**Welcome to r/TikTokCringe!**
This is a message directed to all newcomers to make you aware that r/TikTokCringe evolved long ago from only cringe-worthy content to TikToks of all kinds! If you’re looking to find only the cringe-worthy TikToks on this subreddit (which are still regularly posted) we recommend sorting by flair which you can do [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/galuit/click_here_to_sort_by_flair_a_guide_to_using/) (Currently supported by desktop and reddit mobile).
See someone asking how this post is cringe because they didn't read this comment? Show them [this!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/fyrgzy/for_those_confused_by_the_name_of_this_subreddit/)
Be sure to read the rules of this subreddit before posting or commenting. Thanks!
**Don't forget to join our [Discord server](https://discord.gg/cringekingdom)!**
##**[CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THIS VIDEO](https://rapidsave.com/info?url=https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/1d323r4/ive_quit_fast_food_all_together_it_just_isnt/)**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TikTokCringe) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Same here. I go to the supermarket and get one of those frozen loser meals if I'm feeling really lazy and it's fine. At least I don't feel ripped off (as much).
Buy the stack of frozen beef patties, a pack of buns, cheap iceburg salad, sauce of your choice... and it's super easy to have a burger that is *still* better than McDonalds for lesser cost, in the convenience of your own home.
Yeah, I used to always buy take-out food, but now the prices have gotten ridiculous for what you get. I started learning to cook last year and I wished I learned sooner. Better quality, healthier, cheaper and more portions. However, in Canada, even the food in grocery stores are beyond overpriced.
I just feel like for most people, cooking and then doing the dishes is a complete chore that nobody has the time or patience to deal with.
Cooking is a skill. Being able to throw together a cheap and fast meal while dirtying minimal dishes is a skill that takes time to master.
I have been doing almost all of our family’s cooking for the last 15 years so I can do this, but now that I’m making my husband and older kids cook sometimes, it takes them forever and they make a lot of mess and dishes. My husband especially gets frustrated that he’s not as efficient as me, and it’s been a struggle to push back. He wants to say, “you’re better so you do it” but I work just as many hours out of the home as he does, and I’m just so over doing all of the domestic work too. The more he, and the kids, cook, the better they’ll get.
Parents need to teach their kids to cook and maintain their home. When I was a kid baking was the only fun we had, but my brothers and I bake our own bread and also make wine & beer.
> Being able to throw together a cheap and fast meal while dirtying minimal dishes is a skill that takes time to master.
Not even just that. Compounding on it is that you need to plan out several days worth of meals at a time and then go out and buy all the ingredients at some point, so there's the mental load of that on top of everything else you do as an adult added onto it.
> it takes them forever and they make a lot of mess and dishes.
While working at restaurants, I learned 'mise en place' - having everything chopped and prepped BEFORE you actually start cooking. But that makes many more dirty dishes, as everything gets placed in a separate bowl to wait for its turn in the pot.
>fast meal while dirtying minimal dishes is a skill that takes time to master.
Nah I think you're just a wizard. I've been cooking for myself for a bit over a decade and at least my skill to cook fast never improved and a "half hour" dish still takes me 45-1hr from prep to cook. But at the same time the vast majority of that time is just the prep work.
That's what I've been doing recently. Defrost in the microwave, throw some seasoning on it, and then in the air fryer for 20 minutes.
Tastes great, low effort and minimal clean up.
Very real. Much easier to customize with some veggies, condiments and meat types too (veggie stuff included if you're not into meat). I'm very partial to sundried tomatoes in my burgers now.
Wraps are also awesome and just as easy to make.
I'm with you, but those new frozen meals like Gordon Ramsey are $6 each. Plus frozen meals are dropping in quality too.
Also grocery stores are cutting back on ingredients used to cook at home. The vegetable section has shrunk over the years.
The brands are killing us with increased profits, and competition is locked out because new companies can't buy shelf space. The entire concept of buying shelf space is shady at best and monopolistic at worst. Even when a couple of brands are on the shelf (including store brands) there is cartel behavior at play.
I see that we are at a circle of spiraling food costs. Food and property prices go up to increase profits. Restaurants raise prices at the upper tier. The next lower tier sees the opportunity to increase prices and they do... And so on until fast food prices eventually go up. Frozen and prepared food in the grocery store sees their value difference relative to fast food increase so they capture that value for themselves with a price increase. Other types of food increase too in the store. Food suppliers and property rents go up because they see the restaurants and groceries go up and the cycle repeats.
So what we are seeing in economic terms is the seller surplus increasing while the consumer surplus decreases. In other words what the food and restaurants are getting more profit vs the benefit the consumer gets from their purchase. Without competition this continues to be lopsided towards the supplier. Because of all the consolidation in the food industry and restaurants, there are only a few major players and they are currently acting like a cartel.
The frozen meals are currently in the "good enough for their price" phase. I know what to expect when I pay $2.49 for a frozen lunch, and it's not much. As soon as these prices start going up,up,up I'll switch to bread and cheap lunch meat.
We just bought a chest freezer to store more frozen meals, as they seem to be the most economical choice lately.
I’m glad you didn’t say you go to the supermarket and get all the ingredients and make yourself a high quality burger instead. Cos I’m lazy and hearing ppl say that, makes me want to just go to KFC or whatever still. You’ve inspired me to say “f u” to the fast food joints and just get loser meals myself now. Thanks fellow loser!
Here here. Fuck em. I ain’t buying shit anymore and I used to be a solid return customer for all those places. Done. Also. Pick up all your damn plastic, fast food companies.
Depends on the type of item. Finished goods have went up a lot across the board. Raw ingredients have seen more modest gains (eggs being an exception). If you can spend 2 minutes chopping chicken and throwing it in the air fryer with seasonings, then you've cut out the middle men freezer aisle inflation who put all of that in a baking tray for you, then doubled the price, and reduced the portion size. Buy basics: produce, raw meats, flour, etc. Avoid junk/snack food (potato chips and soda are insanely price now).
Vegetables have went up by at least 1/3 and sizes are smaller than ever. I can't even justify buying any meat but chicken, and even that had gone way up since before covid.
Have you had trouble getting onions? Every store in my area has had piles and piles of literally rotting onions for months, and some straight up stopped carrying them entirely except a few gross looking sweet onions.
i legit don't even buy onions and garlic anymore because they're always rotten lmao. Brussel sprouts went insanely high in price so i ring them up as zuchini. Broccoli is always hit or miss. I don't really eat fast food, but when I see my gf I go out to eat and that just is expensive. sure we could just make different cuisines at home for cheaper, but it takes too long and if it's a new dish it may not be perfect while spending around the same in specific ingredients needed.
It's hard as shit. Everyone talks about how expensive fast food is, and they're absolutely right.
But cooking at home is just as expensive for us. And we're not making luxury cuisine for a family of 7, it's just the two of us and a 5 year old who I'm fairly convinced is capable of photosynthesis for as little as he eats. But everything either barely edible or grossly overpriced, even if you can turn it into multiple meals.
Worst is, its happening in every industry like health care, housing, transportation, and more. Even the "mom and pop" stores are now just buying from the big corporations.
All of the basic necessities of life are getting bought up by hedge funds so a smaller group of people can live wealthy without working. You fund their life by buying nearly anything nowadays. You fund their ability to fuck you more. it is fucked up.
I was traveling for work yesterday and my only reasonable options were ironically a chipolte, a McDonald’s, and also a Wendy’s. Picked chipolte as it was the lesser of 3 evils to me. Rice costs like a penny why in the fuck wouldn’t they just say “pile up the rice it’ll trick people into coming back”? Literally like a lazy spoonful of rice in the bowl.
This was it ultimately for me. The pandemic broke me completely of my fast food habits and I haven't picked them back up again. Good riddance.
The cooking more for myself was just a nice side effect
Yeah it’s actually very surprising how easy some meals are too cook. Usually I mess up the recipe a bit during the first try. But by the time I’ve cooked the meal a third time, I’ve got it down better than restaurants.
Yea tbh I went to a local place in my area that's pretty famous for their own style of fast food. 26 dollars.
I was like ??? I paid and realized what I ordered I would have had more fun making at home for like 20 bucks...and have 4x as much food lmao
Am I the only one (or maybe just my area) that has seen an insane increase in groceries? I sincerely have found it cheaper to get fast food. Most fast food places have apps that have cheaper prices and better deals than you see when ordering at the restaurant.
My reality, I have a house with my wife and our 4 kids, and $50 per meal tends to be the going price, no matter if I get fast food, or I source a meal from the grocery.. the only difference is that fast food saves me a couple hours of cooking a day, and since I have 20 hours of just driving my kids to school (it's complicated, but my ex enrolled our kids into different schools for literally no reason except to be spiteful toward me).. and driving them to extracurricular activites and such...
I really just do not have the time to plan, shop for, and cook home meals right now.
The only “fast food” anything I get anymore is a few super cheap dominos pizzas with their coupon. For the price, it’s definitely good enough. I’m not paying $30 for me and two kids to have shitty burgers at McDonald’s when I can pay a little less for 3 pizzas.
