REPOST - The Fast Food Industry - Getting FAT At OUR Expen$e?

2008 NOTE: The following is a REPOST of an old blog entry from 2003 even though it's retro-dated. I am in the process of consolidating as many of my blogs & podcasts and felt this old post would be appropriate for posting here. Enjoy! :D

Now that I've figured out HOW to blog correctly (I admit yesterday's blog (posted below) didn't look very good in terms of layout compared to other blogs in the various rings), today's blog will be kinda lengthy as I've got quite a few things on my mind. As such, I'm sure I'm gonna be blogging quite a lot, maybe more than once a day (I am a liberal Democrat who doesn't pull punches :-)). I'm also looking at making use of my webcam and making "video blogs" as well so I can show my emotion in each entry. :-)

In the meantime, WHERE OH WHERE do I start? I may as well start with my first bite of food for today (not to mention the downsizing of the fast food industry). Today, I went to Wendy's in an effort to save some $$$ which I would ordinarily spend (or should I $pend?) at Subway. I ordered a Taco Supremo, some chicken strips, and a biggie diet coke (I much prefer Diet Pepsi as it tastes better :-)). What's the big deal you say? Well....How would YOU like it if you spent THREE DOLLARS on a grand total of THREE chicken strips.

That's right. I said THREE chicken strips.

I said to myself there's more strips of chicken in the display ad than there are in front of me. But knowing that I still had the Taco Supremo (which fills me up quite nicely I might add :-)) and the Diet Coke and knowing that there were people who would be blessed to have those three chicken strips, I didn't complain (at least not in a way which might either get me kicked out of the restaurant or arrested :-)). I ate my food and left a happy customer (even though I was $8.91 poorer in the process).

Speaking of the price I paid, is it just me or is the price of fast food going up? I've noticed this at Subway, but then too its expected there because of the various subs and breads they offer. But you would think a place like Wendy's would offer more HEALTHY meal combinations. I was offered one with the Taco Supremo, but I chose to get a biggie coke instead of a regular size one and got the chicken strips as well. My guess is the clerk who took my order probably did NOT charge me for the combo meal and added them as seperate items instead. I dunno. But gee whiz. Before we all know it, a value meal (no matter what the restaurants call it) will soon cost $10 like the pizzarias are charging now (and HAVE been charging for years.

Speaking of the pizzarias, WHY is it they charge more for ONE pizza than the a place like Wendy's would charge for their stuff FOR AN ENTIRE FAMILY?? I don't get it. Would someone in the pizza industry care to explain this to me? (I'll soon be setting up a method in which you can post your response to each of my blogs).

The reason I bring this up is because I recently saw a report on Fox News showing what McDonald's is doing to encourage healthy eating among adults (it was a feature on an adult version of the "Happy Meal" which has a salad as one of the items). There was speculation that McDonald's was on a "health food drive" to stem the tide of lawsuits being filed by people who claim they got fat because of what McDonald's and other fast food chains offer (and were dumb enough to eat EN MASSE).

This got me wondering. IF McDonald's was SERIOUS about encouraging healthy eating habits, WHY don't they substitute a salad in place of that HAMBURGER they put in kids' Happy Meals?? Could it be that they fear they'll lose business if they do?? If so, I've got a wake up call to them.

YOU ALREADY _ARE_ LOSING BUSINESS!!!!!

This is because parents are either brown bagging their kid's lunch or are ponying up more $$$ for the school lunch program so the kids are fed in the school cafeteria. Either way you look at it, they're skipping McDonald's altogether.

I could could go on and on about this whole fast food thing, but I'm sure you get the gist of it by now. It was just a timing thing since I hadn't posted my (hopeful) daily blog yet. See ya tomorrow. :-)

BLOG LINKS PAGE TO LAUNCH WITH MY BLOG FOR TOMORROW!!!

Speaking of tomorrow....Tomorrow's topic will be on SPAM (the kind you get in email, not the kind you eat). Stay tuned.

Cheers for now :-)

Pat