I've never been a very healthy eater but I've been eating atrociously here in New York for the past two weeks. I'm really trying to watch my pennies so I eat off value menus a lot. I'd never eaten fast food before I moved to middle America, where that's all I ate. I got to know the menus of Taco Bell and Burger King really well. When I watched commercials, I thought to myself, "I have to get that the next time I go there!"In the mornings, I go to my local deli and get an egg on a bagel. It comes with a free cup of coffee for $1.75. That's good. That's better than a breakfast value meal at McDonald's.
For lunch, it's value menu time again. So far, I've only gone to Wendy's and McDonald's. In San Francisco, a double cheeseburger was $1.09. Here in Manhattan, it's $1.63--no longer on the value menu. Some stores don't even have the value menu. I've been getting the chicken sandwich or the regular cheese burger.
If I go to Wendy's, which has larger value menu, I get the junior bacon cheese burger (with unmelted cheese), cup of chili (surprisingly hot both temperature wise and spicy-wise), and a frosty drink (which is so thick I can barely pull it up through the straw).
I also have been getting a lot of pizza slices. The lowest price I've paid was at Halal Bakery on Eighth Avenue: $1.75. In 2001, they charged a dollar a slice. That's some mighty inflation. Most of the other slices I've been buying, however, are in the $2.25 range.
For dinner, it's back to the Value menus. More burgers, more frosty drinks, more cookies.
This morning, while waiting for my bagel at the Smiler's Deli on Seventh Avenue, I saw all the healthy things they offered too. They had cold, gleaming trays full of fresh fruit, lettuce, spinach and hard-boiled eggs. They had ice stands brimming with plastic containers full of melon slices.
These containers were at least $3.99 apiece.
One egg and bagel bomb and free cup of coffee that will last at least four hours in the stomach versus half a cantaloupe that will last thirty seconds. Where's the concentration booth?
Not only that: I hate melon.
4 comments:
The egg on bagel/coffee combo is really a good stick to the ribs deal that can't be beat, I agree. I griped all winter about the 5.50 for a take out soup at gourmet garage. Over six bucks and you're still hungry.
Fast food is cheap and health care is expensive. Sounds like a conspiracy to me!
yup, it's always so much more expensive to eat healthy. *sigh* but i splurge on groceries! aaag. i go to garden of eden where everything is so pretty pretty pretty and pricey but i'm tempted to buy everything. :(
I don't know why i clicked on this particular posting molly, but I did. i've been through the entire value meal thing, but it really wasn't a money thing...it was a binge thing. but i can't believe you used to live in sacramento...i grew up in that hot miserable suburb...you'll have to tell me about your experience...anywhoo, buy 18 eggs like that person said...and scramble em up...sounds less exciting than a value meal and frosty though..
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