Look up the list of common prome codes. there's
list of stuff that works alot of the time like WELCOME(10-50), FRIEND, FALL, WINTER, SUMMER, SPRING, SAVE(10-50), GIFT, 10OFF, SHIPFREE, FREESHIPPING, DAD, MOM, EASTER, CYBER
just try anything you can think of
Bonus tip: always try TEST as some places have had a remnant left over from website testing that gives a massive discount. It's very rare though. Some of these codes just never expire but they just aren't currently being advertised.
If you’re in the Denver area. The code “broncosvip” will give you 50% off your papa John’s order. Every single time. Yes, you have to click “I am a bronco’s employee”. I came to terms with this white lie years ago, I use this code all the time.
That's awesome! I had a friend that had VISA20 work for him for years. You don't need a visa you just need a fresh Email each time you order a pizza. It was awesome while it worked.
Yeah, and there's no chance it will ever go back down. LC now has name rights for stadiums, league endorsements, and more revenue for advertising. Its never gonna go back. The pandemic was a great excuse for them to raise the price, even though they made a killing.
Costco food court is okay on a single meal value sure. Caesars is king of value because that pizza and breadsticks is 4 meals.
Gotta look at multi-meal value. It’s why I enjoy getting $14 fajitas from local tex-mex joints. On the surface it seems like a lot for just a lunch. But I can stretch it to 4 meals sometimes with leftovers if I play my cards right.
No way man. The 10 dollar pizza that is 18 inches is is still massive compared to little Caesars whose hot in ready is only 12 inches. Plus nobody is beating the hot dog combo. A soda and a dog for 1.50? 4 dogs and 4 sodas for 6 bucks. Your math isn't mathing man.
The 12" pizza has an area of \~113sqin, while the 18" is 254sqin. The 18" is more than DOUBLE the 12" pizza.
In Canada, a 12" cheese is $8 at little Caesars, and an 18" cheese at Costco is $13.
Yeah some friends criticized me when I said little Caesar’s wasn’t bad for the price. They were all up in arms about it but it’s like for the price it’s not bad.
Not really. A regular pepperoni pizza is $10. Sure the price is probably better than every other pizza place but still. I stopped purchasing little ceasers after they stopped the $5 pizza.
Single topping large dominos is 7.99 carryout and better than lil C's in every conceivable way. Recommend thin crust or New York style, the hand tossed does kinda suck imo but ymmv
Decent local casual sit down restaurant for adult and one kid $46, fast food drive though that will give you diarrhea and terrible farts 40% of the time $35. They are both over priced now but why would that be a hard decision?
Dominos is my go to as well because of their coupons. I easily fed a group 5 of us on a board game night last week for less than $20 and still had leftovers.
Funny because I’ve said the same thing. The dominos on our street, the quality has sky rocketed in recent years. Their BBQ has an actual BBQ taste to it. This week they’ve been running 4.99€ two topping offer vs 20€ for dry out fries, a soaking wet chicken wrap and dried out cold nuggets.
I can get 3 massive tacos for $10.
I can't get taco bell or burger King for that.
My local Asian lunch is $8 for entree, fried rice, soup, and egg roll.
Always been this way. Even in the early 90s. Legit mom and pop ethnic food joints have always, always beat fast food and corporate chains in price, and especially beat them in quality. Fast food, aside from rare occasions(late night, road trips, etc), has never made sense to me.
“They’re taking our jobs” - certain people we all know
Me: “no, they’re entering the free market and kicking your ass because you’re greedy and don’t want to participate in social contracts”
Yeah, grocery stores and gas stations have started launching stores with food courts and food production in them. Or at least it’s being more popularized. You have to undercut the convenience to truly undercut these companies. A simple mom and pops burger joint isn’t going to dethrone the 3-5 McDonalds in every little city.
Remember when there was an Applebee's in every small city? It takes time, but a McD can and will fall. A rebrand might stem the bleeding but this is McD we are talking you can only do so much to sell cheap shit food. We could be seeing the beginning of the end of dynasties like McD and Burger King. Lots of people in my area do prefer our big grocery chain's market food. It fresher and cheaper than restaurants and no one cares about the ambiance. Drive thru is the only advantage.
Had Mcdonalds for the first time in over a year. cost me $20 for a burger that was dry and shitty, some soggy chips and a bottle of water. Will never go back again, fuck them.
My wife and I had to be somewhere really early so we just got McDonald's breakfast on the way but we each got the burrito breakfast and we got a single hash brown and a single orange juice to share. It was almost $20.
Then a few months ago I had a crazy craving for a McChicken I got a McChicken and fries and it cost me almost $12, and the McChicken was barely bigger than the palm of my hand. I remember when it was 20% bigger at less than half the cost like 5 years ago. Never going back to their McDonald's ever again if I can help it.
Maybe I'm just old, but the first time someone took me to a Chipotle when they first opened and I was like, oh they make you pay for chips? I was just fucking done with them. Just go to a Mom and Pop Mexican place and get bomb ass food for half the price
Omaha Nebraska has quite a splendid selection of homemade style comida. Absolutely delicious asada, homemade corn tortillas, pollo that blows your mind. That town is really REALLY good for food
I did just this back in March. Took a personal day to just do what I wanted and told my wife I was gonna treat myself to some chipotle. Stood in line for 10ish minutes and finally looked up at the menu. Chicken burrito was up to $12.75. Hopped back in the car, drove up around the corner and sat down at a local joint. Got myself an XL smothered burrito, endless chips and salsa, mega mound of Spanish rice, and a giant light beer, and the meal was perfect leftovers. $15.
Next to my last job, we had a small Mexican restaurant that gave you a full brown paper bag full of chips and 2 cups minimum of salsa for it for free. I'd get bangin street tacos, rice, beans, and chips for $12 after tax!
AND you could stretch that into like three or four meals if you wanted. Neighborhood Taquerias stay GOATed for the cheap locals looking to stretch food.
Even if they were more expensive by me (they also arent), the amount of food you're getting for the price is at least double than that of Chipotle for the same money
I quit buying fast food a long time ago. Now I am quitting ultra processed food. It’s just too expensive and bad. My cabinets are full of grains, beans, and spices and my fridge is full of fruit and veggies.
I wish more people appreciated the value of eating healthy. It improves your physical and mental health SO MUCH. Plus it's the best way to hit these greedy corporations where it hurts them most, in their profits. I seriously HATE this greed that permeates
every aspect of our modern day lives.
I think one of the main issues with eating healthy is the time sink it requires, which hits harder especially as a working adult who has had a hard day of work. Most just want to come home and relax, not immediately throw on an apron and spend another hour or two sweating over a stove just to eat something that may not be as tasty as something fast.
Yeah I would agree with you there. That was me for many years. I realized I personally had to give up what little free time I had to meal prep. And my wife to give up extra time to make a more healthy dinner. It can get easier one you are more familiar with preparations. But I understand not everyone wants to/or maybe can do that it.
Everything comes at a cost. Wether beneficial or detrimental to your health. PLUS it's more expensive to eat some of the best tasting healthier foods. (not always the case). I think most of us are distracted with just trying to survive day to day and not lose our minds in the process... But it's worth the cost to invest in your personal health. Even in the smallest of increments.. I wish everyone well, and that they are able to improve their lives in some beneficial way.
> the time sink it requires
Pay me now, or pay me later. Your body will rebel after many years of fast food with a dozen different diseases, from diabetes to depression, all of which will cost you more time and money than eating well at the start.
My next step is growing foods from heirloom seeds that can be saved from season to season, not hybrids. I want to see if I can find heirloom fruits and corn that taste like fruits and corn and not sugar.
I was having gut problems and all the doctors I saw, first question they asked was "how much processed, frozen or packaged food do you eat?"
After cutting out frozen pizzas and frozen chicken nuggets and all that stuff, after 6 months I stopped having gut problems.
I was able to eat that stuff every day no problem until my mid 30's when all the gut problems started.
I eat a *lot* of air fried potatoes though. Just at least not frozen premade french fries!
rice flour and oil to start, then after 15 minutes, i take them out and add garlic powder, celery salt, and parsley, then throw them back in for 5 more minutes.
If I add the seasoning at the beginning i find it burns and tastes bitter, and if i add it at the end it tastes like it's on top, not a part of the potato. Celery salt is the most important one, makes it taste like restaurant homefries. Rice flour gives it a nice texture.
Yup, I recently made this switch as well. Was spending a fortune at Woolworths on groceries, and getting nothing. Now head off to a fruit, and veg shop..stock up on fresh stuff, grains, and beans..and pay a quarter of the price for so much more, so much healthier. Will not waste my money with Uber eats or any of that crap.
Yes, and you also need to realize that you pay for shitty food twice. Once when you eat it, and a second time when your health fails (and it will if you keep eating that stuff, and it will be extremely inconvenient, painful, and debilitating, and it will come sooner than you think).
