Weight Loss Tuesday. No, really.
Aug 19, 2009 Weight Loss
Just like I call my videos “Amy in the Morning” no matter when I end up getting to them, I’m going to call this one “Weight Loss Tuesday.” I forgot what day it was yesterday, and totally forgot to post about weight loss. So, while I’m not convinced that fast food keeps me from losing weight, a fast food post did help keep me from posting about weight loss.
I wasn’t online much yesterday, but when I was I was spending a lot of that time reading the bat-shit crazy interesting and informative comments over on Consumerist.com and on my own Burger King post. The comments on yesterday’s video tended to be more thoughtful, and had me thinking a lot about fast food in general.
I’ll say right away that I don’t think that fast food is evil, any more than I think pot or porn are evil. It’s all about how often you partake. Admittedly, I ate more fast food last week for breakfast than I had in the six previous months combined, but that was a very unusual week. So let’s just keep two things in mind: 1) Most weeks I have McDonald’s or Burger King once a week or less, and 2) When I eat from a fast food restaurant, it’s usually a breakfast sandwich or an order of fries. One item. An egg and cheese croissan’wich is 310 calories. I have more than that for breakfast at home sometimes, with one big difference: the fatty, greasy fast food keeps me full way longer than food that won’t kill me as fast. So I usually end up waiting a lot longer to eat again.
Anyway…I don’t want to talk about the obese kids eating fast food every day, or the overweight guys who used to stop in to Bob Evans each and every morning and have me serve them a gigantic plate of eggs, potatoes, meat, pancakes, and toast – not fast food, but no healthier either. No, I want to talk about moderation. Something I suck at. If I could eat anything I wanted and be healthy, I would probably move next door to a McDonald’s. But since that’s not the case, I limit it. But I don’t totally deny myself.
I don’t think that banning fast food – either from my life, or from the world, as my perfect-for-San-Fancisco-in-every-way sister suggests – is the answer. But I do think that taxing the shit out of it might be a step in the right direction. The same way cigarettes and gasoline are taxed, I would totally support a fast food tax. I haven’t even thought about the details – what would qualify, if it would be restaurant-wide or on certain foods only – but fast food is too cheap. Just the other day on TV a woman with an obese teen-aged daughter was telling Oprah that they couldn’t always afford to make good food choices. Perhaps making the unhealthy stuff more expensive would help make those choices easier.
The thing is, the often-repeated excuse that eating well is too expensive is bull shit. It’s not that healthier food is more expensive than unhealthy food, it’s that quick unhealthy food is way cheaper than healthy prepared food. And chances are good that if you’re short on money and have a family, you’re also short on time. If you’re working two jobs and trying to feed your family, of course it’s easier to grab something quick. Not a week goes by that I don’t look at the dishes in the sink and my to-do list and say “Hey guys, wanna go through the drive-thru?” or “Hey guys, let’s order a pizza!” When I want to grab a quick snack, I can get a snack pack with veggies and cheeses and healthy dips from Fresh Direct for $2.99, or a bag of salt and vinegar chips at the bodega for fifty cents!
But if you look, good food can be had cheaper than fast food. There are scads of websites devoted to cheap and healthy family meals. Many Community Supported Agriculture groups (CSAs) accept food stamps. Farmer’s Markets are popping up in all sorts of neighborhoods these days. But, yes, you still have to find the time to cook the food. And when the fast food place on the way home will have it ready for you in two minutes for cheap, it’s just too tempting for some families.
But I digress. My intention was to write about how banning or denying something never works. If fast food were ever banned you would find me in a dark alley, lined up for black market street fries. But as long as I get fries every week or a breakfast sandwich now and then, I’m happy enough. I haven’t given up a single thing that I like in order to lose weight. I just messed with the frequency and the portions.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Burger King, fast food, McDonald's, Oprah
Hold on a minute…
Aug 19, 2009 Amy in the Morning
[kaltura-widget wid="3jc0i3dl9c" width="400" height="365" addpermission="" editpermission="" /]
[kaltura-widget wid="42bvjhq9ao" width="400" height="365" addpermission="" editpermission="" /]
Desk before:
Desk after:
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Burger King, Consumerist
Hey Burger King, you’re getting timed for a reason!
Aug 14, 2009 How To Piss Me Off
Last night on the way home from camp the kids and I went through the Burger King Drive-Through. When we were next in line for the window I noticed that the guy in front of me had his reverse lights on, so I stayed back about 10 feet – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people back up for something, forget they’re in reverse, then hit the gas. When it was my turn at the window, the BK cashier asked me to pull forward and then back up. I was so surprised and busy processing what she was saying and trying not to back up into the window with my mirror and asking for salt and checking the orders that I didn’t get a chance to ask her why. But I guessed that she had asked the guy in front of me to do the same thing. As I was leaving I looked in the review mirror I saw that the guy behind me was doing the same thing as well. WTF?
It bothered me all night that I couldn’t figure out what the purpose was. I went back in my mind to my McDonald’s and Arby’s days, but at both places I made the food, I didn’t work the Drive-Through. Then, finally, it hit me: I’ve seen big timers in some restaurants, timing how long each Drive-Through order was taking. There must be a sensor somewhere that stops the clock and starts timing the next order! Was she asking each car to stop the clock on their order so that the restaurant’s stats would look good?
I went back this morning, in the interest of investigation – not because I was dying for a Croissan’wich. Once again, when I got to the window, I was asked to pull forward and back up. I said “Why? Are you trying to stop the timer?” She said yes. I said something to the effect of “But that’s cheating. How will the process get any faster if they think you’re already really fast?” I know enough about fast food restaurants to know that they really study this stuff. There are systems that figure out when you should drop fries based on how many cars are in the Drive-Through lines. There are McDonald’s that have outsourced their Drive-Through order-taking jobs to call centers. Corporate sure as hell wants to know for how long people are sitting in the Drive-Through.
The BK worker admitted that yes, it was cheating, but that the restaurant is given time goals each week and they’re not meeting them. So I said something like, “But how will the times get faster if you don’t acknowledge that there’s a problem?” She told me I didn’t have to pull forward if I didn’t want to. I’m not really sure it was necessary for her to tell me that. Was the alternative for her to hold my food hostage until I pulled forward?
When I go through a Drive-Through, I want the process to be fast. And more often than not here in Brooklyn, the process is anything but. So as a customer, it is absolutely not in my best interest to help Burger King trick corporate into thinking that they’re already speedy. I’m insulted that they’d ask.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Burger King
