I started living this way too. Honestly, fast food doesn’t even have a value proposition anymore. It’s not cheaper than some local family run taco or burger truck/shack, and significantly crappier. Also, the lady or guy handing you your food keeps the money after paying the cook and what not, if they’re not the cook themselves. I’d rather that than it go to frozen patty distributors and stock buybacks or whatever they’re up to these days.

It’s marginally cheaper than a run of the mill sit down joint.

Also soda… I don’t understand why anyone drinks that shit. I used to, then I stopped, and now when I try it it’s gross honestly. Syrup with bubbles in it. You want some, make some ginger ale, its easy and delicious. You cut up some ginger, cook it in a pot with sugar and water, let it cool, put it in a pressure bottle and pitch yeast, it’s ready in a couple of days.

I’ve never ordered door dash or any of that stuff, as soon as I heard about it o was put off by the idea.

You’ve got the right idea man. No lazy food. If it’s not worth effort you’re not actually hungry.

Now that fast food is no longer cheaper than a sit-down restaurant, it just means that fast food has no use case anymore. You’re better off picking up a grab&go type thing from the grocery store. Fast food used to be cheaper, more consistent, and faster, but with the concession that the quality wasn’t great. Now it’s expensive, it completely sucks in unpredictable ways, and it isn’t actually that fast. It’s like the industry only exists for people who are on a road trip and also want to punish themselves for some reason.

I’m super disappointed also in what these burger chains offer. All of them have small shitty burgers full of sugar.

Started making my own burgers. It takes 10 minutes! Mix meat and a bit of salt and pepper and make the pieces really thin. Fry in pan. It’s delicious.

Fast food is disgustingly expensive for the amount of food you get too. Their drinks are ultra cheap sugar water, and even that they are thinking of limiting.

My life has definitely gotten better since I started doing this. Local restaurants are almost universally better anyways

I did the same thing when the pandemic was over, although I’m never really sure where to go in my neighborhood so in effect I hardly ever eat out

I have like, five resturaunts in my list.

Somehow this is a really good idea. I’m delegating “Coupang Eats” from my phone, it’s too easy yo use.

but it affects innocent people who wanna drink soda for fun or protect themselves

If that’s the goal, fine. But we know the real reason is profit. If people are getting less, they should pay less.

Fuck you! I need my Sprite Deluxe with 200% flavoring!

That’s not the reason why they’re doing this, just like how eliminating the super size option wasn’t to have people eat less junk food. It’s not effective in achieving that. This is just to squeeze more profits out of people, on an item that costs them pennies.

My friend worked at McD in high school. Drinks are their profit, they don’t have good margins on food and expect people to buy drinks which have the bulk of their margins.

McD is definitely struggling (good riddance)

That’s a good start.

But I’m assuming people going to McD are unhealthy in the first place.

No kidding. No one needs 64oz of soda with their meal. McDonald’s is actually one of the few fast food places that saw an increase in customers over the last few years and they’re planning on releasing a $5 meal soon.

does seem like penny pinching.

Not even penny pinching. Gouging. You could steal gallons in a cleverly disguised backpack and still not even negate their profit from the 3 bucks or so you paid for a cup.

Here in Finland, since their return in 2013, Burger King has sought to differentiate from other chains by having self serve drinks and unlimited refills.

Yeah, our BK has that s well. Love it because you can mix the different options. I always mix regular with Lemon Fanta (Fanta is drinkable in Europe :D)

The BKs here in germany have all these machines

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_refill#/media/File%3ARed_Coca-Cola_Freestyle_soda_machine_at_a_Burger_King.jpg

France banned soda refills a few years ago to combat obesity. Honestly that makes sense to me.

At least a couple years ago the burger king on the ring road around bluewater had a self serve machine. could be gone now though

“Free ketchup, too??”

Five guys do unlimited refills, but the cup is 5 fucking quid. Similar tale in Marugame Udon.