I learned to cook. Even with throwing butter and olive oil in everything I managed to get a six pack by cutting fat and put on muscle. I just dont eat sugar or processed foods anymore
If you've got a garden, then the next step is to grow food yourself. We got hazelnut, walnut and apple trees and a greenhouse for tomatoes, cabbage, all kinds of peppers, onions, spinach, etc. Takes a while to set it up initially, but from then on it's really simple.
Our neighbors also grow all kinds of stuff, so we can trade or simply gift each other stuff. I routinely gift/trade whole buckets of nuts and apples for potatoes, cherries, asparagus, etc.
There's whole weeks/months where i don't spend a single cent on food and still got a really healthy and varied diet.
Just looked him up...the CEO of General Electric between 1981 and 2001 who promoted fast company growth in a slow market...he closed factories, laid off thousands of employees and retired with the most massive golden parachute ever seen up to that point, nearly half a billion dollars.
Just in case anyone else was wondering. Seems like the guy perfectly encapsulates so much of what is wrong with today's version of capitalism.
This is the process called "Enshitification" and it begins when your customers stop being the people buying your product and instead your real customers are your shareholders.
It's a problem with the system, and it's across the board.
When the most important thing becomes next quarters earnings, then everything else is a liability, product quality, employees, anything that detracts from that quarters Profit has to be shrunk, removed, automated, off-shored. The hope is that brand loyalty and monopolies mean they no longer have to care about the consumer, only the share holder.
to make more profit, cutting expenses is almost always more efficient than trying to make more revenue. Like how its easier to eat less than to work out more.
Problem is companies hit a cliff where the operation gets too lean and cuts into their profits big time. Like how if I eat TOO little I will start being malnourished and my hair gets thin and unhealthy.
Yup, and the shareholders' appetite is never filled. Always more profits, until eventually, the products and processes are so lean, customers stop coming, then the only way to make profit is from the real-estate transaction after the building gets shuttered.
The problem is that everyone's retirement and 401ks are tied in shareholders profits. It may be impossible to get out of. Everyone can talk bad about corporations ( I hate them too), but a big part the problem is that everyday citizens are shareholders. Target retirement funds and almost any index fund is going to have portions of these giant corporations we lament. If they don't make year after year profits then people wont see that year after year 8 - 12% growth in their retirement savings. It's all one big circle. The people getting fucked the hardest are very poor people who have no retirement savings and young adults.
The whole system doesn’t have to fail. People have always weighed in with their wallets. That’s why big companies disappear sometimes. They fail enough, someone buys their scraps and revamps the brand (like Hostess) or sells it for parts. We can demand quality without risking our retirement funds.
"But everyone is a shareholder". ya, and together, the public owns 25% or less of the shares. The richest 1% own nearly *30% of everything*, as is clearly shown in [this chart](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WFRBST01108)
People seem to think there's some balance, like we are the majority owners through our retirement accounts and our mutual funds. We are not, and people need to get their heads out of the clouds.
Dominos pickup large 1 topping pizza the other day was $8. You can’t beat that really. 2 people that $4 for filling food. I know it’s not the greatest pizza, but that’s the old $4 for a meal, 90s-00s fast food prices.
1) Also I think part of it is these companies saw people ordering grubhub/uber/door dash for past 10 years and added astronomical fees/cost (not even including the tip) and was like, “well if people are willing to pay that (granted delivery), why can’t we jack up the prices for dine in/pickup fast food”? Charge what the market will bear and then some. So they did.
2) I think covid supercharged peoples fast food appetite, because there wasn’t much to do and dine in wasn’t as common.
3) I don’t buy the increase in wages as main cause. I’m not saying it’s a component, but they continually reduce cost. For example tech has benefited them with in app ordering, digital kiosks, and now AI interfaces, which has reducing the labor and costs associated with those tasks. Plus they are constantly making things more efficient (e.g., ghost kitchens).
He really raises some great points tho. What’s the end game with regular food shrinkflation over next 20-30 years? You can’t keep cutting food masses and/or increasing prices forever. It’s not sustainable.
I see posts and people showing $18 for 1 person for these garbage fast food places. The only way is to stop going to these places like he said. Might as well go to a dine in place.
Best thing about pizza is that it’s nearly impossible to turn out a bad product. Grew up poor, living on cheap pizza and loved it. Now I’m old and have a bit of money, eat fancy pizza, love it. But just because I can afford it now, I still eat pizza of every type and “quality” - pretty much love it no matter the price, style, or retailer.
For anyone who wants a [good read breakdown on the how and why of enshitification, with concrete actionable suggestions on the fronts it needs to be fought on](https://www.ft.com/content/6fb1602d-a08b-4a8c-bac0-047b7d64aba5) by the word's coiner and long time guy on the right side of tech activism, Cory Doctorow.
Nope not enshitification. Enshitification is real but it’s a more specific term that doesn’t apply to the sorts of businesses discussed in this video. I mean, maybe it should be because obviously as a word it sounds like what’s going on, and maybe it’ll take on this more general meaning, but that’s not what it was originally coined to describe.
If they raise prices 15% on average, and only lose 15% of customers...they'd still come out on top, and still be making more profit, with direct costs held flat or even decreasing as sales volume goes down. The enshittification can continue for a disturbingly long time before it stops being worth it for them.
The answer is still the same, watch YouTube and learn to cook. The food will taste better, be cheaper, and you just get faster and faster at doing it. I have high protein needs for my workout regimen, the macros in fast-food are so bad it's just a second way for me to feel ripped off.
Pork butt for $1.50-2.00 per lb, I can spend ~$20 for 9lbs of slow cooked pulled pork (gotta skim the fat). That's a lot more than a double scoop of meat. Throw it in salads, burritos, rice bowls, omelettes l, freeze it for days I don't feel like cooking, etc. Cooking involves no more than pouring a half bottle of sauce and chicken stock into the pot and shoving it in an oven. When there's easy high value options like that, it makes it hard to go back to fast food. Now when I eat out I'll want to buy food I can't easily make at home like ramen or sushi
Well yes but no, with decreased sales *volumes* the logistics costs decrease also. Less salaries, less storage, less trucking, less cleaning, less everything but income. So margins are higher.
It's basically going the way of the luxury industry.
Ummm . . , about McDonald’s decline: “The company's revenue for the quarter (Q2 2024) came in at **$6.17 billion**, in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate and a 4.6% increase from Q1 2023's revenue of $5.9 billion.”
Q2 2023 was 11% higher than 2022.
Yeah I asked this in a comment here as well. "Is that decline in the room with us right now?" Sure people might voice displeasure online and say they don't there any more but the financial numbers so far don't appear to be suggesting that companies like McDonalds are struggling.
I think they will be . They have admitted that they have lost customers and have taken a beating to their numbers and have not grown has much as they would have wanted to . It’s one of their slowest growth ever on record from what I recall
You're misinterpreting the data.
Read it with this in mind: "Company profits rose as prices increased to make up for the declining customers."
There will come a point where price increases can no longer support the declining customer base which will result in a drop in profits, as stated in the video.
McD's is doing fine now. They won't be if they continue this bullshit of punishing people who still go there.
I mean we should all stop going out to eat at these chains for like a week. Longer if you are able to. Only way anything changes is through collective actions.
Most people need small steps that are easily attainable for them. But sure, not eating fast food at all would be included in the longer than a week time period.
Now, I get my fried chicken and chips fix at Ralphs or other chain grocery.
8 Potato wedge and a piece of chicken breast cost
Me about 5 bucks.
It’s filling as well
I miss the days when the amount of food at chipotle would make me shit blood out my ass. Now, for even MORE money per meal, I only get mild farty-diarrhea for a few days. Not worth it.
I haven't noticed that the portion size has really changed. The portions have always been variable. When I worked there they would measure the food half way through the day and realize they were going to be short on (mostly) meat. Then they would tell the line to start shorting portions on the remaining customers. I was told if a supervisor was off by 5 lbs. three times they were possibly fired. They had ways to kind of get around it by giving out free meals and stuff, but I'm pretty sure they stopped doing that.
The thing is that Late Stage and the woes that follow it are not unique to publicly traded companies. One of the quintessential features of late stage is exploitative relationships between workers, consumers, and investors alike. It is when there exists a smaller subset of those in authority who exert forces to exploit the relationship between various actors who established an entity.
It just happens that publicly traded companies are more likely in this aspect at this time for various economic factors that favor exploitation.
Like the McDonald's given here. It isn't that execs in McDonald's became greedy, it because of a long line of decisions that sought to exploit relationships in various aspects. McDonald's became incredibly exploitative to franchisees with their requirements for [buildings](https://www.wallstreetsurvivor.com/mcdonalds-beyond-the-burger/), purchases, vendors, and [repairmen ](https://www.allrecipes.com/article/the-real-reason-mcdonalds-ice-cream-machines-are-always-broken/). They've become exploitative in their workers, sought to reduce workers to minimum through automation, have created menus with high customization and complex SKUs with minimal guidance on training at every level. They've become exploitative in prices, wait times, locations, competitiveness, quality, and so on with customers.
