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Yeah… I only do fast food using apps and only go if there’s a good enough “discount”(quotes because it’s really what the prices should be anyway, obvs.).
The Jimmy Johns app is atrocious in this regard.
“Buy 16 sandwiches this month for free cookie!”
Fucken nerds.
Screw that. Last month I got free burgers with minimum $1 purchase at burger king. Two cookies =$1 exactly.
Pack soda can and go, lol. I thinkI added cheese for 30¢
And all you have to do is give the corporation complete access to your personal cell phone!
Lmao wtf is a brk bcntr
You don’t know what a brk bcntr is?! What is this world coming to when people can’t figure out the POS POS’ extremely shortened words?!
Breakfast Baconator. 670 calories of greasy bacon sausage and cheese on a bun.
Not even even an egg on it? I kinda want an egg on my breakfast sandwich
Whoops. Yeah it has egg too: from their website: “Grilled sausage, American cheese, Applewood smoked bacon, a fresh-cracked free range egg, (deep breath) more cheese and more bacon all covered in our signature cheese sauce”
Now please tip 200% for the garbage
my bombass lunch today for ¥616 (~US$3.94)
Well, university coop cafes are always gonna be comparatively cheap, but yeah, Japan’s prepared food is generally cheap on a different level. Stuff in grocery stores for one thing, but I still can’t quite figure out how sukiya or yoshinoya puts a beef set meal in front of you in 5 mins for less than 1000 yen
Impressive, you figured out it was a university coop cafe. Maybe I should have edited out the text to avoid doxxing myself haha.
True, the coops are one of the cheapest options. I also eat quite often at one of the beef set meal chains (one of sukiya, yoshinoya, or matsuya). Solid choice too.
Japan is a cheat code for healthy cheap meals.
I wish I could move to Japan…
If you have a college degree it’s pretty easy to move to Japan. You just have to enjoy working for peanuts and singing songs to classes of little kids.
3.94? lies /s, at least $30 USD here
That’s not gonna work in the US.
Looks very soupy.
It’s actually rice topped with an omelette, and the with some sauce thing made thick with potato starch. It’s called tenshinhan, which is a Japanese reimagination of the food they have in Tianjin, China. As far as I know this dish is just named after that city in China, but it’s not actually from there.
Yeah so like I said, soup.
In the west this was first invented by Baron von Suppenstein, who first put proteins and starches into bowls of warm water. Truly a revolutionary. Sadly he died of dysentery at an early age.
Well spotted
I got a double cheeseburger platter from a BBQ place with 2 sides for $10. Better burger than fast food and I got fries and collards.
I got a double cheeseburger platter from a BBQ place
Are you even allowed to do that?
That’s a great find!
BBQ places in my area have gotten really expensive. Sides are like $5 each now for a small container.
Dude it’s insane. I don’t understand how the hell these places stay in business anymore when the quality still sucks ass and it’s all so expensive now. Like even taco bell, who used to be the king of cheap, costs a fuckton these days.
It’s an addiction for a lot of people.
It’s become a habit for many people. Cooking is a really difficult habit to (re)learn. It’s possible though and good meal prep is very convenient on long days at work.
I just hate cooking. I cannot stand it. It takes so much effort and you have to clean all the mess you made (even cleaning as you go sucks). And then you end up with something that may or may not pan out. And if you’re trying to meal prep then you have to eat the same meal for the whole week which I hate also.
If this was the only thing you’d ever have to do, fine. But the majority of the rest of our time is spent at work or sleeping. We have few precious hours where these things aren’t the case. I hope this doesn’t make me sound too much like an asshole, but I’m fortunate enough to purchase things like pre-prepared foods and get takeout a couple of times per week. So I take advantage of that because I don’t want to spend my few moments of free time slaving away over a stove or cleaning the mess of pots and pans and cooking utensils.
Another this about cooking when you live alone…a lot of perishable foods can only be bought in somewhat larger quantities and then they go bad before you use them all up. I tried to make a recipe out of a cookbook several months ago and I was frustrated at how many things I had to buy a large thing of when I only needed a very small amount for the recipe. Ended up with a lot of food waste.
None of these problems mean you have to resort to buying fast food though.
