One can get burgers for a buck, and supersized, biggie sized burger
meals for 4-5 bucks. Why are salads at those places 5 dollars? When
did lettuce become so expensive? They got their priorities all wrong.

"Doe John" wrote in message
...
One can get burgers for a buck, and supersized, biggie sized burger
meals for 4-5 bucks. Why are salads at those places 5 dollars? When
did lettuce become so expensive? They got their priorities all wrong.

Sorry, but you are confused. Priorities are just the way they think it
should be. As long as people are willing to pay $5, they will charge that
much.They don't make much profit on 99¢ burgers, but they make a bundle on
soft drinks and salads.

Doe John wrote:

One can get burgers for a buck, and supersized, biggie sized burger
meals for 4-5 bucks. Why are salads at those places 5 dollars? When
did lettuce become so expensive? They got their priorities all wrong.


They are not ordered anywhere near as often and you can freeze a burger
patty... not a Caesar Salad... not to mention they take up too much space...

Plus they don't expect Mr. Joe Boo Johnson to pay more for his burger
than he did his 40 of Miller High Life... They'd much rather the wannabe
insecure actresses and similar with more money than brain cells buy it...

~john!

On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 03:47:21 GMT, Doe John wrote:

One can get burgers for a buck, and supersized, biggie sized burger
meals for 4-5 bucks. Why are salads at those places 5 dollars? When
did lettuce become so expensive?

You can also get a 99-cent "side salad' of lettuce, cabbage, carrot,
and a tomato wedge. For the 'specialty' salads, usually with some form
of grilled chicken, you're paying for the elevated cost of prep
(somewhere, if not in the actual outlet) and the calculated profit
scheme. Fast food is a caretully researched operation. They can
probably make a small profit on a 99-cent burger special, but the big
buck$ are in the accompanying drink & fries. 'As much as the traffic
will bear' is another principle. For me, a 99-cent special diner, a $4
salad is out of range. The 'Value Meal' customer used to paying $3-5
dollars for his drive through, may be tempted by a similarly priced
"healthy" selection. BTW, once you add (fried) croutons, dressing, and
cheese, the difference in calories is minimal.

Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
"Doe John" wrote in message
...
One can get burgers for a buck, and supersized, biggie sized burger
meals for 4-5 bucks. Why are salads at those places 5 dollars? When
did lettuce become so expensive? They got their priorities all wrong.

Sorry, but you are confused. Priorities are just the way they think
it should be. As long as people are willing to pay $5, they will
charge that much.They don't make much profit on 99¢ burgers, but they
make a bundle on soft drinks and salads.

*And* everyone thinks by buying those salads they are eating "healthy".
Ahem.

Jill

levelwave wrote:
Doe John wrote:

One can get burgers for a buck, and supersized, biggie sized burger
meals for 4-5 bucks. Why are salads at those places 5 dollars? When
did lettuce become so expensive? They got their priorities all wrong.


They are not ordered anywhere near as often and you can freeze a
burger patty... not a Caesar Salad... not to mention they take up too
much space...

Plus they don't expect Mr. Joe Boo Johnson to pay more for his burger
than he did his 40 of Miller High Life... They'd much rather the
wannabe insecure actresses and similar with more money than brain
cells buy it...

~john!

John, when did you get so phobic about people in general? 40 (I'm assuming
you mean oz. here) Miller High Life? Wannabe insecure actresses with MONEY?
Honey chile, those women (and men) are the ones cleaning the tables and
taking the money from your hand. If you want to stereotype people, at least
get it right! G

Jill

The right price has less to do with the cost of bringing an item to the
consumer and more to do with what the consumer is willing to pay. What
the consumer will pay has a lot to do with what the competition is
charging. With fast food, the consumer probably isn't thinking as much
about what the fast food joint down the road is charging as about how
easy and convenient it would be to get a salad at home.

