The real dystopia is that people are talking about fast food at all. It's garbage food. Realisticly it's always been the worst and often most expensive choice.
It's quick, convenient, and explicitly designed to rub all the right parts of your palette. Besides, the worst part of the fast food menu is the soda and fries. The rest of the meal is marginal.
Realisticly itโs always been the worst and often most expensive choice.
Its consistently worse than home cooking. But not everyone has the luxury of a functional kitchen or a stocked fridge or the time to prepare the meal. And as to "most expensive"... hardly. I remember getting Chipotle on campus, when a burrito was $8 and came in at around 1000 calories. Very hard to name another restaurant that offered that kind of value, speed, and convenience.
A lot of what fast food restaurants are banking on today is this over-reliance on their convenience making them an inelastic good. No more home economics classes, teaching young people how to cook. Lots of gig work means people are always on the road. Lots of people living alone. Lots of shitty apartments where major appliances simply don't work.
You're stuck, dude. Now give me $15 for a sandwich.
Its consistently worse than home cooking. But not everyone has the luxury of a functional kitchen or a stocked fridge or the time to prepare the meal.
You're not wrong here. It's not good food, but it's easy and touches the makes-me-crave-it neurons, it's often available in food deserts (where it's legitimately difficult to really stock a kitchen) and sometimes it's only cheap in the context of whether or not you have that home infra and time to use it or not.
I just use my privilege (I have a pretty functional kitchen and the ability to stock it mightily) to not fund a business model that looks to me like it's hostile to labor (yeah you, McDonalds and most of the rest), tends to give money to politics I can't abide (looking at you, chick-fil-a), and I really prefer to patronize businesses whose employees don't have the energy of beaten animals. I get that it's my privilege to do that, but being someone with that to work with, using it appropriately seems the right thing to do.
Thatโs what I donโt get. Do people actually eat this garbage still? Itโs literally toxic trash that costs twice as much as a home cooked meal and tastes like shit. Why???
You can get a hot rotisserie chicken and a freshly made garden salad at most grocery stores and itโll be cheaper than a McDonaldโs combo meal. Way healthier too!
I know what youโre saying but you gotta plan your stops more. 9 out of 10 exits have fast food. But 1 out of 10 exits have grocery stores. Grocery stores have prepared food that is healthier.
Step outside your own circumstances and attempt to actually think of reasons why people would want/need to choose fast food. Don't delude yourself with all the easy reasons to avoid fast food. Those reasons are immaterial in the lives of many.