The Gastrocast

I have been looking forward to trying them I saw the com. on tv. I admit I will atleast try them. I will let you know if the’re any good.

Big Ed

Eco-Gourmand

Eat Well

Be Good

This is the first time I hear about this. So if they say this is the first all meat burger, that shows that what is in the original one is nothing more but crap!! I don’t like Fast Food, hey I even have a hard time going out for dinner as I never know what’s really in what I get on my plate (I am a chef myself and know exactly what’s going on). Homemade Burgers on the other hand rules.

I totally agree. It’s like. . .wtf? Something like this runs counter to everything that’s needed in American Diet Reform at the moment and completely buck the trend. Of course people will buy them. That’s not the point. Some of us with self-control will try them, like them or not and only ever eat a few a year. Others with out sense will have these things everyday or everyweek and wonder why they’re fat, have high cholesterol and colon cancer. Those of us with sense can make an all beef burger on our own if we want to indulge. Those without sense or impulse control shouldn’t be given the option. Might as well hand out crack on the street corner. But its a free choice kind of world. Lead by example doesn’t seem to enter the corporate midset.

I am left wondering what other “killer” promotions are in the future. Free pack of Lucky Strikes with a 6 pack of Red Bull? Happy Meals with free cholesterol medicine samples, or a diabetic syringe kit–collect them all?

When I grew up I lived in McDonalds, Burger King, Hardees–although I really prefered Arby’s Roast Beef Sandwiches. It’s really only been in the last 10 years I have been on an Anti-Fast Food Kick. But I remember the E. Coli outbreak here in WA. That’s when we began limiting our spending at any of them. First we cut back to chicken thinking that was a safer bet. Then after several uncooked chicken sandwiches were served us. We stopped going altogether. My kids think McDonalds is a bad word. The only time in the last 5 years they’ve been to one my Mother-in-law or somebody took them as a last resort for falling blood sugar levels and cranky kids and she was read the riot act by them. Not that the didn’t enjoy the artificially flavored, saturated fatty goodness all the same. Ah forbidden pleasure.

I think what makes me scared, cynical, angry is that these corporations know their food is crap–do the execs ever eat their own companies food? Hypocrites. (I know a lot about corporate culture. I spent tons of time with my father–a VP with Otis–as being with him at work was one of the few times we could spend time together. It’s why I’m not in corporate life. But at least at Otis they were proud to use their own products at every opportunity. I still get a chill riding an escalator. And I will never forget riding on top of the elevators in the World Trade Towers on an inspection visit.) And that knowing their food or “product” is crap and comes at a heavy health and environmental toll they still keep pushing it. And quality is of no concern–only price, number of units sold and profit. The hallmarks of any volume business. The scary thing is there are other models challenging this motiff and they still don’t change.

I drove by a popular sit-down “casual” dining restaurant the other day. It was around lunch time and the parking lot was crammed. “Kids eat free” was proudly displayed on all four sides of the building. And mostly families were entering the front door. As I drove away I thought–kids eat free. . .at what cost? Who pays for that? Sure they don’t eat much and there must be rules such as an age limit–do they mean infants or a vacuous teenager who could suck up a whole pig? Either end of the spectrum probably balances out–but still it is a cost. So who pays? Obviously the other diners will bear the cost. But the average spend at one of these places is about $9.00 per person. These casual dining places want to think they’re better than “fast” food establishments but is the quality of what they are serving any better?

Let’s take that $9. Say 2/3rds of it are, if they are lucky, overhead, operational costs and profit. So $3 gets spent on the actual food in the meal–but now that kids eat free and their food has to get paid for (even if there is little profit in it) that $3 has to be reduced to, perhaps, $1.50 for ingredients for each of two meals–and that’s for drinks, a main course and a small dessert. It’s obviously done, and sucessfully, but the quality of ingredients that $1.50 buys must be the lowest, mass produced crap around. You can’t have fresh, healthy foods–well, you can: certainly at home you can do it and well–in a high volume situation on a food spend of $1.50. It drives the quality into the basement and raises the cost of health care through the roof.

Now apply this to the BK Quad where the profit margin is probably much closer and the amount spent on the ingredients and therefore the quality is way lower.

I’m with ChilliGirl–I’d rather spend $5.00 on ingredients and have homemade burgers worth eating–healthy and delicious and have them less often so they’re a treat.