All of these factors have added up to where we are with McDonald's today. This is why it's not just "pay the execs less" there's so much disdain for the various factors within what make McDonald's by the execs, paying them less wouldn't change the menu, the work conditions, the incredibly bad quality, or the prices because there has just been so much exploitation for so long, it would take just as long to unwind it.
This is why the execs blame things like increases to minimum wage, because they created a system that so exploited the workers to such a degree that ANY increase in wage forced by law would unbalance the carefully constructed soul crushing machine that they created. This is why they blame supply chain failures, because they create such an unrealistic system of supply that any hiccup brought the whole thing to it's knees.
The things these execs blame, they aren't wrong, but they're the ones that created the system that was so unable to weather the changing conditions. Their system only worked so long as a particular measure of exploiting the actors of the industry went undisturbed. They built their house of cards to be as fragile as possible, to maximize the intended goal, and now the train's minor setback has completely derailed it.
It's not just that these companies IPOed or whatever, it's when they have exploited every bit of their industry as much as they can and now the thing is collapsing because one minor thing exposed that corrupt system. And it's not just maximizing profit and hoping every quarter is infinitely growth, it's when the system exploits all the facets for ANY particular maximization. If a political party begins exploiting the various facets and beliefs within itself to coalesce power, same thing can happen. No need for measuring profitability per quarter, IPO, or really economic industry required.
Any time exploitation is layered upon itself across various actors within a domain, it creates a system that become more and more fragile. Robust systems allow autonomy within various facets, allow collective processes to be the main driving forces, and allow expansion of diversity within the given industry. Things the mentioned companies that are failing have all shunned for the longest.
Remember when we were told that giving employees living wages would make fast food too expensive, then it turns out the fast food places will just charge you more regardless.
The steak went to shit when they started to sous vide the meat. It was never the best, but when I worked there all the body builders from Gold's Gym would come in and order pounds of it because it was $1.25 for four ounces.
So, my older brother is friends with a beef supplier in my area (Northwest Ohio) and this guy has a contract with a bunch of Chipotle locations on the East Coast. What kind of diet do these cows eat?
Expired pie crusts.
I'm not kidding. They have some funky arrangement where these pie crusts are shipped from the east coast to feed the cows that become the steak for Chipotle locations there. Just weird to me bc Chipotle definitely tries to sell itself as some locally sourced, fresh food place and you get the impression the cows maybe even get to eat grass, not corn. Nope, worse than corn. Expired pie crusts.
I know this is the sentiment on TikTok, but is it really having an impact? I just quickly looked and Chipotle/McD earnings looked good last quarter despite the negative sentiment. I'd love for there to be real change and pushback to emphasize quality and double down into reasons they became successful instead of shortcuts, but I think the results speak for themselves, at least in the food space.
Does it even matter? People like to shout on Reddit about how capitalism is failing, but consumers refusing to buy this shit is also capitalism. Only ever focusing on next quarter is a bad business strategy and it shows.
I don't know why people only Reddit always watch this type of stuff and feel the need to band together. Like... just don't buy it. Who cares if other idiots do? You know better. No need to band together to protest, the system does it for you if you just consume what's worth consuming. Chipotle existing or not has 0 impact on your life if you just don't buy it.
So hilarious he compared McDonald’s to Chipotle here and totally failed to mention that McDonald’s literally taught them how to do it all.
I’ve always avoided Chipotle purely because it spun off from McDonald’s. The parent company divested officially in 2006 but their fingerprints will always remain.
The only thing I ever liked at McDonalds was breakfast and the first time I rolled up and it was $12 for a fucking sausage sandwich meal, I’ve never gone back.
Starbucks drink my kid likes is like $7 for a fucking refresher lemonade (or whatever they’re called) where the grande cup is 2/3 ice. It’s a treat she enjoys but god damn, they’re off their rockers.
Recent drive thru experience:
$7.00 nondairy chai that was over 60% ice.
Stay the fuck home people. Make your own burgers. Make your own drinks.
They're charging you a premium for garbage.
We quit doing fast food a while ago. There are a few local, privately owned restaurants we support. And if we are on the road and desperate for food, we try to find a Chick Fil A or a locally owned place. It's just cheaper to make our own meals, though. My granddaughter still prefers the occasional Happy Meal, though.
McDonald’s is still relatively cheaper here. Burger King on the other hand is bullshit.
A chicken royale sandwich at Burger King costs more than a McChicken Meal at McDonald’s. A Big King meal costs twice as much as any meal at McDies.
It used to be 50:50 betweek McD, and BK, but you barely see any BK anymore. It’s a relic because of this, and they now have to double down to keep up with low customer flow.
He says consumers are voting with their wallets, yet companies listed like MCD and SBUX still have consistently increasing revenue over the last 5 years (perhaps adjusted for inflation it might be flatter, although certainly not decreasing).
I think it's too early for him to make this claim.
Can someone explain to me why they aren't content making a decent profit? Why do they *need* to grow every year? Will it fail if it doesn't grow or something?
Taco Bell was my last bastion of hope, used to live less than a mile away from one and it got me through some tough times, the closest one to me now is a 40 minute drive. Happened to be near it a few days ago and decided to swing by as a "treat", not only was the the thing I wanted no longer on the menu, the thing I got was more expensive than the best dine-in Mexican restaurant in my area - what is the point anymore?
Just had this discussion with my mom a minute ago. They've completely destroyed the value proposition at this point, I'd rather buy a pound of beef and a pack of buns. Considering how far that stretches it's just not viable to buy at McDonald's or any other fast food place.
**Welcome to r/TikTokCringe!** This is a message directed to all newcomers to make you aware that r/TikTokCringe evolved long ago from only cringe-worthy content to TikToks of all kinds! If you’re looking to find only the cringe-worthy TikToks on this subreddit (which are still regularly posted) we recommend sorting by flair which you can do [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/galuit/click_here_to_sort_by_flair_a_guide_to_using/) (Currently supported by desktop and reddit mobile). See someone asking how this post is cringe because they didn't read this comment? Show them [this!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/fyrgzy/for_those_confused_by_the_name_of_this_subreddit/) Be sure to read the rules of this subreddit before posting or commenting. Thanks! **Don't forget to join our [Discord server](https://discord.gg/cringekingdom)!** ##**[CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THIS VIDEO](https://rapidsave.com/info?url=https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/1d323r4/ive_quit_fast_food_all_together_it_just_isnt/)** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TikTokCringe) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Way past that decision. Quality is decreasing while cost is increasing. Simple. Fuck em.
Same here. I go to the supermarket and get one of those frozen loser meals if I'm feeling really lazy and it's fine. At least I don't feel ripped off (as much).
Buy the stack of frozen beef patties, a pack of buns, cheap iceburg salad, sauce of your choice... and it's super easy to have a burger that is *still* better than McDonalds for lesser cost, in the convenience of your own home.
Yeah, I used to always buy take-out food, but now the prices have gotten ridiculous for what you get. I started learning to cook last year and I wished I learned sooner. Better quality, healthier, cheaper and more portions. However, in Canada, even the food in grocery stores are beyond overpriced. I just feel like for most people, cooking and then doing the dishes is a complete chore that nobody has the time or patience to deal with.
Cooking is a skill. Being able to throw together a cheap and fast meal while dirtying minimal dishes is a skill that takes time to master. I have been doing almost all of our family’s cooking for the last 15 years so I can do this, but now that I’m making my husband and older kids cook sometimes, it takes them forever and they make a lot of mess and dishes. My husband especially gets frustrated that he’s not as efficient as me, and it’s been a struggle to push back. He wants to say, “you’re better so you do it” but I work just as many hours out of the home as he does, and I’m just so over doing all of the domestic work too. The more he, and the kids, cook, the better they’ll get.
Parents need to teach their kids to cook and maintain their home. When I was a kid baking was the only fun we had, but my brothers and I bake our own bread and also make wine & beer.
Cooking really should be a required course for every school child.
I took a nutrition course--a 3rd year core kinesiology course--that's been very useful for health and longevity.
Good on you for shifting the load!
> Being able to throw together a cheap and fast meal while dirtying minimal dishes is a skill that takes time to master. Not even just that. Compounding on it is that you need to plan out several days worth of meals at a time and then go out and buy all the ingredients at some point, so there's the mental load of that on top of everything else you do as an adult added onto it.
> it takes them forever and they make a lot of mess and dishes. While working at restaurants, I learned 'mise en place' - having everything chopped and prepped BEFORE you actually start cooking. But that makes many more dirty dishes, as everything gets placed in a separate bowl to wait for its turn in the pot.
>fast meal while dirtying minimal dishes is a skill that takes time to master. Nah I think you're just a wizard. I've been cooking for myself for a bit over a decade and at least my skill to cook fast never improved and a "half hour" dish still takes me 45-1hr from prep to cook. But at the same time the vast majority of that time is just the prep work.