You can buy things like crumbed chicken tenders that last over a week in the packaging and take 15 mins to cook in an air fryer. Mix some mayo and hot sauce, steam some veg and you’ve got a cheaper, healthier meal than most fast food, in about the same time it takes to drive through and order.
That actually makes up a decent amount of what I eat already. The majority of my diet comes from the frozen food section at the grocery store. I get both the prepackaged dinners and also the precooked meats and “steam in bag” veggies you’re talking about. But on days where I don’t want that, I get takeout as a treat. Most often, I actually order food delivery instead of fast food, but I get fast food now and then too. I’ve actually got into the habit of going to the chick fil a near me because it’s literally a 5 minute walk and they have a good salad. McDonald’s seemed like they stopped selling salads some years back for whatever reason.
One of the points of my previous post is that I don’t care about the cost though because I’m fortunate enough to not be scraping by. I don’t get this takeout or fast food every day, but it doesn’t bother me financially to do it a couple times per week. Plus, sitting in your car listening to music and browsing your phone while someone prepares food for you is hardly a comparison to putting together something yourself. The time might be the same, but the effort is significantly lower which is the point.
Fair enough. I’m not scraping by either. I just choose to vote with my wallet because that’s capitalism.
Most times I buy fast food these days (few times a year) I just feel ripped off, because I know I’m paying extra just for shareholders; not for actual value.
You can always ask the butcher to get you a smaller piece of meat. You can also separate pieces of meat and freeze part.
If produce is by weight, you can break the package to be smaller. Even things like squash can be cut in half (ask the produce people, places like Aldis will not do this).
Buy canned and frozen veggies as much as possible, they last longer. They won’t be as tasty, but will reduce your food waste.
Cook larger portions and freeze the leftovers and eat them in a week or two.
As far as spices, dishes, etc. look at them as “investments” cause you won’t be using them all on one meal…
Meat is actually the easiest one because you can just freeze it like you said. Powdered spices are also a complete non issue. It’s fresh produce that I struggle with.
But for example, the recipe I tried called for…
Jasmine rice - could only find it in a whopping 5 lb bag which was ridiculous for a solo person who rarely ears rice. I know rice keeps, but since I don’t at all like to cook, it was very excessive. Even if I were to have made a larger quantity of the meal or make it multiple times, I still would have an insane amount left over.
A clove of fresh garlic - I know you can get powdered garlic or garlic in a jar, but people seem to say that it doesn’t at all work the same, so I wanted to try it the way the recipe wanted you to. So I had a shitton of cut up garlic left over because I could only find whole garlic bulbs at that particular grocery store if I didn’t want to go canned or powdered. Can you even freeze a portion of garlic?
A portion of whole fresh ginger - again same issue as the above problem I had with fresh garlic. Only this one was even worse because ginger rarely present in any of the foods I eat
Etc. for a lot of the ingredients for that recipe.
Yes, I get that you can do some complex puzzles and math to figure out how to use all of these ingredients in different meals without wasting the excess, but that is absolutely NOT for me. That’s a whole additional ordeal and one of the many reasons I hate cooking. I don’t want to have to perform an elaborate game of ingredient/meal chess to avoid significant food waste when I’m grocery shopping. I do enough work at my job and there are still plenty of other annoying tasks to keep up with like cleaning and laundry.
The point is I don’t want to look at any of these as “investments”. That is is an insane amount of work to put into something I hate.
Yes, I fully relate with this as if you spoke from my heart. Agreed on all points, haha.
I do cook, kind of have to when you have kids. But I definitely do not enjoy doing it. Especially because I’ll slave over a new dinner idea and my kids will just refuse to eat it.
My friend with kids also talks about this. She is like I work so hard to cook and even make it simple for them but they still refuse to eat it half the time lol
I’m gonna agree that cleaning sucks ass, as does the time of it.
I made do by usually having to have something stimulating my dopamine-addicted ADHD ass while I’m washing dishes. Youtube documentary video, podcast, whatever is at least 30 minutes so I can just grind thru. Upgrade the dish tools as well, I really like these ikea dish brushes so much more than a sponge because I feel like I can actually clean with it and not constantly go through sponges, and replaced the flip top dish soap with one of those squeeze bottle ones. Big secret is you can refill those with whatever you want, you don’t have to buy a new one when you run out.
