viewing a person through a computer screen?

Likes the sound of his own voice too much.

A bag of rice, soy sauce, sugar, some cabbage and some chicken will make you more and better food than any fast food restaurant.

When I was struggling, I made meals, mostly from the microwave. Make Chinese food in bulk homie. Freeze some of it in packs so you don't have to eat the same meals every meal.

Going to a fast food restaurant is not saving you money, even before McDonald's raised their prices.

The issue is that it wasn't about saving money, it was about saving time without destroying your finances. Not that I am one, but I can empathize with a single parent working two part-time jobs for 12 hours/day, both at minimum wage, being exhausted and knowing she has kids to feed at home but absolutely 0 energy or effort left to prepare a meal. Pulling through a fast food place and picking up some burgers or maybe a happy meal to see the smile on his/her kid's face when they see the bag/box after a long day missing them. Prioritizing spending what little energy and time s/he has left on actually spending time with the kid.

Please remember that there are different kinds of poor. Single-poor or college-poor are very different than single-parent poor or 2-income-family-but-still-worried-about-paying-rent poor.

I want to emphasize that you can make food fairly quickly with the microwave with little to no effort. Not saying it's not going to be mentally difficult to do.

Cooked rice is small packets that microwaves stay for months. So does teriyaki chicken in small packets. This meal is what I started out with and then started graduating to more advanced meals. Even advanced meals are microwaveable.

Making bulk mac and cheese from scratch using shredded cheese and salt in macaroni literally takes 15 minutes and you can microwave after being frozen.

I involved my kids in making meals. It's part of our family building activity.

Being broke sucks. I know. I was also there. But Chinese food is sooooo freaking easy to make and freeze.

At one point I had 2 microwaves, with the 2nd one being donated from a friend.

DM me for these recipes. Mac and cheese can be made within 15 minutes. Teriyaki chicken could be made within 20 minutes if you skip the chicken marinating. Each time I make a meal that meal can last for a week with two mouths to feed. Eventually there freezer would have up to 5 to 6 different meals at a time that we cycle through

Oh, I don't need them personally. I work from home and make enough that my wife doesn't have to (barely, but she has health issues that make normal employment impossible, especially with the changes to ADA in recent years). We are able to cook meals just fine. I was merely coming to the defense of those who were not able to defend themselves and pointing out some logical, logistical, and epistemological errors/falacies in your argument.

All that said, thanks for the offers though and I hope someone who is struggling takes you up on it.

2min noodles, 1 scoop of protein powder and a multivitamin. Eat smart

50% of your daily sodium intake and really expensive pee does not sound all that smart to me. Not saying it is untenable, just not really all that healthy. To make it healthy you would have to get the most expensive noodles, Whey protein powder, and something other than a multivitamin as most of the content of those are water soluble which means that the excessive amounts you are ingesting are not retained by your body. If you were to cut it in half and take them half a day apart you would get more mileage out of it.

The multivitamin is a replacement for vegetable. I could try replacing it with one of those veggie shakes but they're expensive. Maybe I grind 100g of mixed veggies and slam that.

This is so far from healthy. You gonna blow yourncolon not eating fiber. Vitamins are not a replacment for vegetables. They are an augmentation at best

Augmentation makes me feel cybernetic

I do something similar, but minus the powder. I blend kale, garlic, spinach and pesto and blended in a blender and then mix it with some Chinese noodles. Then I freeze it into blocks and put it in the freezer. I microwave it for 2 minutes and it's a meal.

I might try that because I'm always looking for easy meals.

Make sure to add fats like avocado oil. In order to feel full you need fats.

"people who are struggling still need a burger"

and that right there is why they raised their prices.

They dropped the two cheeseburgers meal this year. That was the most American meal they offered and they just dropped it.

Nope, it's still there, it's a number 7, raised the price from $7.50 to $8.15 for the large though.

Not in New England. It used to be the #6 and it's been gone since the Summer.

I made a personal rule that if I'm hungry and want McDonald's, that either I need to get in the car and go to a local burger place that isn't a corporate chain, or I'm not actually that hungry. It's been a good life choice. Much better burgers that while slightly more expensive, go to the local owners rather than mcdonalds

Fast food prices have become silly, I agree. I go to "sit down" restaurants more often now because they're only a little more expensive.

It is crazy. Stopped with my kid on a road trip - fast food burger, fries and soft drink was $15.

I go down town to a sit down restaurant and during happy hour I can get a restaurant burger, fries and a craft beer for $15.

Lots of fast food chains' menus are way smaller than they used to be, including McD's. Outside of breakfast, they have burgers, chicken sandwiches, fries, drinks. Taco Bell even, famous for having five ingredients in different order and proportion, has somehow figured out how to have fewer menu items. And the quality of ingredients at all of them seem to be on a race to the bottom.

