Interesting Fast Food/Non-Fast Food Price Nutrition Comparis

Wynterbourne

A small graphic comparing one fast food meal with two homemade meals. I found it interesting especially considering how many people I know who say that they are too broke to buy food at the grocery store so they get fast food because it's cheaper.

http://www.cbc.ca/strombo/images/NYTfoodgraphpicfull.jpg

Not sure if this will post big enough to read, but will attempt the actual image also... (EDIT: A little too big to read all the details on the right hand side. You can go to the link to read the numbers)

BarbWhite09

The McDonalds family of 4 needs to learn to buy off the dollar menu....:D

Wynterbourne

The McDonalds family of 4 needs to learn to buy off the dollar menu....:D

Always an option, but would that be like eating Chinese food... hungry an hour later? Hehe

buttercup62999

yea we are a fam of 5 and we get away with 8.50? and that is all we spend

Tereztaylor07

I never understood the "Too broke to eat healthy" excuse either. The dollar menu is cheap, but with smart shopping and a little bit of planning and you can afford to eat healthy. The freezer is my friend!! And what my husband and I realized was that when we stuck to ACTUAL portions instead of our double size portions, our grocery dollar goes much farther.

Lucylaser

Thank you for posting this. I have never in my life had a fast food burger and people don't believe me when I tell them that I save more money by making my own food.

Convenience foods are not good for you and it is not hard to eat well and save money and know where your food is coming from.

tiedye

LOVE this! I eat black beans and brown rice almost every day. Cheap, filling, versatile, low cal (my version is at least), so easy to cook a lot and divide into serving sizes. Goes with basically any veggies!

Did I mention cheap?!

MFPfriend

Win.
My family needs to see this.

Wynterbourne

I never understood the "Too broke to eat healthy" excuse either. The dollar menu is cheap, but with smart shopping and a little bit of planning and you can afford to eat healthy. The freezer is my friend!! And what my husband and I realized was that when we stuck to ACTUAL portions instead of our double size portions, our grocery dollar goes much farther.

I've never been a big processed food person, though there are some things I indulge in. Not because I have any particular "issues" with it, I'm just not a big potato chip fan, don't crave sweets, etc. Very thankful for this now that I'm trying to lose weight. I did notice that my initial bills were a little higher, but as you pointed out, when you eat a proper portion size the money goes a lot farther. I bought a container of lunch meat a month ago and it normally would have lasted me about five sandwiches, this time it made closer to twelve. Or pasta... in the past I would cook the whole box and eat it in a couple meals. Now I only cook what I'm going to eat in that sitting. The math, over the long run, is an eye opener.