Cycling UK Forum

Their coffee is drinkable. I have partaken of a large latte on occasions when out on the bike. Never thought to try ther drive through though. Next time....

At the first control of a 06:00 start DIY 200km, i.e. breakfast, I order a Double sausage McMuffin ( £2.09 ) with two extra eggs ( 30p each ) giving a grand total of £2.69 for 3 eggs, 2 sausages ( and a slice of melted cheese ) on the equivalent of two thin slices of toast.

That's LESS expensive than the "supposedly subsidised" cafeteria where I work !!

PS. At the McD's on the M42 Island south of Measham, I 'sit in' to enjoy my meal in comfort while my bike is locked up to a bench outside. Why drive through when you can sit down?

The Mechanic wrote:Their coffee is drinkable. I have partaken of a large latte on occasions when out on the bike. Never thought to try ther drive through though. Next time....

That's because its 100% Arabica. Most of the [inappropriate word removed] stuff elsewhere is a blend of Arabica and Robusta.

Ayesha wrote:At the first control of a 06:00 start DIY 200km, i.e. breakfast, I order a Double sausage McMuffin ( £2.09 ) with two extra eggs ( 30p each ) giving a grand total of £2.69 for 3 eggs, 2 sausages ( and a slice of melted cheese ) on the equivalent of two thin slices of toast.

That's LESS expensive than the "supposedly subsidised" cafeteria where I work !!

PS. At the McD's on the M42 Island south of Measham, I 'sit in' to enjoy my meal in comfort while my bike is locked up to a bench outside. Why drive through when you can sit down?

I wonder why it costs so little?
jonty

Jonty wrote:

Ayesha wrote:At the first control of a 06:00 start DIY 200km, i.e. breakfast, I order a Double sausage McMuffin ( £2.09 ) with two extra eggs ( 30p each ) giving a grand total of £2.69 for 3 eggs, 2 sausages ( and a slice of melted cheese ) on the equivalent of two thin slices of toast.

That's LESS expensive than the "supposedly subsidised" cafeteria where I work !!

PS. At the McD's on the M42 Island south of Measham, I 'sit in' to enjoy my meal in comfort while my bike is locked up to a bench outside. Why drive through when you can sit down?

I wonder why it costs so little?
jonty

"Economies of scale" I think they call it.

When I was in California, McD's were selling a 'Sausage and egg McGriddle' for 99c. 52p in our language. I had four of these and threw two of the buns for the little black and red birds which fluttered round the waste bins outside.
That's four eggs, four sausage patties and four slices of cheese for the same price as ONE egg and TWO sausage patties in the UK !

I wonder why it costs so much?

Economies of scale because of the factory farmed produce and the ground up animal bits that make up their 'meat'?

When I teach imaging of the endocrine system, diet is mentioned as a source of false scan results.

One of the examples I use is "Hamburger Thyrotoxicosis"


Basically in some burgers the majority of the "meat" was recovered from mechanically stripping the last possible tissue from the neck, including recovering thyroid tissue.

Some burgers had so much thyroid tissue they were affecting the thyroid hormones of those eating the burgers

Ayesha wrote:

Jonty wrote:

Ayesha wrote:At the first control of a 06:00 start DIY 200km, i.e. breakfast, I order a Double sausage McMuffin ( £2.09 ) with two extra eggs ( 30p each ) giving a grand total of £2.69 for 3 eggs, 2 sausages ( and a slice of melted cheese ) on the equivalent of two thin slices of toast.

That's LESS expensive than the "supposedly subsidised" cafeteria where I work !!

PS. At the McD's on the M42 Island south of Measham, I 'sit in' to enjoy my meal in comfort while my bike is locked up to a bench outside. Why drive through when you can sit down?

I wonder why it costs so little?
jonty

"Economies of scale" I think they call it.

When I was in California, McD's were selling a 'Sausage and egg McGriddle' for 99c. 52p in our language. I had four of these and threw two of the buns for the little black and red birds which fluttered round the waste bins outside.
That's four eggs, four sausage patties and four slices of cheese for the same price as ONE egg and TWO sausage patties in the UK !

I wonder why it costs so much?

Because in the Uk we have proper food and in the US they eat mass produced industrialised rubbish. That's one of the reasons why they're so fat.
jonty

The egg in a proper (American) Egg McMuffin is a little further from the chicken than anything found in the UK.

