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View original postI don't keep a garden, cook from scratch, can excess produce, etc to save money.
View original postI can agree with this partially. I do like thinking of what I save, but that's because I'm more likely to go to a pub and spend £20 on dinner/drinks than go to McDonald's and grab a value meal. I save a lot, and I have fun doing it. So it's mixed for me.
Oh sure, eating out, rather than grabbing the Burger Emperor Mega-saver is definitely more pricey then making it at home, though even then the drinks bill tends to be the real cost slam, same as soda, giving up booze definitely dropped my dining bill. Especially considering my fondness for scotch and dark foreign beer 
If you're dining out, home-cooked is very noticeably cheaper. I remember I used to host dinner parties back in grad school and even getting pretty extravagant with the menu I could feed all my friends for about what my own bill out would have been, rise in social standing as skilled cook and generous host, and often have someone pick up my own bill when out in thanks. I'm pretty sure that's what actually got me into real cooking, I've cooked since I was little but before then always more 'make food, eat food' rather than real cuisine. Home cooking saves money compared to a decent restaurant, I don't think gardening does so well compared to the grocery store, I've never really cataloged how much time and money I put in to the garden probably because I'm afraid of the answer.
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I do remind myself that it does save money but I'm well aware there are other activities I could be doing that would net me considerably more money for the same times as whatever I save. It's just self-justification and rationalization, same as my mother quilting or knitting for 'blankets for babies' and so on, its an excuse for a hobby, but spending 20 hours to make a blanket that a machine could spew out for $10 isn't an effective use of time and neither is me breaking out the manual pasta-maker. Its a hobby, like mechanics is a hobby that can be genuinely useful and beneficial, like hunting or fishing, but are motives are typically much the same as someone playing X-box.
View original postI also partially agree, but I think it's an important choice first, and a hobby second. I made the choice to completely change my diet and lifestyle (and have lost 8+ pounds so far this time 'round), because I think I need to do that for my health. I would do that for my children as well, if I had them. That I enjoy it was sort of secondary, but I have fully embraced that, I admit (I had to learn to love it, or I would have quit). I like spending money on interesting foodie things, because people have to eat - food feels like a freebie on the budget, if that makes sense? I know I'm very lucky to be in a position to feel that way.
Oh, health and diet aren't much concerns of mine, I was raised vegetarian so my preferred diet already looks like most healthy eating plans. Not that I don't eat some outrageously unhealthy stuff for time to time but there tends to be a lot more vegetables then starch or meat in meals I make to personal taste.
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View original postBut 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.
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View original postI think the concept is that a lot of times even if you earn minimum wage you could eat fast food and go work some more and come up ahead on cash. Particularly since a lot of fast food joint sell the burgers at or even below cost and make their money on fries and soda. It's a crap example though. It still takes time to go to a burger joint and wait in line or drive thru, typically more than assembling a PBJ or cold cut sandwich and tossing it the lunch pail. Unless one is either very half assed or very elaborate at such things, or the food joint travel time and wait is virtually nil, I have difficulty imagining pulling two slices of bread out, slapping on the ingredients, and sticking it in the travel rig up, even including time shopping and doing the dishes, would equal out. On the other hand, I am pretty sure the actual cost of having a kitchen in one's house, keeping it heated, keeping the fridge cold, etc all cost more in total for a single person then eating fast food with an eye for Calories per $$$ does.
View original postYeah. And that last bit is true, but we would have fridges anyway. There are plenty of other things to put in there, whether it's crap or not (juice, ice cream, beer...)
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View original postI 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.
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View original postAgreed. I don't shoot my own cows or grow and grind my own flour and I could do the latter I'm sure, it holds no interest for me and I really doubt I could do it economically.
View original postWe do add something new each year though. I'm not sure where our stopping point will be. Right now, we're starting up a more official mini home-brew-boilerthingie. And thinking about getting chickens. And I want an ice cream maker. SEE?!