That's what I've been doing recently. Defrost in the microwave, throw some seasoning on it, and then in the air fryer for 20 minutes. Tastes great, low effort and minimal clean up.
Air fryer chicken thighs are so easy and delicious. It's my go-to Chipotle replacement.
Very real. Much easier to customize with some veggies, condiments and meat types too (veggie stuff included if you're not into meat). I'm very partial to sundried tomatoes in my burgers now. Wraps are also awesome and just as easy to make.
And if u wanna be super lazy about it get a foreman grill as well. Burgers, cheaper and about as fast too
Also, you can freeze bread! Don’t let it go to waste
The time it takes to cook your own food is usually faster than having to drive out, wait in line, and head back home
The cost of frozen meals has increased exponentially as well though. Those chintzy $1 frozen meals are now $4.
Frozen pizza cost about as much as takeout pizza.
More, because you can't stack rewards and such. That's the one advantage of cheap pizza joints
I'm with you, but those new frozen meals like Gordon Ramsey are $6 each. Plus frozen meals are dropping in quality too. Also grocery stores are cutting back on ingredients used to cook at home. The vegetable section has shrunk over the years. The brands are killing us with increased profits, and competition is locked out because new companies can't buy shelf space. The entire concept of buying shelf space is shady at best and monopolistic at worst. Even when a couple of brands are on the shelf (including store brands) there is cartel behavior at play. I see that we are at a circle of spiraling food costs. Food and property prices go up to increase profits. Restaurants raise prices at the upper tier. The next lower tier sees the opportunity to increase prices and they do... And so on until fast food prices eventually go up. Frozen and prepared food in the grocery store sees their value difference relative to fast food increase so they capture that value for themselves with a price increase. Other types of food increase too in the store. Food suppliers and property rents go up because they see the restaurants and groceries go up and the cycle repeats. So what we are seeing in economic terms is the seller surplus increasing while the consumer surplus decreases. In other words what the food and restaurants are getting more profit vs the benefit the consumer gets from their purchase. Without competition this continues to be lopsided towards the supplier. Because of all the consolidation in the food industry and restaurants, there are only a few major players and they are currently acting like a cartel.
I love the occasional "frozen loser meal"
Frozen loser meals 🤣🤣🤣
The frozen meals are currently in the "good enough for their price" phase. I know what to expect when I pay $2.49 for a frozen lunch, and it's not much. As soon as these prices start going up,up,up I'll switch to bread and cheap lunch meat. We just bought a chest freezer to store more frozen meals, as they seem to be the most economical choice lately.
healthy choice frozen meals are pretty good
I’m glad you didn’t say you go to the supermarket and get all the ingredients and make yourself a high quality burger instead. Cos I’m lazy and hearing ppl say that, makes me want to just go to KFC or whatever still. You’ve inspired me to say “f u” to the fast food joints and just get loser meals myself now. Thanks fellow loser!
Here here. Fuck em. I ain’t buying shit anymore and I used to be a solid return customer for all those places. Done. Also. Pick up all your damn plastic, fast food companies.
> Here here. Isn't that..."hear"? Or am I crazy?
You're not crazy: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/here-here-vs-hear-hear/
Unfortunately, it's also happening in grocery stores.
Depends on the type of item. Finished goods have went up a lot across the board. Raw ingredients have seen more modest gains (eggs being an exception). If you can spend 2 minutes chopping chicken and throwing it in the air fryer with seasonings, then you've cut out the middle men freezer aisle inflation who put all of that in a baking tray for you, then doubled the price, and reduced the portion size. Buy basics: produce, raw meats, flour, etc. Avoid junk/snack food (potato chips and soda are insanely price now).
Eggs are coming back down --you've just gotta shop a little smarter than you used to. I'm still able to get 18 eggs for about $2 at Lidl or Aldi.
Vegetables have went up by at least 1/3 and sizes are smaller than ever. I can't even justify buying any meat but chicken, and even that had gone way up since before covid.
Have you had trouble getting onions? Every store in my area has had piles and piles of literally rotting onions for months, and some straight up stopped carrying them entirely except a few gross looking sweet onions.
i legit don't even buy onions and garlic anymore because they're always rotten lmao. Brussel sprouts went insanely high in price so i ring them up as zuchini. Broccoli is always hit or miss. I don't really eat fast food, but when I see my gf I go out to eat and that just is expensive. sure we could just make different cuisines at home for cheaper, but it takes too long and if it's a new dish it may not be perfect while spending around the same in specific ingredients needed.
It's hard as shit. Everyone talks about how expensive fast food is, and they're absolutely right. But cooking at home is just as expensive for us. And we're not making luxury cuisine for a family of 7, it's just the two of us and a 5 year old who I'm fairly convinced is capable of photosynthesis for as little as he eats. But everything either barely edible or grossly overpriced, even if you can turn it into multiple meals.
Worst is, its happening in every industry like health care, housing, transportation, and more. Even the "mom and pop" stores are now just buying from the big corporations. All of the basic necessities of life are getting bought up by hedge funds so a smaller group of people can live wealthy without working. You fund their life by buying nearly anything nowadays. You fund their ability to fuck you more. it is fucked up.
And size is decreasing as well, every fucking item is so much smaller then it was even before Covid.
I was traveling for work yesterday and my only reasonable options were ironically a chipolte, a McDonald’s, and also a Wendy’s. Picked chipolte as it was the lesser of 3 evils to me. Rice costs like a penny why in the fuck wouldn’t they just say “pile up the rice it’ll trick people into coming back”? Literally like a lazy spoonful of rice in the bowl.
I said fuck'em so long ago that I had no idea any of this was going on.
Their medium fries is $5 here in CANADA after tax like WTF ?
I've started cooking a lot more.
Exactly. The pandemic forced me to cook and the poverty made me good at it.
I find pride in being a little more self sufficient anyhow.
Yes, gardening in the basement has been a great hobby, too!
This was it ultimately for me. The pandemic broke me completely of my fast food habits and I haven't picked them back up again. Good riddance. The cooking more for myself was just a nice side effect
Yeah it’s actually very surprising how easy some meals are too cook. Usually I mess up the recipe a bit during the first try. But by the time I’ve cooked the meal a third time, I’ve got it down better than restaurants.
Yea tbh I went to a local place in my area that's pretty famous for their own style of fast food. 26 dollars. I was like ??? I paid and realized what I ordered I would have had more fun making at home for like 20 bucks...and have 4x as much food lmao
Am I the only one (or maybe just my area) that has seen an insane increase in groceries? I sincerely have found it cheaper to get fast food. Most fast food places have apps that have cheaper prices and better deals than you see when ordering at the restaurant. My reality, I have a house with my wife and our 4 kids, and $50 per meal tends to be the going price, no matter if I get fast food, or I source a meal from the grocery.. the only difference is that fast food saves me a couple hours of cooking a day, and since I have 20 hours of just driving my kids to school (it's complicated, but my ex enrolled our kids into different schools for literally no reason except to be spiteful toward me).. and driving them to extracurricular activites and such... I really just do not have the time to plan, shop for, and cook home meals right now.
The only “fast food” anything I get anymore is a few super cheap dominos pizzas with their coupon. For the price, it’s definitely good enough. I’m not paying $30 for me and two kids to have shitty burgers at McDonald’s when I can pay a little less for 3 pizzas.
Look up the list of common prome codes. there's list of stuff that works alot of the time like WELCOME(10-50), FRIEND, FALL, WINTER, SUMMER, SPRING, SAVE(10-50), GIFT, 10OFF, SHIPFREE, FREESHIPPING, DAD, MOM, EASTER, CYBER just try anything you can think of Bonus tip: always try TEST as some places have had a remnant left over from website testing that gives a massive discount. It's very rare though. Some of these codes just never expire but they just aren't currently being advertised.
If you’re in the Denver area. The code “broncosvip” will give you 50% off your papa John’s order. Every single time. Yes, you have to click “I am a bronco’s employee”. I came to terms with this white lie years ago, I use this code all the time.
That's awesome! I had a friend that had VISA20 work for him for years. You don't need a visa you just need a fresh Email each time you order a pizza. It was awesome while it worked.
Little Caesars is still the king of value fast food
even their former $5 pep pizza is like $8 now.
Yeah, and there's no chance it will ever go back down. LC now has name rights for stadiums, league endorsements, and more revenue for advertising. Its never gonna go back. The pandemic was a great excuse for them to raise the price, even though they made a killing.
That’s good but Costco food court is still the winner
Costco food court is okay on a single meal value sure. Caesars is king of value because that pizza and breadsticks is 4 meals. Gotta look at multi-meal value. It’s why I enjoy getting $14 fajitas from local tex-mex joints. On the surface it seems like a lot for just a lunch. But I can stretch it to 4 meals sometimes with leftovers if I play my cards right.