Thanks to corporate greed they "inflated" themselves out of their own market

it's honestly cheaper to DIY from home. then you have absolute control over ingredients, portion sizes, etc. I made a tasty double gorgonzola burger earlier in the week w/ home made pretzel buns and it cost all of $4 for a 1/2 lb burger with exactly what I wanted.

Honestly it blows my mind how many people don't know how to cook for themselves. I don't want to shade people for a like skill that should've been taught to 'em from the start. But there is a wild number of people that will look at what you described and say it's too much work.

Restaurants are stupid expensive compared to self made

if you go eat out that often why the fuck would you complain about the price, you must be fuckin loaded to do that more than once a week

eh, if cooking at home is too much work then I guess they need to eat out. hopefully not at McD's. i've never found cooking to be particularly difficult, and it's a lot easier these days since I can reference a recipe on my phone if I need to (though generally I just look up ingredient ratios).

Yeah and it's also like 8 million times better.

Round here (Denver) about $9 gets 4 patties of acceptable ground beef. Even with a cheap-ass bun, grill that up with salt and pepper (although I like to add Montreal steak seasoning), add condiments and cheese and it's crazy delicious.

They have a $1, $2, $3 menu; and everything on it is more than $3. Like why even still call it that?

I guess it depends on your location. For me the highest price on that menu is $2.39 for the mcdoubles

And yet people keep buying it. It's not going to change until people stop buying it.

Oh boy, think of the poor Swiss that pay $8 for a big Mac burger since forever.

Swiss people are rich though lol

Holy generalization, batman! :)

Jordan, the YouTuber, is a really great follow.

https://www.youtube.com/@jordan_the_stallion8

He's the president of the "fast food secrets club" and has taught the world a lot about everything secret in fast food recipes.

His non food content is great too.

Jordan is a god among men.

My hot take is that the food in my neck of the woods has tracked with inflation. Unfortunately, my pay check has not.

Prices increasing with inflation is a tautology.

Still $16 here for a 40 peice nugget and 2 large fries at least.

Those nuggets reheat well

My man.

A bag of frozen chicken nuggets is like 7 dollars at Walmart, there are 50 nuggets in there. A 2 pound bag of fries is like 3 dollars.

It's like 10 more nuggies and twice as many fries for a little more than half the price. At the cost of turning your oven on.

They don't taste the same

I make chicken sandwiches and fish sandwiches better than they do with their shredded iceberg garbage. How about kimchi, Tartar, Strachan, pickles on a fish sandwich. And bbq sauce with sautéed mushrooms and onions on fried chicken sandwiches.

Taste is subjective, what tastes "better" to you might not be what tastes "better" to me.

I for one prefer the taste and crunch of shredded Iceberg over any other lettuce in a burger.

You can make a subjectively better Chicken sandwich yourself. The iceberg will be fresher, crunching, and more nutritional.

If I had the time to make a sandwich I wouldn't be ordering one at McDonalds.

I don't know where you live. I live in a big city. I've never had a McDonalds / Burger King sandwich where the iceberg wasn't fresh.

more nutritional

Lol, Iceberg lettuce under the most optimal condition is very nutrient poor, I don't know making it myself would make any practical difference.

Let's be real here. Sure McDonald's is overpriced but grocery store chicken nuggets are a war crime.

The Tyson nuggets are fine. Honestly I think they're better than McDonald's but honestly I don't really eat either of them anymore.

the breading suuuuuuuucccccckkksssss

There’s no such thing as price gouging for unnecessary goods or services.

If you don’t think the good is worth that price, don’t buy it plain and simple. McDonald’s is not a necessity. They’re going to price their product according to what they believe the market will bear.

Seeing “pushback on some of their prices” is one of the most basic aspects of the market. Fewer people will buy a product at a given price, and McDonald’s will adjust the prices to the appropriate level or they’ll fail.

This is a lie. McDonald's NEVER raises prices unless wages also rise and Minimum Wage hasn't risen in 50 years.

McDonalds is basically hot candy for hot candy addicts.

That's why people keep paying, keep bitching, but keep paying.

I feel like shitting on the people who want to eat a cheeseburger is so missing the point here.

But it's nice for you that you've never had to eat at McDonald's.

We tried price controls in my home country, everything went to shit after that

So yeah, "they are out of control" is precisely the default setting you want bro haha

I never understood how anybody can eat that crap. One walk through our garden and I have a free meal. If you don't have a garden, go to your local farmer, it's dirt cheap. You can even order great meat for a fraction of the supermarket torture stuff. Ah one last thing - get up from your sorry ass & cook.