And while I'm not snobby about it for other people, I am for myself. I do try to assess the relative merits of the individual things I buy, so I know how much time/money/commitment that takes.

But what are we really saying here? That non-McDonald food is prohibitively less convenient and more expensive? Because honestly, if one has ANY seed money at all, buying rice, pasta or fillers, the occasional sauce, etc can get a person pretty far. If one has stocked up on a few things, one could probably feed multiple people for $1/person, even if one is occasionally splurging on some organic veggies or free-range chicken.

I guess I'm saying that I understand that some people have difficulties with time/money, but I also find it hard to believe this is as hard as the article makes it seem - I was raised in a single-economy household, and I have three siblings. My mother somehow fed all of us home-cooked meals, even if the veg wasn't the best of the best. I can't see how that's not better than McDonald's, and I'm pretty sure most of us exist in the middle ground between non-stop McD's and fully organic.