If the price is right?
Is this really a good deal?
When I was a kid, my mom taught me a very valuable health and economics lesson at the grocery store. I would always look at the great value offered by family size cereal boxes, meat packages, and juice containers, and I would point them out to my mom. She would walk down the aisle, pick out the smaller (worse bang for your buck) cereal box and continue shopping. Being the opinionated loving daughter that I still am, I would of course have to point out that she was not making very good use of her money. She explained to me that the value package would be worth her money if we had a big family, but that our small family of four would not, and should not, eat that much cereal(or milk or meat…) in a week before it would go bad. It might be a better deal for all of that food, but it is not a better deal to spend $5 instead of $3 if we are going to throw half of the big package away.
The other food lesson my mom taught me was to NOT eat everything on my plate if I was full. I know… it is crazy. It is wasteful to throw food away, but it is also wasteful to eat more food than my body needs. Ideally, of course, that large quantity of food would not make its way onto my plate in the first place, so that somebody else could eat it, but that is just not always the case. As an adult, I make my own food decisions. That includes how much I will buy at the grocery store and how much I will eat off of my plate, but it also includes where I will chose to eat when I go out.
As a Team Lead at Amanda’s I am very conscious of this value vs. portion size dilemma in our society today. Some customers complain that our burgers are too small, or that they could buy a half pound burger somewhere else for a better value. Do we really want to eat that much burger in one meal? Do you end up throwing it away in the end anyway? One of Amanda’s neighbors, Saul’s deli, recently struggled with their decision to make pastrami sandwiches with better ingredients, but smaller. Does it really make sense to pay more for excess?
Sakib Said,
April 23, 2010 @ 1:38 pm
Yeah its better to get less that costs more rather than more that costs less, at the end of the day its much more beneficial for all concerned. Its shocking how far companies will go to save a buck, the dangerous chemicals and preservatives that are used to extend sell by dates. Recently someone discovered that a McDonald’s burger is so full of preservatives that it maintains its state even when left after a whole year!
Its a real shame that modern society and hectic lifestyles have pushed cooking out of favour and empty flavourless “convenience” food is what seems to be the necessary option. Cooking is one of the greatest joys ever, the smell of freshly baked bread or apple pie is a wonderful experience and I think is something everyone should experience before they die.
Also its shocking how much food is thrown on the garbage heap, so much that it could feed thousands if not millions of starving people. Recently, child poverty and starvation has increased in Britain, once I saw a guy buy a sandwich, he took just one bite and he trashed it. That enraged me a great deal, why buy the fricking sandwich if you’re just gonna chuck it away?
If you buy a loaf of bread and you don’t happen to finish it before its sell by date, just give the rest to the birds, their digestive systems are capable of dealing with food that would be unsuitable to us.
And what is it with these so called “reality” cooking shows, where two teams are in competition with each other! How dumbed down has television gotten in the last ten years, there’s not anything worth watching anymore? Cooking is about the sharing of ideas and experiences, instead people are forced into a competition just for an increase in ratings! This world is fudged up! And how on earth do you measure things with cups, I prefer using grams!
Daniel Sides Said,
July 30, 2010 @ 3:14 pm
I completely agree with this post. Every single time I’m shopping there’s a civil war between “You can definitely finish all that!! Look at the savings!” and “You’re a pig. Buy only what you need.”
My company actually just developed a comparator that helps make this decision at fast food restaurants, that I wanted to e-mail to you (I can’t find a Contact Us button anywhere!).
At http://fast-food-nutrition.findthebest.com/ you are able to sort all fast food menu items by calories, saturated fat, carbs, and tons of other parameters. You can use the filters on the left of the page to narrow down your results to the exact meal you’re looking for. The ENTIRE application can even be placed on your website if you wish.
Let me know if you’d like more info, and of course
HAPPY EATING!