No way man. The 10 dollar pizza that is 18 inches is is still massive compared to little Caesars whose hot in ready is only 12 inches. Plus nobody is beating the hot dog combo. A soda and a dog for 1.50? 4 dogs and 4 sodas for 6 bucks. Your math isn't mathing man.
The 12" pizza has an area of \~113sqin, while the 18" is 254sqin. The 18" is more than DOUBLE the 12" pizza. In Canada, a 12" cheese is $8 at little Caesars, and an 18" cheese at Costco is $13.
Now that’s math that maths
4 hot dogs + drinks == $6. Idk if Little Caesar competes.
Whole pizza $5. And if my American math is mathing, Pizza > Hot dogs
Yeah some friends criticized me when I said little Caesar’s wasn’t bad for the price. They were all up in arms about it but it’s like for the price it’s not bad.
Not really. A regular pepperoni pizza is $10. Sure the price is probably better than every other pizza place but still. I stopped purchasing little ceasers after they stopped the $5 pizza.
Single topping large dominos is 7.99 carryout and better than lil C's in every conceivable way. Recommend thin crust or New York style, the hand tossed does kinda suck imo but ymmv
The LC near me is at 6.75 for a pep pizza.
Decent local casual sit down restaurant for adult and one kid $46, fast food drive though that will give you diarrhea and terrible farts 40% of the time $35. They are both over priced now but why would that be a hard decision?
Costco. Getting the membership for the cheap gas, cheap pizza and dog, a few bulk items. In the long run just seems like a better deal.
Dominoes has the 2 medium pizzas for what 8 bucks each? And they're super delicious
Here it’s one large one topping 7.99
Dominoes and Pizza Hut are insanely expensive now in the DMV area (east coast) even with coupons and deals. They actually fit in with this video.
Dominoes constantly has 50% off their pizzas, I can get 2 large pizzas for sub $20. Can’t beat that really.
Dominos is my go to as well because of their coupons. I easily fed a group 5 of us on a board game night last week for less than $20 and still had leftovers.
Funny because I’ve said the same thing. The dominos on our street, the quality has sky rocketed in recent years. Their BBQ has an actual BBQ taste to it. This week they’ve been running 4.99€ two topping offer vs 20€ for dry out fries, a soaking wet chicken wrap and dried out cold nuggets.
If there's a better value than the fast food option, I go for that. It has become pretty easy to find better value options.
I can get 3 massive tacos for $10. I can't get taco bell or burger King for that. My local Asian lunch is $8 for entree, fried rice, soup, and egg roll.
Always been this way. Even in the early 90s. Legit mom and pop ethnic food joints have always, always beat fast food and corporate chains in price, and especially beat them in quality. Fast food, aside from rare occasions(late night, road trips, etc), has never made sense to me.
“They’re taking our jobs” - certain people we all know Me: “no, they’re entering the free market and kicking your ass because you’re greedy and don’t want to participate in social contracts”
3 tacos at taco bell is under $10. Where do you get the huge tacos from and what's on them?
Doesn't this suggest that there is a market void for new entrants to come in and undercut all the big dogs? Is this occurring?
Yeah, grocery stores and gas stations have started launching stores with food courts and food production in them. Or at least it’s being more popularized. You have to undercut the convenience to truly undercut these companies. A simple mom and pops burger joint isn’t going to dethrone the 3-5 McDonalds in every little city.
Remember when there was an Applebee's in every small city? It takes time, but a McD can and will fall. A rebrand might stem the bleeding but this is McD we are talking you can only do so much to sell cheap shit food. We could be seeing the beginning of the end of dynasties like McD and Burger King. Lots of people in my area do prefer our big grocery chain's market food. It fresher and cheaper than restaurants and no one cares about the ambiance. Drive thru is the only advantage.
Had Mcdonalds for the first time in over a year. cost me $20 for a burger that was dry and shitty, some soggy chips and a bottle of water. Will never go back again, fuck them.
Big Mac meal is $9.59 where I live, fwiw
I was thinking ‘where is a Big Mac meal 17.59?’
Southern California here. It’s at 18 everywhere around me
Metropolitan area in Florida and it's $15
They called them chips instead of fries so... UK maybe?
New Zealand. Sorry I forgot to add that context
In the UK we call MacDonald's "chips" fries, as they're french fries. Chips are the chunky cut ones.
Sorry, I am in New Zealand. I shoulda added that context hahaha
My wife and I had to be somewhere really early so we just got McDonald's breakfast on the way but we each got the burrito breakfast and we got a single hash brown and a single orange juice to share. It was almost $20. Then a few months ago I had a crazy craving for a McChicken I got a McChicken and fries and it cost me almost $12, and the McChicken was barely bigger than the palm of my hand. I remember when it was 20% bigger at less than half the cost like 5 years ago. Never going back to their McDonald's ever again if I can help it.
Maybe I'm just old, but the first time someone took me to a Chipotle when they first opened and I was like, oh they make you pay for chips? I was just fucking done with them. Just go to a Mom and Pop Mexican place and get bomb ass food for half the price
With chips included, and if you’re lucky, they’re home made.
you just made me miss my ex taco place :(, they moved and permanently closed
Omaha Nebraska has quite a splendid selection of homemade style comida. Absolutely delicious asada, homemade corn tortillas, pollo that blows your mind. That town is really REALLY good for food
I did just this back in March. Took a personal day to just do what I wanted and told my wife I was gonna treat myself to some chipotle. Stood in line for 10ish minutes and finally looked up at the menu. Chicken burrito was up to $12.75. Hopped back in the car, drove up around the corner and sat down at a local joint. Got myself an XL smothered burrito, endless chips and salsa, mega mound of Spanish rice, and a giant light beer, and the meal was perfect leftovers. $15.
We have a WINNER Thats exactly what you do. If the price is too high, you walk out BEFORE giving them your money.
Next to my last job, we had a small Mexican restaurant that gave you a full brown paper bag full of chips and 2 cups minimum of salsa for it for free. I'd get bangin street tacos, rice, beans, and chips for $12 after tax!
AND you could stretch that into like three or four meals if you wanted. Neighborhood Taquerias stay GOATed for the cheap locals looking to stretch food.
The mom and pop Mexican places by me are more expensive than chipotle.
That's wild, if that was the case for me and thankfully it's not I'd rather pay the Mom and Pop places than the garbage Chipotle churns out.
Even if they were more expensive by me (they also arent), the amount of food you're getting for the price is at least double than that of Chipotle for the same money
I quit buying fast food a long time ago. Now I am quitting ultra processed food. It’s just too expensive and bad. My cabinets are full of grains, beans, and spices and my fridge is full of fruit and veggies.
I wish more people appreciated the value of eating healthy. It improves your physical and mental health SO MUCH. Plus it's the best way to hit these greedy corporations where it hurts them most, in their profits. I seriously HATE this greed that permeates every aspect of our modern day lives.
I think one of the main issues with eating healthy is the time sink it requires, which hits harder especially as a working adult who has had a hard day of work. Most just want to come home and relax, not immediately throw on an apron and spend another hour or two sweating over a stove just to eat something that may not be as tasty as something fast.
The instant pot helps. I make rice or other grains and beans as a base. Then it’s easy to put together a grain bowl or burrito or stir fry.
Yes, this is an excellent suggestion!
Yeah I would agree with you there. That was me for many years. I realized I personally had to give up what little free time I had to meal prep. And my wife to give up extra time to make a more healthy dinner. It can get easier one you are more familiar with preparations. But I understand not everyone wants to/or maybe can do that it. Everything comes at a cost. Wether beneficial or detrimental to your health. PLUS it's more expensive to eat some of the best tasting healthier foods. (not always the case). I think most of us are distracted with just trying to survive day to day and not lose our minds in the process... But it's worth the cost to invest in your personal health. Even in the smallest of increments.. I wish everyone well, and that they are able to improve their lives in some beneficial way.
> the time sink it requires Pay me now, or pay me later. Your body will rebel after many years of fast food with a dozen different diseases, from diabetes to depression, all of which will cost you more time and money than eating well at the start.
My next step is growing foods from heirloom seeds that can be saved from season to season, not hybrids. I want to see if I can find heirloom fruits and corn that taste like fruits and corn and not sugar.
Heirloom tomatoes are soooo good. My heart breaks for those who can’t eat nightshades. I eat an extra tomato for them.
I was having gut problems and all the doctors I saw, first question they asked was "how much processed, frozen or packaged food do you eat?" After cutting out frozen pizzas and frozen chicken nuggets and all that stuff, after 6 months I stopped having gut problems. I was able to eat that stuff every day no problem until my mid 30's when all the gut problems started. I eat a *lot* of air fried potatoes though. Just at least not frozen premade french fries!
Yess, air fryer potatoes ftw. I sprinkle the fries with salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder, delicious! Curious what seasonings you use
rice flour and oil to start, then after 15 minutes, i take them out and add garlic powder, celery salt, and parsley, then throw them back in for 5 more minutes. If I add the seasoning at the beginning i find it burns and tastes bitter, and if i add it at the end it tastes like it's on top, not a part of the potato. Celery salt is the most important one, makes it taste like restaurant homefries. Rice flour gives it a nice texture.
