Wednesday, November 3, 2010

And we haven't eaten McDonald's since...

Okay so this graphic is tiny here. But check it out full-size and see if it doesn't stop you in your tracks like it did me.
I have never thought I fed my kids much fast food...at all. But we always enjoyed dollar burgers and fries at Burger King on Wednesdays as our "Hump Day" treat. All of us could eat for $6 since we all got dollar burgers, shared an order of fries and drank water. Then this summer I started going through McDonald's drive-thru for dollar breakfast burritos on Sunday mornings on the way to church. I had to be there at 7:30am with all three kids in tow and I could feed the boys for $3.20 ($1 burritos for Thatch and Hadd and $1.19 sausage/biscuit combo for Beck). I know. I know. I should know better. You don't get anything (worthwhile) for free (or even close to it)!

It didn't seem like much because out of 21 meals in a week and 14 snacks only 2 consisted of fast food. That's just barely more than 5%, right? But then when I stop and think that 2 times a week x 52 weeks a year means my kids will eat fast food 104 times a year. And that doesn't count travel, special events, birthday parties and such. It's not crazy to think my kids could be eating fast food 150 times a year. YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was contemplating all this when dh sent me the link to this graphic and we haven't walked in a McDonald's or Burger King since. That's not to say that Chick-Fil-A isn't still on the menu every once and again! ;) Now for our hump day treat we spread out a blanket on our living room floor and have a picnic while we watch an episode of Magic School Bus or Liberty Kids and on Sunday mornings we have breakfast burritos I make the night before. I will choose not to stress if we just have to grab fast food sometime, but at least we will hopefully be eating fast food more like 20 times a year rather than 100 or more!







3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yikes!! Say it isn't so!! We just ate at McDonald's for lunch today :-( I'm going to have dh and ds read that graphic too. I'm so done with McDonald's and fast food in general...so done!! Thank you for this!
~S

z said...

I showed that to my kids and had my 9 year old write a persuasive argument about why we should not eat fast food. It was hysterical - and accurate. I am normally a Sonic iced tea girl - but not since reading about the bacteria!! EEEWWW!!! Thanks so much!!!

Unknown said...

We don't do fast food either. We do have those very limited times when yes, it is in order. But that's maybe once a year. Twice if the kids are feeling lucky. McDonalds we NEVER do. In the past, the way past when my older kids were littler we do them but as time passed, my older kids got older and we replaced them with more children, busy life, nutrition awareness, money, things like that we simply knocked out McDonald's. I think I've heard too many food horror stories! I'm not too afraid of Subway, but all in all fast food scares me!!

Found your blog from well trained mind. Thought I would pop in and meet you!