Right now, we're starting up a more official mini home-brew-boilerthingie. And thinking about getting chickens. And I want an ice cream maker. SEE?!I know tons of home chicken growers, of course a lot of them are actual farmers, but they're pretty easy to keep from what I've heard so I'd give it go, not me personally though. I've made beer before with some friends for their wedding, hops stink to high hell I've noticed. My breadmaker and my yogurt maker are about the only yeast-based things I do at home. I think every garden and kitchen acquires a couple new plant types and appliances every year, just part of the hobby clutter, totally reasonable and justified.
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
- Albert Einstein
King of Cairhien 20-7-2
Chancellor of the Landsraad, Archduke of Is'Mod
- Albert Einstein
King of Cairhien 20-7-2
Chancellor of the Landsraad, Archduke of Is'Mod
The greatest food in human history?
- 28/07/2013 05:13:31 PM
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That would've been a rather more useful article...
- 28/07/2013 06:31:01 PM
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If you are going hungry calories do matter
- 28/07/2013 09:19:45 PM
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Maybe it's a bit of repression and projection onto the people who eat there?
- 29/07/2013 01:36:10 AM
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He sounds like a nut. *NM*
- 28/07/2013 08:29:29 PM
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unlike the people who think we should all eat food grown within 100 miles of where we live?
- 28/07/2013 09:22:07 PM
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Supply issues of transportation are not entirely unjustified, though often exaggerated
- 28/07/2013 10:38:04 PM
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population distrubution makes that solution unworkable
- 28/07/2013 11:34:16 PM
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Since when?
- 29/07/2013 05:11:52 AM
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I am all in favor os sensible thigs and try to practice them myself
- 29/07/2013 01:03:45 PM
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Re: I am all in favor os sensible thigs and try to practice them myself
- 29/07/2013 08:04:26 PM
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I thought he was being satirical. At least until I kept reading.
- 29/07/2013 03:15:12 AM
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fast food doesn't make you fat. To much food makes you fat
- 29/07/2013 01:11:28 PM
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Too much food definitely makes you fat but in comparing apples to apples...
- 29/07/2013 01:46:08 PM
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calories are calories
- 29/07/2013 03:36:59 PM
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I don't agree with your subject
- 29/07/2013 07:05:50 PM
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Yeah, I thought the same. Body totally contradicts subject. *NM*
- 30/07/2013 02:50:59 AM
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*NM*
- 30/07/2013 02:50:59 AM
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I was refering to weight gain not general health *NM*
- 30/07/2013 05:38:15 PM
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And I don't really see
- 29/07/2013 02:55:41 PM
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Re: And I don't really see
- 29/07/2013 05:29:55 PM
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Well let's keep in mind here you don't *need* vegetables at all, no more than dairy or meat
- 30/07/2013 04:45:28 AM
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Not to discount the points he makes, but what I find interesting ...
- 29/07/2013 03:51:59 AM
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I don't know if thinks it is OK or just acept the reality of it
- 29/07/2013 01:05:52 PM
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I'm sure you could live off them for quite a while.
- 29/07/2013 01:38:09 PM
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RT's correct, Super Size Me was at best badly documented and exaggerated *NM*
- 29/07/2013 08:10:58 PM
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I eat mostly organic, homemade, etc
- 29/07/2013 07:23:02 PM
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I think most of us track costs just as a self-justification though
- 29/07/2013 08:43:09 PM
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Mm, somewhat.
- 29/07/2013 10:38:22 PM
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Re: Mm, somewhat.
- 29/07/2013 11:34:00 PM
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I have brown eggs and free rnage chicken in mmy fridge so I am not judging
- 30/07/2013 01:12:51 PM
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- 30/07/2013 06:51:11 PM
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- 30/07/2013 06:51:11 PM
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What, you have brown eggs?!
- 30/07/2013 06:56:28 PM
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well I don't do the shopping just the eating
- 30/07/2013 08:49:51 PM
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FYI: Egg shell color is determined by the breed of the hen, not by diet or living conditions.
- 01/08/2013 05:04:32 PM
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Re: bird diet
- 02/08/2013 02:51:23 PM
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Yes! I have two hens. "Raptor" and "Val-ociraptor" She is "Val" for short. 
- 02/08/2013 03:44:12 PM
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- 02/08/2013 03:44:12 PM
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