Eat a McDouble, you liberal pussies

[Ed Anger]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_greatest_food_human_history_5bikMtD5ZJ50x1KMCyGfTJ

What is "the cheapest, most nutritious and bountiful food that has ever existed in human history" Hint: It has 390 calories. It contains 23g, or half a daily serving, of protein, plus 7% of daily fiber, 20% of daily calcium and so on.

Also, you can get it in 14,000 locations in the US and it usually costs $1. Presenting one of the unsung wonders of modern life, the McDonald's McDouble cheeseburger.

The argument above was made by a commenter on the Freakonomics blog run by economics writer Stephen Dubner and professor Steven Leavitt, who co-wrote the million-selling books on the hidden side of everything.

Dubner mischievously built an episode of his highly amusing weekly podcast around the debate. Many huffy back-to-the-earth types wrote in to suggest the alternative meal of boiled lentils. Great idea. Now go open a restaurant called McBoiled Lentils and see how many customers line up.

But we all know fast food makes us fat, right? Not necessarily. People who eat out tend to eat less at home that day in partial compensation; the net gain, according to a 2008 study out of Berkeley and Northwestern, is only about 24 calories a day.

The outraged replies to the notion of McDouble supremacy — if it's not the cheapest, most nutritious and most bountiful food in human history, it has to be pretty close — comes from the usual coalition of class snobs, locavore foodies and militant anti-corporate types. I say usual because these people are forever proclaiming their support for the poor and for higher minimum wages that would supposedly benefit McDonald's workers. But they're completely heartless when it comes to the other side of the equation: cost.

Driving up McDonald's wage costs would drive up the price of burgers for millions of poor people. "So what?" say activists. Maybe that'll drive people to farmers markets.

For the average poor person, it isn't a great option to take a trip to the farmers market to puzzle over esoteric lefty-foodie codes. (Is sustainable better than organic? What if I have to choose between fair trade and cruelty-free?) Produce may seem cheap to environmentally aware blond moms who spend $300 on their highlights every month, but if your object is to fill your belly, it is hugely expensive per calorie.

Junk food costs as little as $1.76 per 1,000 calories, whereas fresh veggies and the like cost more than 10 times as much, found a 2007 University of Washington survey for the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. A 2,000-calorie day of meals would, if you stuck strictly to the good-for-you stuff, cost $36.32, said the study's lead author, Adam Drewnowski.

"Not only are the empty calories cheaper," he reported, "but the healthy foods are becoming more and more expensive. Vegetables and fruits are rapidly becoming luxury goods." Where else but McDonald's can poor people obtain so many calories per dollar?

And as for organic — the Abercrombie and Fitch jeans of food — if you have to check the price, you can't afford it. (Not that it has any health benefits, as last year's huge Stanford meta-study showed.)

Moreover, produce takes more time to prepare and spoils quickly, two more factors that effectively drive up the cost. Any time you're spending peeling vegetables is time you aren't spending on the job.

Activists will go anywhere to wave the banner of caring and plant their flagpole of social justice right in the foot of the working class.

Forcing New Yorkers to pay unnecessary high prices, they've managed to keep Walmart out of the five boroughs of New York City. The City Council of Washington, DC, recently passed a bill, designed specifically to punish only Walmart, which would mandate a super-minimum wage to benefit a small number of employees while effectively placing a surtax on every Walmart shopper. (Walmart responded by saying it was canceling plans for three stores. The bill may yet be vetoed by Mayor Vincent Gray.)

Fuel prices, like food prices, disproportionately hit the poor, so do-gooders do everything they can to raise energy costs by blocking new fuel sources like the Keystone XL pipelines and fracking. And they are always up for higher gasoline taxes and regulating coal-burning energy plants to death.

If the macrobiotic Marxists had their way, of course, there'd be no McDonald's, Walmart or Exxon, because they have visions of an ideal world in which everybody bikes to work with a handwoven backpack from Etsy that contains a lunch grown in the neighborhood collective.

That's not going to work for the average person, but who cares if they go hungry because they can't afford a burger anymore? Let them eat kale!

[Darth Wagtaros]

Farmers Markets are expensive. 

[Ed Anger]

Farmers Markets are expensive.

And old people crash through them.

[DGuller]

If a significant portion of the population needs to decide what they want to eat based on a Calorie/$ ratio, then maybe that's an indictment of our society right there.

[Ed Anger]

Meanwhile, in Canada......

