Today I went to burger king for the first time in years. It was even worse than I remembered it. (had the vegetarian option, don’t know if it’s as bad with the meat burgers) Additionally it’s fucking expensive and not as quick as it used to be. So my question is why do some people go there regulary?
I like tasty gourmet food. But I also like junk.
I genuinely like a big Mac or a domino pizza. Are they as good as a gourmet burger or a wood oven pizza? Not even close. Can I enjoy them regularly? Absolutely.
Same. There’s a strange allure to cheap fast food. Ig it’s a childhood thing for me, forbidden fruit and all, but I really love cooking all kinds of meals myself too.
Same. I’ve had Michelin star meals, meals from world famous chefs, and everything in between. And sometimes the only thing I want is a McDs double cheese burger.
Tastes are funny. Sometimes I want a steak and salad, sometimes I want a shitty greasy burger with a pile of fries.
They‘re everywhere and while the quality isn’t great, it’s a known quantity. McDonalds is never amazing but it’s very rarely terrible. A random hole in the wall is always unpredictable and a proper restaurant usually much slower and more expensive. Also, I’m weak for the Big Tasty sauce.
Well, you see, the combination of mayonnaise and melted cheese creates a chemical chain reaction in my brain that makes me feel good.
I consumed fast food regularly when it was cheap. Maybe today someone consumes fast food regularly, because it can still be cheap, but only if you collect points, coupons and such.
On top of that, they’re always around you and you know what they offer, if you get used to it. Sometimes I want a satisfying safe bet instead of an unknown experiment.
Lack of time, lack of energy, or both. Cooking is exhausting and difficult when you’re already tired from working.
Air fryer and sous vide has made it easy for me to do quick cooking when I don’t have time.
I love the idea of sous vide but I associate hot water and plastic with leeched chemicals and microplastics.
You can use silicone sous vide bags. Which are re-useable, so no plastic waste at all.
I’ll check that out! Thanks!
It seems like way more work to go out to get fast food than to pop something in the microwave, instant pot, air frier, or to pull something out of the fridge.
You can put together some pretty cheap, easy, healthy meals with maybe 1-2 minutes of actual prep work. It may not be obvious, but search and you will find. 👌
The quality depends on locations and staffing, etc. Also vegetarian options at fast food joints are a guaranteed way to have crappy food. The big name fast food places have never had good choices for vegetarian/vegan stuff.
Not everyone knows how to cook, and fast food is the cheapest (if not necessarily cheap) option. This is kind of a weird question to me.
Cooking actual food has to be one of the easiest things to learn. If you literally cannot feed yourself then wtf are you even doing.
To be clear, I quite enjoy cooking and cook the vast majority of my own meals. I just don’t look down on people who don’t enjoy the same things as me, or perhaps were never properly taught.
You interpret describing cooking as a basic life skill as “looking down on people”? Or did you mean describing fast food as not actual food? Both are very strange to me.
Fast food is junk “food” of low nutritional value at relatively high cost compared with quality food you prepare yourself. Saying this is less than ideal is equivalent to advocating for any healthy practice. It’s not elitist or “looking down on someone” it’s suggesting it’s freakin’ easy to take care of yourself and you should.
“if you cannot feed yourself then wtf are you even doing” - nah sorry you come across as a condescending ass. People have busy lives and you seem very judgemental.
People have busy lives and you seem very judgemental.
Funny, I was about to say the same about you.
TV dinners at the grocery store are cheap and if you can read the box you can cook it. Same with frozen pizza, chicken nuggets, even mac n cheese isn’t that hard to cook and is like $2 a box. But instead of that it’s fast food despite being just as cheap and require MINIMAL prep.
? thats fast food too. i wouldnt call throwing a fully prepared and frozen meal into the oven/ microwave “cooking”.
You get tired of eating microwave meals, and anything that leaves dishes I have to clean later is certainly not easier than going to fast food
I’ve stopped going to fast food chains. Local fast casual or Sheetz/Wawa is better food, faster, and cheaper. McDonald’s et al don’t have any fucking value prop left.
At McDonald’s, with a coupon I can get a soda, medium fry, and burger for under $4
Enjoy your burger made from sawdust.
It’s fast and McDonalds is one of the only places in my city that is open 24/7
I don’t go there regularly anymore after I stopped working as a service technician who had to travel a lot.
Fast food is pretty gross if you don’t eat it regularly. I think a lot of it is how addictive it can be. A hit of caffeine, sugar, salt, and fat when you are hungry and tired hits the spot.
People get stuck in these routines, and the companies have apps and reward programs to gamify people into coming back.
Yeah I remember being in my twenties and absolutely salivating over a $2 Tuesday lunch special near my work, which is not something I could stomach now that I’ve got some years of home cooking in me.
I think this is the only answer that I can understand
Yeah I was just reading through these comments totally confused what was going on, I might get a KFC once a year and that’s it. All the rest of them make me feel slightly ill just from the smell.
I do have a great Indian place locally I use fairly often and a couple others, just can’t imagine buying the chain stuff.
Their chicken sandwich is like crack. No one else gets the melty fat flavor just right.
the og chicken +cheese +bacon +pickles was pretty popular when i was in high school (80s).
Never had that one unfortunately.
I don’t go to our only city with KFC and stuff a lot, so when I go I usually get a vegan burger there even tho it’s mad expensive
The only one I typically go to these days is taco bell because I like the flavor and homemade any of it doesn’t taste the same no matter how hard I try. I do make tacos at home often, it still isn’t exactly the same (good but different). With the mobile app that I run in a sandbox the prices also aren’t the worst in the world and the rewards for free food stack fast.
But burger king is garbage, and I say that as a former BK customer. I think it has gone extremely downhill in the last 5-10 years and the prices have also gone up. It just doesn’t make sense anymore. I got a griddle at home and can relatively easily cook up some tasty frozen patties seasoned just how I like.
Same for KFC, Wendy’s, Arby’s, and Carl’s Jr. KFC flavor and quality seems to have gone downhill. Wendy’s is exceptionally expensive typically. Arby’s is not only expensive but I feel the quality has also gone down. Carl’s Jr seems to be roughly the same, but the prices have gone up and the one near me is typically slow so you can tell the patty you end up with has been drying under a heat lamp for hours.
Everything at McDonald’s tastes too processed and sugary to me, unsure why (and one would think I’d have a similar response to TB…)
Anyway…long story short I probably go when I go because of an attempt at nostalgia or fast convenience - but not to save money or for quality.
McDs is hit and miss with their milkshake machines. If I want a shake I go to BK now, so far havent been disappointed.