Now a related question: I know that the burger and fries part of a fast
food meal comes almost entirely pre-fab. The burger is weighed and
shaped off premises, frozen and delivered to the fast food place ready
to be broiled. The bread, ketchup, fries, are all made elsewhere so
portion control isn't a subject for the teenager that the consumer
meets. Even the potatoes for the fries are grown to specs so they'll
fry up the same all over the country with no adjustment needed for oil
temperature. To what extent is the salad made off premises and quality
controlled and portion controlled so it is the same all over? I should
think there'd be regional differences in lettuce and other vegetables.

--Lia


Doe John wrote:
One can get burgers for a buck, and supersized, biggie sized burger
meals for 4-5 bucks. Why are salads at those places 5 dollars? When
did lettuce become so expensive? They got their priorities all wrong.

On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 07:02:05 -0500, "jmcquown"
wrote:

Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
"Doe John" wrote in message
...
One can get burgers for a buck, and supersized, biggie sized burger
meals for 4-5 bucks. Why are salads at those places 5 dollars? When
did lettuce become so expensive? They got their priorities all wrong.

Sorry, but you are confused. Priorities are just the way they think
it should be. As long as people are willing to pay $5, they will
charge that much.They don't make much profit on 99¢ burgers, but they
make a bundle on soft drinks and salads.

*And* everyone thinks by buying those salads they are eating "healthy".
Ahem.

The higher priced salads at McDonalds are healthy. You get grilled chicken
that is actual chicken, they have mixed greens including red leaf lettuce,
frissee, and a red cabbage thing, and I think some spinach, in addition to
the iceburg lettuce. There are also grape tomatoes and shaved carrots. The
salads are plenty big enough to be a full meal all by themselves, and here
in Vermont, they only cost $3.99. They're very low carb (fifteen carbs for
the whole thing including the packet of Newman's Ranch Dressing which is a
nice, tasty dressing), relatively low fat (and the fats that are there are
good fats), and the veggies are fresh.

But, maybe I'm deluded here. Fresh vegetables, grilled chicken, a
reasonable douse of dressing... how is that not healthy?

--
Siobhan Perricone
"Truth decays into beauty, while beauty soon becomes merely charm. Charm
ends up as strangeness, and even that doesn't last, but up and down are
forever." - The Laws of Physics

On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 11:40:56 GMT, Frogleg wrote:

"healthy" selection. BTW, once you add (fried) croutons, dressing, and
cheese, the difference in calories is minimal.

Ah yes, the cheese. There's probably an ounce of shredded cheese on the
speciality salads. Enough for flavour, but nothing more. And I don't think
they give croutons with the speciality salads, or if they do, I never eat
them. The dressing portion is perfectly reasonable given the size of the
salad. It is *not* over dressed by any means, and the dressing itself is
*fine*.

So, in the interest of everyone (including me) to not be talking out their
asses any more, here's the nutritional information for the McDonald's
speciality salads.

For the sake of saving space, I'll only detail a couple of items. (in order
for this table to look right when you view it, you should change your view
to a fixed pitch font like courier, or you can go to the McDonald's website
to see the the nutritional information table there
http://www.mcdonalds.com/countries/u...ion/index.html).

Bacon
Ranch Ranch Quarter- Medium
Grilled Dressing pounder Fries
Size 10.2 oz 2 oz 6.1 oz 5.2 oz
Calories 270 290 430 450
Total Fat 13 18 21 22
Sat. Fat 5 4.5 8 4
Cholesterol 75 20 70 0
Sodium 830 530 770 290
Carbohydrates 11 4 38 57
Fiber 3 0 3 5
Sugars 4 3 9 0
Protein 28 1 23 6
Vit. A 90 0 0 0
Vit. C 50 0 4 30
Calcium 15 4 15 2
Iron 10 0 25 6

We can assume for the sake of the exercise that people are drinking a diet
drink, and aren't having a dessert, and are satisfied with 11-12 ounces of
food. Let's talk about calories first.

560 for the salad, 880 for the burger and fries. The salad and dressing are
well within the limits for a reasonable dinner. The burger and fries, not
as much (unless you've not eaten much, or eaten only a few calories the
rest of the day, and assuming the recommended 2000 calories a day diet most
adults need).

