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McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

latimes.com

231–240 of 611 posts

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is unusual to see young people make the choices to not turn into patients. It costs very little to eat mostly lentils/legumes/nuts/yogurt/vegetables, and drink mostly water without carbs dissolved in it, but no business is going to survive selling those things.

Its worth noting that you don't need to avoid meat if the goal is to avoid being a pharmaceutical patient.

Meat is more expensive though and GP was talking about a low cost healthy diet.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally... No they are not. My middle school daughter says many of her friends just eat ramen packets every night.

So even crappier food. The people have to be blamed for this at some point. Lower income Indian and East Asian families cook fresh food every night that probably costs less than $0.50 a plate. Beans, lentils, rice, eggs, pork and chicken can take you very far.

That same pattern of the poor eating instant noodles is true in Asia as well.

The origin of a number of those products is US food aid. Governments in the 60s and 70s set up facilities to convert the wheat they were getting into a product people would eat.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least from my perspective, COVID broke everything. People are more awful, quality is more awful, and prices are way up. I dread even eating out anymore as I fully expect to overpay for bad food and service. There's an argument to be made that inflation is ultimately the driver of all three complaints, but boy did that all happen seemingly overnight.

Absolutely. I feel bad for young people growing up in this broken world. They will never even know what was taken from them. I realize that I’m probably going to get dogpiled for saying it, but I think that the response to COVID (ie lockdowns) did far more damage than the disease itself.

> I think that the response to COVID (ie lockdowns) did far more damage than the disease itself.

Possibly true in some places. I think it very likely did in the UK.

> I feel bad for young people growing up in this broken world

The world has always been broken. Look at the 20th Century, two world wars, multiple smaller wars, Gulag, great leap forward, cold war, genocides.....

In many ways the world is better than its ever been.

What is true is that the golden age the west had from the end of the cold war until the early 21st century has come to a close, but that was an exceptional time for people in a small proportion of the world.

Like the username. Nice reference.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#234
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least from my perspective, COVID broke everything. People are more awful, quality is more awful, and prices are way up. I dread even eating out anymore as I fully expect to overpay for bad food and service. There's an argument to be made that inflation is ultimately the driver of all three complaints, but boy did that all happen seemingly overnight.

The secret is to eat out less often and spend more when you do. Service is fantastic still at higher end restaurants.

Probably varies where you are, but in the UK (especially outside London) there are lots of places you can have reasonably good food an service at a decent price. A lot of pubs with good food now, for example.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least from my perspective, COVID broke everything. People are more awful, quality is more awful, and prices are way up. I dread even eating out anymore as I fully expect to overpay for bad food and service. There's an argument to be made that inflation is ultimately the driver of all three complaints, but boy did that all happen seemingly overnight.

Absolutely. I feel bad for young people growing up in this broken world. They will never even know what was taken from them. I realize that I’m probably going to get dogpiled for saying it, but I think that the response to COVID (ie lockdowns) did far more damage than the disease itself.

I don't understand why people still blame the lockdowns. When the lockdowns started, it was unknown how dangerous Covid actually was. It could have killed 20%, or reduced lifespan by 30%, or something. Nobody knew. It takes 20/20 hindsight to blame lockdowns for what was a generational catastrophe. It's like blaming shelter in place requirements instead of the bombing of the reich.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#236
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem for me is that I can't eat a lot of rice due to digestive issues with it--it just backs me up like glue even when I drink tons of water. I don't think rice is a very good type of food, honestly. Beans are fine, good fiber and protein. Rice, nah.

Does this happen with Jasmine rice? If no: check for MTHFR gene mutation. American rice is often washed in folic acid - don’t ask me why - and that’s toxic to MTHFR mutated individuals.

The folic acid helps prevent certain complications early on in pregnancy.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. I feel bad for young people growing up in this broken world. They will never even know what was taken from them. I realize that I’m probably going to get dogpiled for saying it, but I think that the response to COVID (ie lockdowns) did far more damage than the disease itself.

I don't understand why people still blame the lockdowns. When the lockdowns started, it was unknown how dangerous Covid actually was. It could have killed 20%, or reduced lifespan by 30%, or something. Nobody knew. It takes 20/20 hindsight to blame lockdowns for what was a generational catastrophe. It's like blaming shelter in place requirements instead of the bombing of the reich.

Nobody knew, that is true. But not everyone was in agreement, it only seemed that way because dissenting voices were silenced. Do some research and you’ll find that there were plenty of people predicting bad outcomes from the lockdowns. I was not one of them, but they exist for sure.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#239

I can only speak for the UK but for quite a while now, McD's has become an uninviting experience, with miserable staff, menu screens that visibly tell you to hurry the f*k up and choose the product. Not to mention customers vying with delivery drivers for orders. I think the problem applies to all-income customers.

Here in Spain i have had only good experiences and i love sometimes going to McDonald!

Here in Japan I have only had good experiences, but I can't say I love going to McDonalds. The breakfast offerings are decent and it's extremely fast service. During peak times seats will be around 95 percent full but the restaurant remains very clean. I think the cleanliness in part is due to the patrons being responsible.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least from my perspective, COVID broke everything. People are more awful, quality is more awful, and prices are way up. I dread even eating out anymore as I fully expect to overpay for bad food and service. There's an argument to be made that inflation is ultimately the driver of all three complaints, but boy did that all happen seemingly overnight.

A packet of crisps is now $4, yes they are fancy gourmet but they were three last year, it’s just insane . Next year they will be $5 I guess?

Blame the spud monopoly for that one.

I wish I was joking.

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