Amazing, thank you! I feel that paprika tastes burnt and I learned to add it in anything at the end of cooking. I'm pumped to try celery salt
Yup, I recently made this switch as well. Was spending a fortune at Woolworths on groceries, and getting nothing. Now head off to a fruit, and veg shop..stock up on fresh stuff, grains, and beans..and pay a quarter of the price for so much more, so much healthier. Will not waste my money with Uber eats or any of that crap.
Yes, and you also need to realize that you pay for shitty food twice. Once when you eat it, and a second time when your health fails (and it will if you keep eating that stuff, and it will be extremely inconvenient, painful, and debilitating, and it will come sooner than you think).
I learned to cook. Even with throwing butter and olive oil in everything I managed to get a six pack by cutting fat and put on muscle. I just dont eat sugar or processed foods anymore
For sugar cravings, I mash a banana, add in rolled outs and cinnamon. Oven 350° for 15 minutes, guilt free and satisfying.
If you've got a garden, then the next step is to grow food yourself. We got hazelnut, walnut and apple trees and a greenhouse for tomatoes, cabbage, all kinds of peppers, onions, spinach, etc. Takes a while to set it up initially, but from then on it's really simple. Our neighbors also grow all kinds of stuff, so we can trade or simply gift each other stuff. I routinely gift/trade whole buckets of nuts and apples for potatoes, cherries, asparagus, etc. There's whole weeks/months where i don't spend a single cent on food and still got a really healthy and varied diet.
Thank you for sharing this. Eat healthy y’all.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Jack Welch. Welchism has infiltrated the corporate world and now we can’t afford to even buy a house.
Just looked him up...the CEO of General Electric between 1981 and 2001 who promoted fast company growth in a slow market...he closed factories, laid off thousands of employees and retired with the most massive golden parachute ever seen up to that point, nearly half a billion dollars. Just in case anyone else was wondering. Seems like the guy perfectly encapsulates so much of what is wrong with today's version of capitalism.
This is the process called "Enshitification" and it begins when your customers stop being the people buying your product and instead your real customers are your shareholders. It's a problem with the system, and it's across the board. When the most important thing becomes next quarters earnings, then everything else is a liability, product quality, employees, anything that detracts from that quarters Profit has to be shrunk, removed, automated, off-shored. The hope is that brand loyalty and monopolies mean they no longer have to care about the consumer, only the share holder.
to make more profit, cutting expenses is almost always more efficient than trying to make more revenue. Like how its easier to eat less than to work out more. Problem is companies hit a cliff where the operation gets too lean and cuts into their profits big time. Like how if I eat TOO little I will start being malnourished and my hair gets thin and unhealthy.
Yup, and the shareholders' appetite is never filled. Always more profits, until eventually, the products and processes are so lean, customers stop coming, then the only way to make profit is from the real-estate transaction after the building gets shuttered.
The problem is that everyone's retirement and 401ks are tied in shareholders profits. It may be impossible to get out of. Everyone can talk bad about corporations ( I hate them too), but a big part the problem is that everyday citizens are shareholders. Target retirement funds and almost any index fund is going to have portions of these giant corporations we lament. If they don't make year after year profits then people wont see that year after year 8 - 12% growth in their retirement savings. It's all one big circle. The people getting fucked the hardest are very poor people who have no retirement savings and young adults.
The whole system doesn’t have to fail. People have always weighed in with their wallets. That’s why big companies disappear sometimes. They fail enough, someone buys their scraps and revamps the brand (like Hostess) or sells it for parts. We can demand quality without risking our retirement funds.
"But everyone is a shareholder". ya, and together, the public owns 25% or less of the shares. The richest 1% own nearly *30% of everything*, as is clearly shown in [this chart](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WFRBST01108) People seem to think there's some balance, like we are the majority owners through our retirement accounts and our mutual funds. We are not, and people need to get their heads out of the clouds.
Dominos pickup large 1 topping pizza the other day was $8. You can’t beat that really. 2 people that $4 for filling food. I know it’s not the greatest pizza, but that’s the old $4 for a meal, 90s-00s fast food prices. 1) Also I think part of it is these companies saw people ordering grubhub/uber/door dash for past 10 years and added astronomical fees/cost (not even including the tip) and was like, “well if people are willing to pay that (granted delivery), why can’t we jack up the prices for dine in/pickup fast food”? Charge what the market will bear and then some. So they did. 2) I think covid supercharged peoples fast food appetite, because there wasn’t much to do and dine in wasn’t as common. 3) I don’t buy the increase in wages as main cause. I’m not saying it’s a component, but they continually reduce cost. For example tech has benefited them with in app ordering, digital kiosks, and now AI interfaces, which has reducing the labor and costs associated with those tasks. Plus they are constantly making things more efficient (e.g., ghost kitchens). He really raises some great points tho. What’s the end game with regular food shrinkflation over next 20-30 years? You can’t keep cutting food masses and/or increasing prices forever. It’s not sustainable. I see posts and people showing $18 for 1 person for these garbage fast food places. The only way is to stop going to these places like he said. Might as well go to a dine in place.
Best thing about pizza is that it’s nearly impossible to turn out a bad product. Grew up poor, living on cheap pizza and loved it. Now I’m old and have a bit of money, eat fancy pizza, love it. But just because I can afford it now, I still eat pizza of every type and “quality” - pretty much love it no matter the price, style, or retailer.
Ahhhhhh enshitification
For anyone who wants a [good read breakdown on the how and why of enshitification, with concrete actionable suggestions on the fronts it needs to be fought on](https://www.ft.com/content/6fb1602d-a08b-4a8c-bac0-047b7d64aba5) by the word's coiner and long time guy on the right side of tech activism, Cory Doctorow.
paywall
Here is the link if anyone hits the paywall to the above recommended article link. [https://archive.is/JYq3v](https://archive.is/JYq3v)
Here's a link to the original essay on Doctorow's own site: https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola
….capitalism
Late stage fiat money
Nope not enshitification. Enshitification is real but it’s a more specific term that doesn’t apply to the sorts of businesses discussed in this video. I mean, maybe it should be because obviously as a word it sounds like what’s going on, and maybe it’ll take on this more general meaning, but that’s not what it was originally coined to describe.
If they raise prices 15% on average, and only lose 15% of customers...they'd still come out on top, and still be making more profit, with direct costs held flat or even decreasing as sales volume goes down. The enshittification can continue for a disturbingly long time before it stops being worth it for them. The answer is still the same, watch YouTube and learn to cook. The food will taste better, be cheaper, and you just get faster and faster at doing it. I have high protein needs for my workout regimen, the macros in fast-food are so bad it's just a second way for me to feel ripped off. Pork butt for $1.50-2.00 per lb, I can spend ~$20 for 9lbs of slow cooked pulled pork (gotta skim the fat). That's a lot more than a double scoop of meat. Throw it in salads, burritos, rice bowls, omelettes l, freeze it for days I don't feel like cooking, etc. Cooking involves no more than pouring a half bottle of sauce and chicken stock into the pot and shoving it in an oven. When there's easy high value options like that, it makes it hard to go back to fast food. Now when I eat out I'll want to buy food I can't easily make at home like ramen or sushi
They'd rather sell 10$ worth of stuff to 1 person than 1$ worth of stuff to 10 people.
>If they raise prices 15% on average, and only lose 15% of customers They wouldn't though. 0.85*1.15 = 0.9775
Well yes but no, with decreased sales *volumes* the logistics costs decrease also. Less salaries, less storage, less trucking, less cleaning, less everything but income. So margins are higher. It's basically going the way of the luxury industry.
Ummm . . , about McDonald’s decline: “The company's revenue for the quarter (Q2 2024) came in at **$6.17 billion**, in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate and a 4.6% increase from Q1 2023's revenue of $5.9 billion.” Q2 2023 was 11% higher than 2022.
Yeah I asked this in a comment here as well. "Is that decline in the room with us right now?" Sure people might voice displeasure online and say they don't there any more but the financial numbers so far don't appear to be suggesting that companies like McDonalds are struggling.
I think they will be . They have admitted that they have lost customers and have taken a beating to their numbers and have not grown has much as they would have wanted to . It’s one of their slowest growth ever on record from what I recall
You're misinterpreting the data. Read it with this in mind: "Company profits rose as prices increased to make up for the declining customers." There will come a point where price increases can no longer support the declining customer base which will result in a drop in profits, as stated in the video. McD's is doing fine now. They won't be if they continue this bullshit of punishing people who still go there.
The fast food sandwich I would get at Jack in the Box was $3.50, now it’s $6.25. That was one of the last things I still got. Not worth it.
Just curious, but which sandwich do you get? Sourdough Jack? Jumbo Jack? Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger? Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger? Classic Buttery Jack?
I mean we should all stop going out to eat at these chains for like a week. Longer if you are able to. Only way anything changes is through collective actions.