Alright, how about fats. Anything other than saturated fats are either
beneficial (monounsaturated fats that have a protective effect), or neutral
(polyunsaturated that neither add to cholesterol nor protect from arterial
plaque buildup) fats.

Overall the salad is lower in total fats (31 versus 43). The salad has 9.5
grams of saturated fat, and 21.5 grams of beneficial or neutral fats. The
burger and fries have 12 grams of saturated fat and 31 grams of benefitial
or neutral fats. So the burger and fries are something of a wash, because
you end up with more beneficial fats than the salad, and only marginally
more saturated fats. This rather surprised me, I thought the burger would
be signficantly higher in saturated fats.

For those of us who are diabetics, though (or who are trying to follow a
low carb diet for their own reasons), this is where the salad shines, grams
of carbohydrates.

The salad has 15 total grams, only 12 of which count as effective carbs
(fiber grams don't count as they aren't digested and don't contribute to
blood glucose or overall carb consumption). The burger and fries are a
whopping 95 total grams of carbs, 87 of which are effective carbs.

Though, you can reduce that a fair amount, a quarterpounder bun is around
30 grams of carbs, so if you just don't eat the bun (which lots of people
do and I've done myself), then you're changing the carb counts drastically.
Though there's nothing you can do about the fries, potatoes are just high
carb food.

All in all both meals are relatively nutritious. They aren't "empty
calories" because you *need* calories to live. They also have nutritive
value beyond the fats, as both meals have vitamins and minerals.

The burger and fries are fairly high in fats (though mostly beneficial or
neutral ones), and so they'd blow your "fats budget" if you were shooting
for the "no more than 35 grams of fat a day" that some people recommend.
The salad does that, too, but if you choose a different dressing, or eschew
McDonald's dressing and use your own no-fat ranch on the salad (I do
sometimes bring my own dressing), then the salad is definately the winner
here.

None of this has anything to do with taste (though I find the premium
salads quite tasty, and at least as good as any quick salads I whip up at
home, the burgers are, at best, stomach filler, and not something I could
say I really enjoy), or supporting the massive corporate giant that is
McDonalds, or commenting on anything to do with the global impacts such
operations have.

I just get sick of people acting like eating McDonalds is the same as
eating dirt. It's not. The food has nutritive value, and it's not all evil.
It is possible to eat an actually healthy meal at McDonalds, as with
everything else, it's all about making informed choices instead of just
kneejerking.
--
Siobhan Perricone
"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who
cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn,
and relearn." -- Alvin Toffler

jmcquown wrote:

John, when did you get so phobic about people in general? 40 (I'm assuming
you mean oz. here) Miller High Life?

Jill... I was *drinking* a Miller High Life when I wrote this... It's
cheap and doesn't leave me in the gutter the next morning...

Wannabe insecure actresses with MONEY?
Honey chile, those women (and men) are the ones cleaning the tables and
taking the money from your hand.

so you're saying these actresses are working at McDonalds?... ok... I
guess you missed the point of my post...

If you want to stereotype people, at least get it right! G

Why are you jumping my case lately?... You were wrong about my "queer"
post and again you're wrong now...

~john!

"Doe John" wrote in message
...
One can get burgers for a buck, and supersized, biggie sized burger
meals for 4-5 bucks. Why are salads at those places 5 dollars? When
did lettuce become so expensive? They got their priorities all wrong.

Cost of ingredients is a very small % of the total cost for a restaurant
item. Labor, shelf life, and other factors play a much bigger role.


--
Peter Aitken

Remove the crap from my email address before using.

Siobhan Perricone wrote:
On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 07:02:05 -0500, "jmcquown"
wrote:

Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
"Doe John" wrote in message
...
One can get burgers for a buck, and supersized, biggie sized burger
meals for 4-5 bucks. Why are salads at those places 5 dollars? When
did lettuce become so expensive? They got their priorities all
wrong.

