aidan wrote:
Ogionik's right - if you have four kids and need to make four burgers - then it makes sense and is cheaper to buy a pound of mince (or ground beef) and a pack of hamburger rolls. But then if you want mayonaise on your burger - you got to shell out 2 bucks for that - 2 bucks for the ketchup - and on and on for the pickles, onions, cheese (which is EXPENSIVE- unless you buy it in a big block and then you have to have a place to store it or freeze it...- and how many of these women have the intial 10 or 20 bucks to shell out on the huge economy size block of cheese - or the money to run a freezer and/or the space to store food they get cheaper in the huge bulk sizes - I don't even have room to store stuff in bulk -so yeah - when you're looking at that or going to Wendy's and getting 4/ 99 cent burgers that already come with all the ketchup and mayo and pickles, etc...it becomes a no brainer.
These kids ARE being educated about healthy food in school - I know they are - I've done it and I've watched other teachers do it. Children have no power in terms of what is bought and put in the cupboards of their homes. They have to eat what's put in front of them...until they can get a job and make their own money and buy their own food.
What a bunch of hooey.
Once you've got the mustard in your fridge you don't have to buy it again for a while. And 2 lbs of ground beef will go further if you make a spaghetti sauce or a chili with it. Give me a break. It's way cheaper to make your own tomato sauce, casseroles, stews, what-have-you than buying them ready-made. There are all kinds of people feeding their families decent food on a low budget. Nobody HAS to eat out all the time. Like NickFun implied, it was a TREAT, not the norm. In the old days, people used to make their own jams, canned goods, bread, etc. and there's no reason why they can't do that today. They can get recipes off the internet or watch food shows if they don't know how to do it themselves. Money and ignorance are not the reasons why McD does so well... it's because it's convenient and some people are lazy. Yes, some are uninformed about nutrition and others just don't care, but mainly it's because we've become a lazy, impatient society.
And no, not all kids are being educated about food in school. My kids never got any information about nutrition except at home.
You're implying that the great masses of unwashed out there are too ignorant to improve their nutrition by doing some home-cooking? Are you suggesting they'd forgo takeout if they knew how to cook? If someone wants to cook, they'll learn how to, whether or not they got Home Ec in school. Our first year of home ec, we made tea and toast and shit like that. That's not cooking!
I don't believe that obesity is caused by sugar or fast foods. Lots of people who indulge are not fat. It's a combination of factors. It's the whole lifestyle we indulge in today, not just what you ingest. And there's a psychological component to over-eating, too, which has not been addressed.
We blame everything on the government, expecting them to solve our problems, bail us out, legislate an answer. Why don't we accept accountability for own actions?
We are already regulated to death and I don't think we need the government getting more involved in our personal affairs.
Just saying.