You see, they refrigerate the things the minute they roll out of the bottom of the cage and onto the conveyor belt. They go through a little bath and into a refrigerator unit. That way, they'll keep for weeks while they are transfered to a broker or co-op that will sell them on to a distributor that will sell them on to McDs who transfer them to central processing warehouse where they are processed (or turned into pancake mix, scrambled eggs, etc.) then sent out to local distribution centres where they are then (at last!) sent to the individual restaurants.

You see, this all ensures quality. And then, because there is just something wrong with fresh eggs, most towns and cities in the USA have made it illegal to keep chickens within city boundaries, unless you have a licence to do so.

Oh. And the cheese? Don't ask. Let's just say that in some places it's actually illegal to call it cheese.

I sincerely hope we never go done the American way of food production. You can buy quality food in the States but the emphasis is on cheap mass-produced food.
The result is that many people on low incomes don't cook but eat "hamburgers" at 50 cents a time from retail outlets and the physical effects are there for all to see. There are huge factories with thousands of cows which never see the light of day at one end and a meat packaging plant at the other.
Was the chicken that laid you egg free-range? Did the pig which produced the pork have enough room or was in able to root around in a field?
Such is the emphasis on economics that large parts of the States are simply given over to large-scale industrialised food production. The countryside is not countryside as we know it; there are few trees, hedgerows or interesting villages.
Much of the products of the industry go into standardised fast-food with limited variety.
I suspect that the emphasis on quantity and not quality is one of the reasons for high levels of obesity.
IMO we in the UK are "middle way" between large-scale industrialised food production in the US and smaller more sustainable agriculture in say France which produces very high quality food of great variety.
IMHO we should go more for quality, pay more for it and spend less on other things, and on average eat less.
The mind-set which treats food like a standard commodity and is articulated by comments like "look how much I got for so little money" is simply unfortunate IMHO.
Sermon over. (Apologies, it's something I feel strongly about).
jonty

Jonty: while I admit that there is an emphasis on mass food production in the USA, there also plenty of alternatives. And there are all sorts of reasons that there are no hedgerows:
1) There is no long history of them, as there is in the UK; it would be considered a matter of humour that some families still have rights to coppice or cut firewood in the hedges
2) Many of the places where "vast swathes" of land are given over to mass food production were plains. There weren't any trees or hedges to start with.
3) Hedges are extremely inconvenient on the border of fields; they interfere with all of the equipment that farmers attach to their tractors, so farmers are unlikely to maintain hedgerows unless there is significant incentive, with the exception of a very very few environmentally conscious farmers
4) There are plenty of other places to grow trees. Unlike in much of the UK, there is land in many places that can grow trees for a variety of purposes, including just to look at.

I see the UK going the same way to a large extent. The cheapest big supermarket chains have a poor selection of things like apple varieties, and the ones they do have seem to be selected for size, looks & ability to keep well. If I want decent apples, I need to get them from farm shops and roadside tables. Eggs are a little better. UK consumers seem to be a little more aware than American. And eggs aren't refrigerated in the supermarkets, here, so they need to be brought more quickly to the consumers. But farm-fresh free range eggs are still three (or more) times as expensive as any mass-produced supermarket 'value' brand eggs. That's hard to justify for anyone on a just-above-poverty-level income and a family to feed.

That is very similar to what the situation was in the US 30 years ago. Now, although there has been something of a revival of markets and farm shops in the USA, for most consumers, good food is very very expensive. It's possible that the global movement to improve the sustainability of food production, and rising fuel prices will prevent that happening in the UK, but otherwise, I can't see my children being able to get decent food unless they grow it themselves. Wherever they live.

Vorpal - you may be right as you are obviously knowledgeable about the subject, but then the future sounds depressing.
jonty

We went out to a 'Hungry Horse' a few evenings ago and MrsD2B selected the Chicken sizzler, a sort of kebab thingy. It bordered on inedible because the chicken pieces were reformed meat and completely tasteless. It tried it as well, it was horrible, but we were with friends and did not wish to cause a scene by asking for our money back.

Alan D wrote:We went out to a 'Hungry Horse' a few evenings ago and MrsD2B selected the Chicken sizzler, a sort of kebab thingy. It bordered on inedible because the chicken pieces were reformed meat and completely tasteless. It tried it as well, it was horrible, but we were with friends and did not wish to cause a scene by asking for our money back.

We were in a Hungry Horse about a month ago and the menu had much improved from the previous visit (!!) and to such an extent that mrs w_c can actually find things that probably wont stop her heart instantly - may still taste (or not) bad though...

Hungry Horse and McDonald's? - am I in the right forum?