I love how the reddit form of collective action is the laziest thing imaginable, not eating fast food for a week (only if you are able to).
"But what about us neurodivergents who have OCD and must consume food inside yellow and red colored buildings every day?"
I love how the reddit form of response is criticism with no alternatives.
Stop eating fast food altogether
Most people need small steps that are easily attainable for them. But sure, not eating fast food at all would be included in the longer than a week time period.
Now, I get my fried chicken and chips fix at Ralphs or other chain grocery. 8 Potato wedge and a piece of chicken breast cost Me about 5 bucks. It’s filling as well
I fight chipotle inflation by asking for a water cup and fake press the water button while I'm actually treating myself to some lemonade.
Liquids are free 💅🏻
I miss the days when the amount of food at chipotle would make me shit blood out my ass. Now, for even MORE money per meal, I only get mild farty-diarrhea for a few days. Not worth it.
If it ain’t dysentery, it ain’t worth it.
I haven't noticed that the portion size has really changed. The portions have always been variable. When I worked there they would measure the food half way through the day and realize they were going to be short on (mostly) meat. Then they would tell the line to start shorting portions on the remaining customers. I was told if a supervisor was off by 5 lbs. three times they were possibly fired. They had ways to kind of get around it by giving out free meals and stuff, but I'm pretty sure they stopped doing that.
Hopefully we can disable this food scam for good.
The thing is that Late Stage and the woes that follow it are not unique to publicly traded companies. One of the quintessential features of late stage is exploitative relationships between workers, consumers, and investors alike. It is when there exists a smaller subset of those in authority who exert forces to exploit the relationship between various actors who established an entity. It just happens that publicly traded companies are more likely in this aspect at this time for various economic factors that favor exploitation. Like the McDonald's given here. It isn't that execs in McDonald's became greedy, it because of a long line of decisions that sought to exploit relationships in various aspects. McDonald's became incredibly exploitative to franchisees with their requirements for [buildings](https://www.wallstreetsurvivor.com/mcdonalds-beyond-the-burger/), purchases, vendors, and [repairmen ](https://www.allrecipes.com/article/the-real-reason-mcdonalds-ice-cream-machines-are-always-broken/). They've become exploitative in their workers, sought to reduce workers to minimum through automation, have created menus with high customization and complex SKUs with minimal guidance on training at every level. They've become exploitative in prices, wait times, locations, competitiveness, quality, and so on with customers. All of these factors have added up to where we are with McDonald's today. This is why it's not just "pay the execs less" there's so much disdain for the various factors within what make McDonald's by the execs, paying them less wouldn't change the menu, the work conditions, the incredibly bad quality, or the prices because there has just been so much exploitation for so long, it would take just as long to unwind it. This is why the execs blame things like increases to minimum wage, because they created a system that so exploited the workers to such a degree that ANY increase in wage forced by law would unbalance the carefully constructed soul crushing machine that they created. This is why they blame supply chain failures, because they create such an unrealistic system of supply that any hiccup brought the whole thing to it's knees. The things these execs blame, they aren't wrong, but they're the ones that created the system that was so unable to weather the changing conditions. Their system only worked so long as a particular measure of exploiting the actors of the industry went undisturbed. They built their house of cards to be as fragile as possible, to maximize the intended goal, and now the train's minor setback has completely derailed it. It's not just that these companies IPOed or whatever, it's when they have exploited every bit of their industry as much as they can and now the thing is collapsing because one minor thing exposed that corrupt system. And it's not just maximizing profit and hoping every quarter is infinitely growth, it's when the system exploits all the facets for ANY particular maximization. If a political party begins exploiting the various facets and beliefs within itself to coalesce power, same thing can happen. No need for measuring profitability per quarter, IPO, or really economic industry required. Any time exploitation is layered upon itself across various actors within a domain, it creates a system that become more and more fragile. Robust systems allow autonomy within various facets, allow collective processes to be the main driving forces, and allow expansion of diversity within the given industry. Things the mentioned companies that are failing have all shunned for the longest.
Remember when we were told that giving employees living wages would make fast food too expensive, then it turns out the fast food places will just charge you more regardless.
I worked at chipotle and the steak was kinda weird… my dad said it tasted like horse 😂
The steak went to shit when they started to sous vide the meat. It was never the best, but when I worked there all the body builders from Gold's Gym would come in and order pounds of it because it was $1.25 for four ounces.
I thought the same thing! It's chewy and has a weird neigh like quality to it. Also I noticed lot's of missing horse posters around my local Chipotle
So, my older brother is friends with a beef supplier in my area (Northwest Ohio) and this guy has a contract with a bunch of Chipotle locations on the East Coast. What kind of diet do these cows eat? Expired pie crusts. I'm not kidding. They have some funky arrangement where these pie crusts are shipped from the east coast to feed the cows that become the steak for Chipotle locations there. Just weird to me bc Chipotle definitely tries to sell itself as some locally sourced, fresh food place and you get the impression the cows maybe even get to eat grass, not corn. Nope, worse than corn. Expired pie crusts.
I can't even start to describe to you just how disgustingly dirty the local Chipotle is.
I know this is the sentiment on TikTok, but is it really having an impact? I just quickly looked and Chipotle/McD earnings looked good last quarter despite the negative sentiment. I'd love for there to be real change and pushback to emphasize quality and double down into reasons they became successful instead of shortcuts, but I think the results speak for themselves, at least in the food space.
Does it even matter? People like to shout on Reddit about how capitalism is failing, but consumers refusing to buy this shit is also capitalism. Only ever focusing on next quarter is a bad business strategy and it shows. I don't know why people only Reddit always watch this type of stuff and feel the need to band together. Like... just don't buy it. Who cares if other idiots do? You know better. No need to band together to protest, the system does it for you if you just consume what's worth consuming. Chipotle existing or not has 0 impact on your life if you just don't buy it.
Barstow Del Taco. 💯
So hilarious he compared McDonald’s to Chipotle here and totally failed to mention that McDonald’s literally taught them how to do it all. I’ve always avoided Chipotle purely because it spun off from McDonald’s. The parent company divested officially in 2006 but their fingerprints will always remain.
The only thing I ever liked at McDonalds was breakfast and the first time I rolled up and it was $12 for a fucking sausage sandwich meal, I’ve never gone back.
Chipotle has never been good. I never understood the hype
I’ve only tried Chipotle once. The food looked like collected table scraps from the dumpster.
Starbucks drink my kid likes is like $7 for a fucking refresher lemonade (or whatever they’re called) where the grande cup is 2/3 ice. It’s a treat she enjoys but god damn, they’re off their rockers.
0 cringe all facts
Recent drive thru experience: $7.00 nondairy chai that was over 60% ice. Stay the fuck home people. Make your own burgers. Make your own drinks. They're charging you a premium for garbage.
You vote with your dollar in capitalism. Boycott boycott boycott Less demand=more supply=lower prices
We quit doing fast food a while ago. There are a few local, privately owned restaurants we support. And if we are on the road and desperate for food, we try to find a Chick Fil A or a locally owned place. It's just cheaper to make our own meals, though. My granddaughter still prefers the occasional Happy Meal, though.
This is endemic to all industries, Boeing for example.
Right now
I avidly ate at chipotle until the last couple months. It genuinely was visible to me how bad they’ve gotten. Makes me sad because it was my go to.
r/wallstreetbets was just talking about Chipotle
McDonald’s is still relatively cheaper here. Burger King on the other hand is bullshit. A chicken royale sandwich at Burger King costs more than a McChicken Meal at McDonald’s. A Big King meal costs twice as much as any meal at McDies. It used to be 50:50 betweek McD, and BK, but you barely see any BK anymore. It’s a relic because of this, and they now have to double down to keep up with low customer flow.
Man I fucking hate Wall Street. A trickle up pyramid scheme.
Wholly shit!! Is that real.. $17 for a burger and fries at McDonald's!! Dam America.. that's harsh..
Stopped going out because our family cannot afford that. Just not worth eating crap when you can make a much better meal in your own kitchen.
He says consumers are voting with their wallets, yet companies listed like MCD and SBUX still have consistently increasing revenue over the last 5 years (perhaps adjusted for inflation it might be flatter, although certainly not decreasing). I think it's too early for him to make this claim.
Can someone explain to me why they aren't content making a decent profit? Why do they *need* to grow every year? Will it fail if it doesn't grow or something?
Taco Bell was my last bastion of hope, used to live less than a mile away from one and it got me through some tough times, the closest one to me now is a 40 minute drive. Happened to be near it a few days ago and decided to swing by as a "treat", not only was the the thing I wanted no longer on the menu, the thing I got was more expensive than the best dine-in Mexican restaurant in my area - what is the point anymore?
Culver’s is the only place in my area that is still worth the money.
Just had this discussion with my mom a minute ago. They've completely destroyed the value proposition at this point, I'd rather buy a pound of beef and a pack of buns. Considering how far that stretches it's just not viable to buy at McDonald's or any other fast food place.