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/07/25/heteronormative-burger-family-no-threat-to-lgbt-rights-tribunal-says-after-receiving-outrageous-complaint/

[Following a bizarre correspondence with an anonymous letter-writer, Ontario's human rights tribunal has strongly dismissed claims that the A&W fast food chain's Burger Family poses a threat to the self-respect of the LGBT community.

The complaint — filed last month by a man posing as a radical lesbian feminist — demanded $50,000 from the restaurant chain, alleging that its trademark Papa, Mama, Grandpa and Teen burgers were "an attack on my womyn identity."



"The whole heteronormative, phallocentric marketing scheme of A&W is highly degrading to non-tradition families," reads the complaint filed to the tribunal last month.

"The level of humiliation and degradation I felt exceeded that which I felt when I was raped."

Calling it "outrageous" and "vexatious," the human rights tribunal threw out the application earlier this month over concerns regarding the veracity of the complainant's story.

Questions over the legitimacy of the claim came after learning the pseudonym used on the application, Gloria Ironbox, was the same as a parodied feminist on the adult cartoon series Family Guy.

In further correspondence, the complainant revealed himself as a man, but urged the tribunal to continue to process his complaint or risk denying his right to expression.

While conceding that his complaint was "ridiculous," the complainant said it was no more ridiculous than a recent human rights tribunal ruling in B.C. that saw a comedian Guy Earle fined $15,000 after directing a barrage of slurs toward a lesbian couple at a restaurant in 2011.

In the seven-page document posted on the Can-LII website, associate chair David Wright slammed the complaint as attempting to abuse the system.



"I understand his argument to be that the Tribunal should process the Application so that he can demonstrate what he sees as flaws in the human rights system in Canada," Mr. Wright wrote in the July 19 decision. "

A Canadian human rights activist took no issue with the A&W menu, choosing instead to criticize the anonymous complainant for ridiculing the tribunal system.

"This is doing a disservice to the queer community by undermining genuine concerns regarding heteronormativity," said Dara Parker, executive director of the B.C. LGBT advocacy group, Qmunity.

Spokespersons at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and A&W were not immediately available for comment.

[CountDeMoney]

Guess she's not going to try their chili cheese dogs then.

[Neil]

Very real concerns about heteronormativity?  Fuck I hate fags.

[garbon]

We are all the same.

[CountDeMoney]

Junk food costs as little as $1.76 per 1,000 calories, whereas fresh veggies and the like cost more than 10 times as much, found a 2007 University of Washington survey for the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

Fuel prices, like food prices, disproportionately hit the poor, so do-gooders do everything they can to raise energy costs by blocking new fuel sources like the Keystone XL pipelines and fracking. And they are always up for higher gasoline taxes and regulating coal-burning energy plants to death.

I didn't know Ed was on AEI's daily email list.

[Ed Anger]

I'm shocked Seedy missed the most mind numbing line:

Moreover, produce takes more time to prepare and spoils quickly, two more factors that effectively drive up the cost. Any time you're spending peeling vegetables is time you aren't spending on the job.

BACK TO WORK SLAVES!

[Ed Anger]

Junk food costs as little as $1.76 per 1,000 calories, whereas fresh veggies and the like cost more than 10 times as much, found a 2007 University of Washington survey for the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

Fuel prices, like food prices, disproportionately hit the poor, so do-gooders do everything they can to raise energy costs by blocking new fuel sources like the Keystone XL pipelines and fracking. And they are always up for higher gasoline taxes and regulating coal-burning energy plants to death.

I didn't know Ed was on AEI's daily email list.

Sorry, they are against farm subsidies. Which support the Ed Anger experience.

[garbon]

Doesn't everyone know that yes to successfully wean people off junk, we're going to need easy and affordable healthy options?

[CountDeMoney]

Doesn't everyone know that yes to successfully wean people off junk, we're going to need easy and affordable healthy options?

Fuck the poor.  They don't want to eat $3 bags of Cheetos from the corner Korean-owned convenience store in the 'hood, they don't have to.  ITS ABOUT CHOICE IN AMERICA

[derspiess]

Doesn't everyone know that yes to successfully wean people off junk, we're going to need easy and affordable healthy options?

...that taste good. 

[Grey Fox]

I'm shocked Seedy missed the most mind numbing line:

Moreover, produce takes more time to prepare and spoils quickly, two more factors that effectively drive up the cost. Any time you're spending peeling vegetables is time you aren't spending on the job.

BACK TO WORK SLAVES!

Fuck this society. Neil is right, the wrong team won the Cold War.