Yes there is still the time factor with cooking, but I like to cook enough that I can make 2-4 servings so it’s more like cook once and minimal work for the reheating. Also as for the time, idk how it is in your area, but where I’m at ever since COVID drive thru and in store times suck ass now for ordering. If you’re on an hour lunch break or on the way home where I’m at it always takes them 30 minutes or even longer to get my order ready from ordering to out the lot. At that point, I might as well just go home and cook the damn thing myself, that’s what set it for me.
Lastly for food waste, a few things learning to change how much you make so that you “use up” the materials is helpful. Same with freezing things, turns out most things can be frozen and thawed with minimal change to the item. For example I now buy bacon in a bulk pack but split it up into bags of 4 slices, keep all in freezer except one. Now I would only have four slices going bad instead of the whole package. A few other things I do is sometimes dried herbs / seasonings in a shaker are better than fresh ones that will go bad, learn what you use less of so you buy less (like I only buy eggs in a six pack because I don’t go through enough), etc.
Stick with easy meals. I really want to make a cajun red beans and rice sometime, but I looked at the list of what I need and said fuuuuck that. I’ve got a few easy to make items that I like to rotate through: homemade pizza, mac and cheese and hot dogs, got frozen burger patties and a george foreman, burritos with ground beef beans and canned hatch green chile, etc. I also get my groceries delivered, it helps me time and money wise because I’m not shopping in the moment and only buying what I need, and now the whole process of grocery store shopping that I hate is gone. No more traffic to the store, no parking lot spot searching, no walking around the whole store and dodging slow people stopping in the middle of the aisle to have a conversation, no bullshit line for checkout or receipt checks and packing / leaving. Now it’s literally just order only what I need and it shows up at my door.
I do like the idea of “take home meals” though, sometimes that just hits the spot I get it. For me sometimes I’ll do that and just get some store made chips and queso and fuck it I’m eating that while being a couch potato that night. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good enough :)
I got a bacon double cheeseburger, large fry, large drink at a Hardee’s this week and it cost damn near $18. It was “okay.”
And half the time it’s not even that fast anymore either.
Might as well order a burger from an actual restaurant, to go, for the same amount and pick it up on the way. Half the time they’ll even bring it to you curbside.
The Burger King closest to me once had a 20 minute line to wait another 15 minutes for the food.
“Fast food” is still relatively cheap in Japan, and me and my son like the taste of Burger King, but that was ridiculous.
And it wasn’t even a staff issue, there were eight people back there running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
Learn to cook. Honestly. When you know what you’re doing you can make simple and nutritious meals for a fraction of what you’d pay for this junk food.
+ it doesn’t need to be complicated. You only need a few ingredients and can buy certain pre-made things like crumbed fish or chicken. If you do it right the first meal takes 30 mins, then eating the same thing again in the next few days should only take 5-10 mins.
Exactly. Take three main ingredients and use that as a base, or keep it like that. For example: rice + tofu + tomatoes. Another: couscous + chickpeas + green beans. Simple, quick, easy, and nutritious. Add some more flavour with herbs, spices, soy sauce, etc
This was my exact thought. If you frequent fast food 2-3 times a week, you can substitute meal kits and have fresh cooked food for the same cost and time it takes to leave the house. Once you’ve mastered kits, everything becomes more apparent in recipes, and the world is your oyster.
People just dont know how to cook. Its an unpopular take these days but with the cost of living I cant help but look at how some of the people I know eat and think “Y’all could use some fucking austerity”. Everything is pre-made, pre-prepped, and sometimes pre-cooked.
Forget simple and nutritious. I can make you the filthiest nastiest food coma inducing double bacon cheeseburger in about the time it takes most people to make it to and through the drivethrough, and probably for less than you would spend on fuel. The less said about how much better my fried chicken is the better.
I have a 2 year old who falls asleep when driving, and we have had troubles with sleeping so I drive the motorway for perhaps two hours. In Norway the only places that do drive through is BK and McD, and yeah I have been one black coffe guy. Or just fries and coke. And nuggets and fries are car friendly. Can be eaten with one hand, and makes little mess
I didn’t know 2-year-olds could legally drive in Norway.