Sorry, but you are confused. Priorities are just the way they think
it should be. As long as people are willing to pay $5, they will
charge that much.They don't make much profit on 99¢ burgers, but
they make a bundle on soft drinks and salads.

*And* everyone thinks by buying those salads they are eating
"healthy". Ahem.

The higher priced salads at McDonalds are healthy. You get grilled
chicken that is actual chicken, they have mixed greens including red
leaf lettuce, frissee, and a red cabbage thing, and I think some
spinach, in addition to the iceburg lettuce. There are also grape
tomatoes and shaved carrots. The salads are plenty big enough to be
a full meal all by themselves, and here in Vermont, they only cost
$3.99. They're very low carb (fifteen carbs for the whole thing
including the packet of Newman's Ranch Dressing which is a nice,
tasty dressing), relatively low fat (and the fats that are there are
good fats), and the veggies are fresh.

But, maybe I'm deluded here. Fresh vegetables, grilled chicken, a
reasonable douse of dressing... how is that not healthy?

Since I don't eat at McD's, I can only speak to what I see people picking up
at salad bars. Let's see; get some greens which are nice and healthy, then
pile on bacon or ham, chopped eggs, croutons and pile on the cheese... then
let's add bleu cheese or french dressing on top of that.

I'm sure McD's is the exception, rather than the rule. Paul Neuman never
had to worry about his weight; granted, he donates to charity with the
purchases of his sauces/dressings, that's nice. But it's not like he's one
of the downtrodden.

Notice how McD's has been forced into a 'health conscious' role lately?
They never would have developed this salad you are touting without being
pushed by marketers telling them "Hey, burgers are bad, make some salads".

There used to be a burger place here in Memphis called D'Lite's. They had a
healthy salad bar such as you describe. Multiple greens; sprouts; carrots;
water chestnuts. Lighter dressings. The burgers they made were of half
lean ground turkey, half ground round, grilled but nice and big. Lowfat
cheeses. Served on home baked wheat buns. They were delicious! They went
out of business in a matter of months.

Face it, a lot of people in the USA just don't care to eat healthy "fast
food".

Jill

Jill wrote:

Since I don't eat at McD's, I can only speak to what I see people picking
up at salad bars. Let's see; get some greens which are nice and healthy,
then pile on bacon or ham, chopped eggs, croutons and pile on the
cheese... then let's add bleu cheese or french dressing on top of that.

Sorry, Jill, you're missing the point of this discussion: We're talking
about the pre-made salads that are currently offered by McDonald's, Wendy's,
Burger King, and Jack in the Box. Salad bars are an entirely different
animal.

Except for a whole lotta unnecessary cheese, the fast-food salads *are*
fairly healthy.

Bob

Bob wrote:
Jill wrote:

Since I don't eat at McD's, I can only speak to what I see people
picking up at salad bars. Let's see; get some greens which are nice
and healthy, then pile on bacon or ham, chopped eggs, croutons and
pile on the cheese... then let's add bleu cheese or french dressing
on top of that.

Sorry, Jill, you're missing the point of this discussion: We're
talking about the pre-made salads that are currently offered by
McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, and Jack in the Box. Salad bars
are an entirely different animal.

Except for a whole lotta unnecessary cheese, the fast-food salads
*are* fairly healthy.

Bob

Ahh, apparently you are correct. I bow to that.

Jill

On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 14:09:24 GMT, Julia Altshuler
wrote:

Now a related question: I know that the burger and fries part of a fast
food meal comes almost entirely pre-fab. The burger is weighed and
shaped off premises, frozen and delivered to the fast food place ready
to be broiled. The bread, ketchup, fries, are all made elsewhere so
portion control isn't a subject for the teenager that the consumer
meets. Even the potatoes for the fries are grown to specs so they'll
fry up the same all over the country with no adjustment needed for oil
temperature. To what extent is the salad made off premises and quality
controlled and portion controlled so it is the same all over? I should
think there'd be regional differences in lettuce and other vegetables.

I expect at least the ingredients come on the Big Truck along with the
burgers and fries. Just like supermarket bagged salads, only bigger
bags.