I like that this post is coming right as I’m planning to tighten my budget a fast more/lose weight.
me cooking at home 😎
Don’t be afraid! You get better the more you do it and you learn more about your tastes.
Not just food, it’s the new business model. Just give them something for their money, it doesn’t have to be good, or work properly, it just has to be profitable.
Optimize for minimal complainability, maximal annoyance and minimal effect of actual complaints
That’s what I’ve been screaming about AI since the beginning.
Take self checkout kiosks for example. Anyone that is old enough to remember what the grocery store was like before the kiosks would know how much faster a human cashier was then the stupid fucking machine. There was no tabbing through 20 screens of fruit to find the plantains, there was no “sorry you have to scan every pencil individually and place them in the bag one by one because we can’t do multiples”, and there was never, ever, an unexpected item in the bagging area.
The doctor I go to has replaced all their front office staff with self check-in kiosks. You cannot check in with a person anymore. If you are unable to use the machine you have to press a special button and wait for someone to come from the back and press the buttons on the kiosk for you. The time to check in for an appointment with the person used to take under a minute. The kiosk takes 10+ and has a 25% error rate.
But none of that matters, because the machines don’t draw a paycheck, and they don’t care about anything else.
Many businesses have calculated that they’d rather save the paycheck, and live with a drop in customer service. That attitude will increase, and eventually customer service will be one of those unreasonable things that only stupid customers expect.
“You gave me your money, you got your thing, we’re done here, now you’re just bothering me, so get out!”
This guy gets it.
Peasants of the French Revolution: “Pathetic”
Its an expensive lesson. Life’s education is never cheap
What even is the point of fast food now?
- ✅ Fast (edit: sometimes)
- ❌ Good
- ❌ Cheap
It has jumped the shark and serves no purpose now, other than screwing working class people in food deserts out of their hard-earned money.
There are still places with surprisingly good value for money, but they’re rare. Greggs has been this for me, recently, though maybe a useless point of reference for anyone outside the uk
Since when is fast food fast?
If you order fast food it’s because it doesn’t upset your stomach and it’s the only restaurant you know Stephen where you are
What the fuck happened with everyone switching to ingredients that make you shit yourself? Like making it smaller, without flavor, and unpleasant textures wasn’t enough? It’s like someone at the top said “Wow, they’re still buying our food after all that? Well let’s see what happens if we start making them shit their pants too.”
It used to be fast before skeleton crews were the norm, but I’m sure a lot of people alive today have never experienced it.
not even fast anymore to my experience
Available at off-ramps while travelling. That’s the only time I get it.
I usually only drive through Pennsylvania, and as a result I always end up at Sbarro, an “Italian” restaurant that can only survive in the cloister of a turnpike travel plaza. Somehow my brain forgets how fucking awful it was last time. Plus I always order something you can’t eat while driving, like pasta, so I have to sit there and finish it. The only good thing is having a bathroom right there.
Gaht Damm… I was on the Ohio Turnpike and got Sbarro… Two slices of pie was like $15. Theyre huge slices, but not $15 huge.
Theyre huge slices
That’s sort of like the old joke: “This food is terrible!” “Yes, and such unfortunately large portions!”
I’ve stopped doing fast food. Last time I was out running errands over lunch I went to a pub instead. I chatted with the staff got a cidre, burger, and fries for like $30. It was great, worth the time and money.
Yeah, we have a few local places that will do to-go orders, so we give them our money instead. The last few times where we grabbed fast food because we were traveling or just super busy, it was just a shit experience. I’m okay parting with my money if it’s going back into a local business.
My wife and I have also started shopping in smaller grocery runs. So we will buy food for like 3 meals ahead of time, and then do it again after a few days. We find that we have much less food waste and we make less impulsive decisions. I just wish veggies didn’t suck so much now.
I have a non-chain fast food place near me, doesn’t even have indoor seating, just a small waiting space (holds maybe 10 people if you pack them in such that the personal space bubble is tiny) and some picnic tables, but no drive-through.
They’ve managed to keep prices pretty low; Big Mac or whopper equivalent is $4, for example and I think fries are some 2.50 for the large. While that does add up since everything is ordered individually, the quality is superior and it’s local-family-owned, so well worth it. And it’s very very popular even without the drive-through convenience. The local McDonald’s hardly gets any traffic by comparison.
Just goes to show it can totally be done, if not for outright greed.
When I lived in Seattle, I loved eating a bag of Dick’s.
This rules. I love finding places like that.
If a fast-food burger costs the same as a burger in a restaurant, then something’s wrong…
Your instance name is so peak 😂
The best burgers I have had, have been from small back alley places. Had one a couple of months ago, lovely quarter pounder with chips (fries) and a drink for around £6 here in London.