It’s a very advanced country 🤩
Don’t forget about the black coffee and coke.
Yeah, but the coke isn’t car friendly, probably because you end up with white powder everywhere.
It’s actually because most rear view mirrors aren’t detachable.
What’s up with the price of Chinese food too?
A no frills takeout for my family of 6 with the 4 kids splitting two entrees, and it was still $100
Maybe don’t buy seventeen egg rolls
Price of eggs smdh
family of 6
$100
Go figure.
4 entrees and a side for $100 is supposed to be normal for takeout?
No, it’s still possible to get that for under $50 in my part of the US
Everybody being mean to you, but I ate at the same Chinese joint all my life. Chicken lo mein special was 6 bucks for most of my life.
I ordered the same special a few weeks ago and it was nearly 20 bucks.
After covid the restaurant went downhill as far as cleanliness goes too. For a couple years you’d call in your order and grab your food from a table blocking the door. They only take cash and they trusted the public to pay and then reach into a basket to collect their change. That meant a lot to me so I ate there pretty often.
Once they opened back up though, I went in and the floors didn’t look like they’d been mopped the whole time. I thought, “maybe people were excited to come back and that’s why it’s so dirty.”
Nope. Still hasn’t been mopped.
It’s always been this way. The point is convenience. If you want quality food then go to a restaurant that makes good food, not food that comes from a microwave.
But it hasn’t always been that way.
Yes it has. You have rose tinted glasses on.
Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
The price has changed far faster than inflation, which is the joke.
So has literally everything. It’s inflation + price gouging.
Fast food isn’t special here. It’s shit quality food. The price went up just like everything. The food quality has always been shit and always will be.
The funny thing is that we’ve hosted like eight exchange students and they all agree that the quality of our fast food is noticeably worse than from the same chain back home, and for way more money after accounting for exchange rates.
“What’s the deal with fast food? It isn’t fast, and it isn’t food!”
Get this person a ten-year sitcom deal!
Sorry, I’m more of a Michael Richards type myself
So a detective show that gets cancelled after eight episodes?
Is there a country that uses the dollar sign that puts it after the number?
Not a country, but Quebec does place the dollar sign after the amount.
Hah, that makes sense.
That’s so stereotypically French.
So many lol. There’s lots of ways numbers are formatted across locales https://cldr.unicode.org/translation/number-currency-formats/number-and-currency-patterns
I’m well aware that there are many different ways to format numbers and currencies - that’s why I asked specifically about those that use the dollar sign.
Hey now, those poor businesses need to make up for their profit situation! Even though they have all made record profits year after year… After year…
We will be in a recession once they decide it’s time for one.The weird this is that generally the once with shit quality make a decent profit and a lot of the once with way better food make almost nothing.
Me when I go to my local hangry chicken and order the chicken + fries nachos only for them to give me dark meat.
Dark meat at least tastes better and is more desirable where I’m at. Now you just get less meat in general for however much you’re spending.
Give it five years and the taco bell quesadilla is probably gonna cost $10 and use the small tortilla instead of the big one. They may have won the franchise wars in fiction but reality is stranger.
Honestly, it’s been a great help reducing take out. It’s such a gamble, I’d rather spent nothing on a sure thing (even if it’s boring) than nearly $40 for a meal I may not even finish.
When I can buy like a large 5 top pizza for as much as a single fast food combo, i know which I’ll choose.
Pizza is also ridiculously expensive where I live. For something that is comprised of almost entirely dough, cheese, and tomato sauce, it’s kind of criminal that some places are charging $20 or more for a large pie. It probably cost them $1.50 worth of ingredients to make when you factor in bulk pricing.
Where I’m at it’s definitely very restaurant dependent. Papa Racist’s (Papa John’s) and Pizza Butt (Pizza Hut) I avoid like the plague because their decisions have been jack up the price and nosedive the quality. Meanwhile Little Ceasar’s is doing a $6 lunch combo and most pies I get there are usually $6-10.
I get it it’s Little Ceasar’s, but I got one thing to say to the LC haters