And that’s on top of a tenner each for the burger. At least they don’t police whos cup is whos.

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Here in Germany some McDonalds and Burger King do have self serve drink machines with unlimited drinks, but they are not that many (I would guess 10-20%). Some other fast food chains are more likely to have them, like Subway.

One of many reasons Americans are generally fat as fuck.

10 years ago when I worked at a movie theater the paper cups ran us about 30¢ each. The soda was about 5¢.

Less unless their costs have tripled.

I can find better places to get fucked in the ass, thank you.

If you have suggestions I’m all ears!

They actually did that? I havnt been to Maccas in years due to no vegan options besides coffee with soy milk though their coffee is not that good anyway. I dont expect the wifi to be fast but I expect to be able to use it for stuff other than looking at the menu.

when the food has 2 days worth of sodium in it, you get thirsty. Many people don’t drink enough water so then your thirsty and have your liter-of-cola and you can down it easily at that point

Here’s your supersize meal, your seven litre drink with extra sugar, forklifts are in the corner, you can refill over there.

Sodas are the reason Americans are so fat on average. Prove me wrong.

Never travel to Germany with that mindset.

It’s amazing watching the language of people who don’t even realize they have an addiction.

If I’m going to spend $20 - $30 for a burger and fries and a drink, I will go to a local diner and give the money to people who need it, and who care about their food, and what’s more, those burgers are almost guaranteed to be vastly superior in quality.

When I was young my friends and I would stop at a McDonald’s for value-menu snacks on the way to paintball or my family would stop there when traveling for convenience and cheap food.

Now that the “cheap” is gone, what exactly are they offering? For the price of one of their meals I can buy ground beef and make burgers for everyone. I’m so confused how institutions like this survive. Oh yeah, a population addicted to fast fixes of sugar and high-calorie carbohydrates.

Sometimes I just have a hankering for fresh McDonald’s fries.

I go there maybe twice a year. It’s the apple pies.

I agree with you that it’s shitty. The reason I go there is because the one near my house is the easiest place to get in and out of on the way to the highway when I’m going to my friends after work and need to grab something for dinner. 2 Mcdoubles is pretty cheap and have decent amount of protein. $6ish for dinner I can eat in the car.

It’s cheap, quick, and good for a burger delivered to your window.

The problem is that the soda machine takes maintenance and gets destroyed. They make a huge margin on Soda so I doubt that’s the problem.

In fact, I’m pretty sure free refills is only an American thing. And that kind of culture is the biggest cause of obesitas. McDonalds definitely isn’t healthy in Europe either, but at least we don’t have it as bad as it could be 😅

We don’t have many big fast food chains here in France.

But MacDo seem to be indeed the only one trying to be decent.

The staff is still very much underpaid/overworked but at least they try to reduce their waste and improve the quality of the food.

Still a soulless corporation but it seems they are actually doing things pretty well.

Sodas tend to have a huge margin. It might cost you a dollar but it cost them like 7¢

Not that its that big a deal honestly. You aren’t going to not drink soda.

So why is there no competition arising, simply with some fries, burgers, soda and without this bullshit.

Oh, I remembered, it’s all patented to hell. It’s practically illegal to open a fast food place not in one of these franchises.

Same with many other areas of life. The Web and computers are the most obvious.

Rats and cockroaches have conquered the kitchen. While many people in bureaucracies and everywhere were thieves and parasites, that still wasn’t socially acceptable. They didn’t like it, so now it’s almost official that the world is ruled by thieves and parasites and they are better than honest people. This IMHO also explains all the “geopolitical” stuff happening - it’s not to any practical end, the common thing between all (Western\Russian\whatever) policies is ideological, that decency should be murdered, dignity should be punished, and honesty should be poisoned. All the “rules” and “competition” and “civilization” stuff was (in the eyes of those people) being grown like livestock to be slaughtered for meat eventually.

300 years from now this time is going to be called the start of the new dark ages, or the end of the thaw (Soviet analogy here), or something like that.