Had less of an upset stomach too, although I do still check the hygiene ratings for the places which helps in this regard.
TIL the UK has publicly available hygiene ratings. I like that.
US does too. Or at least California does.
I stopped eating most fast food for this exact reason.
funny how all the local places are still tasting just as great yet corpo places are slinging literal shit for food.
I had a Whopper and fries at Booger King last year for the first time in a couple of decades. With a drink it was like $20 which is pretty absurd. It actually tasted pretty good and the fries were fresh out of the fryer (which is basically what makes fries good), but I just felt so physically bad after eating. I don’t know what it was, probably the massive amount of salt in it.
The impossible whopper helps with this. I’m not vegan nor do I eat fast food often, but I’m sold on the impossible whopper over the standard when I gotta stuff my maw at immediate, inconvenient, times.
Same. The vegan patty has better consistency than their actual beef.
I sometimes feel like shit if I get a drink with one of the red dyes, red 40 I think? It’s in orange crush, some pink lemonades, and some fruit punches iirc, but it makes it feel like there’s pressure on my gut. Kinda like I have to take a dump but I don’t.
Probably not what you experienced but figured I’d mention it since it took me a while to make the connection, especially since it doesn’t always happen if I have an orange pop (maybe different dye?).
Hmm, that’s interesting. I’m a big orange soda fiend and I drink Sunkist, Crush and Fanta. it does appear that only Crush has Red 40 in it. Sometimes I feel like I have to fart real bad and sometimes I don’t - maybe that’s the dye. I should really be drinking water but I find it so boring.
Ah nice, I see fanta a lot but often skip it because I don’t want to risk feeling kinda crappy. But I’m glad I like water, it’s so refreshing!
Edit: maybe try a filtering system, because after thinking about it, crappy water isn’t very fun to drink, but my reverse osmosis filtered water is great.
Maybe stop doing that then. I can get a weeks worth of food for that kind of money and it tastes good.
I’m disabled and homeless and eat veggies, fruit, pasta, bread, cheese and protein on a daily basis at about $7 a day. people eat fast food because they are lazy, not poor.
Yes, with 1 other caveat.
People will also eat at restaurants because they’re ashamed and embarrassed of their own cooking ability and don’t want to look bad in front of their peers.
I wanna say first that is a tragedy you are homeless and I wish the best for you in finding permanent lodging but your statement raises some questions. How are you preparing these foods? If you are as homeless as you purport, are you using a campfire, or a communal kitchen, or are your meals prepared for you? How are you procuring your groceries?
No OP, but just so you are aware, homeless can mean no permanent domicile in lots of ways. So, someone living out of their car, camping, staying ad hoc in shelters or hostels or cheap accommodation is all different versions of homeless.
Fair.
People are homeless because they’re lazy, not poor.
Yes, fight amongst each other. Ignore the billionaires, attack each other.
Or unable to get a stable full time job, maybe none exists, or not enough for everyone.
I don’t think they mean it literally. I think they’re pointing out the irony of calling people lazy when your own situation is often reduced in the same way.
People are homeless because of mental illness and drugs.
That’s people on the street, the majority is people couch surfing or sleeping in their car. Where the only issue is money, not mental health at all.
I am fortunate we have enough mental energy to go to stores to buy ingredients to cook our own meals most days.
Its similar, to what is referred to as “adhd-tax” I am still in this picture more then i would like.
Doesn’t really matter what your mental energy is if you don’t have the money to have any other choice. Few years ago I was comfortably living on under £100 a month after paying rent for a bedroom, then putting the last £75 or so of my income into savings.
I mean it matters in the sense that you just won’t eat if you can’t muster up the mental energy to make a meal.
E: this was me
What do you mean bread isn’t a meal?
Also half of Americans live in “food deserts” with limited or no options for fresh, healthy food/groceries. Often their only sources of sustenance are the dollar store and fast food.
Maybe, but I hear the same things here and I am not aware of food deserts being a term in the UK.
I mean its not like there was a dark where i lived on a single bag of chips a day or the occasional cup noodles or anything.
Very affordable lifestyle, but you do feel even worse long term.
For a while I got discounted veg at the end of the day and threw it all into a slow cooker that I kept running all week. Take a meal out and top up with more of what ever cheap ingredients I could get.
People I shared the house with had started to steal my food which is why I switched to storing everything in my room and the slow cooker in my room. No fridge/freezer but you can even store meat for several days in a slow cooker. 22:55 the local coop sometimes had sausages for pennies.
Thats kinda cool,
Like a modern day perpetual stew.
