The economics nerd in me takes some issue with this (although I certainly support eating better than McDonald’s from a health standpoint). Especially in China, where McDonald’s delivers, I don’t have to spend any time buying, preparing and cooking food. I can easily make 150-200 RMB in an hour, and it probably takes me about an hour to go through the process of cooking (from buying to eating) and sometimes even longer. Thus, my opportunity cost is about 150 RMB for that, which is far more expensive than McDonalds (which is about 30 RMB for a meal).
Sure, if I buy vegetables and beans, I can get my meal cost down to between 5-10 RMB, but at what opportunity cost?
That said, I want to be completely clear that the alternate argument to this is that if I die much younger than that’s more of an opportunity cost than anything, so I’ll still eat well…I guess the picture just bugs me because its not taking into account the time it takes to turn those pictures into edible food (which for the picture of McDonald’s is no time). Time is money, cats!
Reading this totally shamed me. I order McDonald’s delivery at an alarming rate because it’s “cheap,” but really…it is considerably less expensive to buy veggies and cook at home, especially in China. Sigh. Slowly, slowly I’ll start changing my ways, to avoid the poor house and a heart attack.
THE “fact” that junk food is cheaper than real food has become a reflexive part of how we explain why so many Americans are overweight, particularly those with lower incomes. I frequently read confident statements like, “when a bag of chips is cheaper than a head of broccoli …” or “it’s more affordable to feed a family of four at McDonald’s than to cook a healthy meal for them at home.”
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I cook awesome healthy stuff at home all the time and it’s super cheap.