That is what I used as inspiration initially and it worked pretty well. A slow cooker is probably more reliable at keeping the temperature than a log fire too.
I can get a weeks worth of food for that kind of money
Well, maybe one week, and you still have to get creatively frugal there.
But I see your point.
Yeah, this is beans and rice with little to no protein kind of money for a week, at best.
Didn’t used to be the case, but orange dipshit keeps causing inflation.Beans, famous for not having any protein… Why do people look down on beans so much? They are great. Just bought a pack of broad bean seeds today as I plan to grow them and I ran out of the last pack. You don’t need to eat the weight of the average American in meat ever year.
That’s a good point, yeah, I was thinking like most Americans that you’d want some meat thrown in there for flavor.
Mostly a vegetarian as well so I agree with you is what I’m saying.
For flavour? Just add some soy sauce
Beans actually have plenty of protein in them. They’re also high in fibre.
I spent about this for a burger at one of those char broiled joints. Tasted like a burger you’d get at a park bbq, overcooked cheap meat. I can make a burger at home 100 times better
Tasted like a burger you get at a park BBQ; overcooked cheap meat.
I can make a burger at home 100 times better
But you can’t do it at a park? 🤨
A cast iron flat grill is superior for a good smash burger
Burgers aren’t meant to be crispy the whole way through. 😠
That’s why you use medium ground beef, let that fat do the work for you. And you let it rest to retain juiciness. Just lovely.
Recently got back into cooking. Learn 2-3 easy recipes that can act as a base for the rest of your meal. Get a rice cooker and an instant pot. White rice is quick so its ADHD friendly, plus ricecooker will handle everything in case of distractions. Same for the instant pot.
Watch some cooking competitions for inspiration and confidence building to give more challenging dishes a try.
Chef & My Fridge is a good one, though it’s a subtitled Korean show, but the great thing about it is that the challenges are 15 minutes long and take only ingredients from a Korean celeb’s fridge. I had already started trying some tougher dishes from watching Culinary Class Wars, but CMF (which has a bunch of the same chefs btw) really drove home how it doesn’t have to be a long affair with very specific ingredients to make a great dish.
I still for some reason take forever to get things prepped but once they are ready, I can have restaurant quality soup on the table from scratch in like 30 minutes. The secret is to sear the meats and saute the veggies in the pot before adding water/broth and they’ll quickly release their flavour and make a tasty broth, which then becomes rich when you add a bit of salt, sugar, lemon/lime juice, and soy sauce, like just a pinch or splash of each. Celery, onions, carrots, and poatoes, sliced, diced, and/or julienned. Even better if you start by rendering some bacon and then sauteing the veggies in the bacon grease, which acts as the base of the soup once it’s been tempered with all those flavours.
Anyways I’m rambling. Lol it’s a great thing to hyperfocus on, though not sure I’d say I’ve saved money because of it, what with the knives and other kitchen stuff I’ve gotten.
Also don’t overlook sous vide. I’ve made some heavenly meals with cheap cuts of beef (e.g. shank) recently. Chuck it in a vacuum bag and wait - that’s it! Pull it out and give it a nice sear.
I usually do 2 bags and chuck one in the freezer for reheating at a later date.
If you don’t eat meat, no worries! Loads of veggies are great too, especially roots.
25 usd is a little over 96 loaves of bread worth of money
That’s not even 3 loaves of bread …
you are buying overpriced bread
I get 4€ for a bread, but 10€ (8USD) is a bit steep
that 4€ bread is worth over 15 loaves of bread
you are getting scammed
If it’s actually bread from a bakery and not wonderbread slop, then I’m not getting scammed.
the bread i was using for the math is not sliced bread and is low quality; the last sentence was just a joke
bread from a bakery from my country is still half the price of the 4€ bread
Despite being a childish choice, any new restaurant I go to I order the chicken tenders. It’s pretty hard to mess those up (and they’re usually on the cheaper end).
I like to “get a review” from my wife and friends on their meals, and then I’ll decide if I want to branch out to the full menu if there’s a return visit.
I’m sort of the opposite. I usually aim for their advertised “flagship” meal. If they mess that up, I know it’s not worth returning.
I think your method is probably better, definitely more variety!
Nice username btw :)
Went to a new pizza place with a friend and she insisted we get the margherita because it is less expensive hard to mess up, and you can tell if the place uses good ingredients.
I’m going to try this method!
I do the same with chile relleno whenever I go to a New Mexican restaurant. It’s a meal that is hard to badly fuck it up and even when it’s only pretty ok, it’s still tasty enough to finish.
I also just love chile relleno so I usually get it anyway
Every dinner in an airport.
