I gave up on McDonalds about 20 years ago. Wasn’t very good at that time. I’ve been told it got worse
this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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No, it's not but people have formed really strong opinions about it online since it became expensive.
They have some good chicken sandwiches and the burgers are ok. If you are hungry and traveling it serves food fast.
It doesn't taste as good as it used to so my kids won't eat it anymore. Which is good because it's gotten expensive enough to go to a diner instead.
Still it's fine. It's never been better than fine.
Whenever I have it it now tastes like slop compared to what else I can get for the same value. I think they're overvaluing their offering. Wendies, a&w, burger king, and others are in the same ballpark price and their burgers are superior imo.
Wendys near here is 20-40% more. I liked them for the salads but simply couldn't afford them .
Last I checked a Dave's single combo at Wendy's was around $10.50 and a quarter pounder combo was around $15.
I could be wrong though. I just remember being shocked at the price when I got to the window.
Edit: CAD $
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I find Wendy's and BK are less consistent than McDonald's. McDonald's isn't the best but I can stop at one anywhere in the US on a road trip and receive the same quality. The Wendy's near me is fantastic, the BK is awful - but I have encountered the reverse while traveling.
As far as McDonald's pricing, I think they're trying to drive everyone to the app. The have good deals in the app and if you're not using those deals I feel like you're choosing to pay 20% to 100% more. The also are realizing people who refuse to install restaurant apps have dropped off their spending because of the inflated regular prices, so they're finally putting a few "value" options back on their menus, starting just this month.
Big Macs used to be cheap. Now you can go to the Taqueria and get a meal for cheaper
It's possible to eat reasonably healthy at McDonald's or other fast food restaurants. But a lot of people are going to add fries and a sugary drink, or even a milkshake, exploding the calories to unreasonably high amounts. If you just have it every now and then, whatever, it's not going to kill you. I used to eat McDonald's a lot when I was younger and it was actually cheap. Their prices are so ridiculous now that you may as well just buy something that actually tastes good instead.
The fries are great. I will defend them wholeheartedly.
Everything else leaves a lot to be desired in terms of nutrition, flavour and cost.
In my experience, the fries are great for five whole minutes before they turn into soggy cardboard and broken dreams
It's a pretty good five minutes though
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Pretty much all fast food here is absolute trash and insanely expensive.
McDonalds beef makes me sick every single time. It doesn't matter which McDonalds I go to or in which state, it's a widespread problem with their food.
If I eat any of their beef, I'm guaranteed to spend the next two or three days vomiting and sitting on the toilet. Sometimes both at the same time.
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It's bad in the same way cigarettes are bad. It's not good for you, but it's tasty on the way down (though this varies by location and one's taste). At the end of the day, it's wildly popular for a reason.
Personally, I prefer Rally's or Culver's. Neither are much better for you, but they're better than McD's.
Whenever I don't bring my lunch to work my only options are gas station food or McDonald's. Every time I go to McDonalds I get a cold meat patty on a hard bun, with the cheese somewhere on the side. The limp undercooked fries and bland nuggets that have the consistency of playdough.
I go to the gas station without hesitation.
McDonald's is franchised to a whole bunch of individual owners in the United States. This is why you get such varying quality reports. Some franchisees are better at making the food tasty than others.
For example with French fries: to get good fries you have to keep the fryers at the right temperature, change the oil pretty regularly, and get the right amount of salt on the fries right when they come out. A bad franchisee will skimp on the oil changes, not fix the fryer thermostat, and he won't care what the 16 year old does with the salt
One thing that McDonald's is really good at with their franchise rules is food safety. It is quite rare for anyone to actually get food poisoning from McDonald's. Probably rarer than many fine dining places where a lot more people touch your food, and they use a lot of manual cooking processes.
food safety is unironically the one thing that mcdonalds does extremely well. Mere limp fries and stale nuggets won't get the whole business shut down.
This is how I feel about fast food in general.
They are only good for exceptional situations, like needing to stretch rations so you don't eat into the food at home so okay you go to a fast food restaurant instead.
No menu item at all is healthy but people conveniently ignore that. Regardless of the many programs and attempts all fast-food chains have tried to be healthy, they just practice wrong because they're still in environments surrounded by grease, fried cooking oil and processed pre-bought items.
They should not be treated like you would at a sit-down restaurant that actually has waitresses/waiters, chefs .etc
They're good for eating at very moderate and scarce amounts. Not a weekly or daily consumption level.
The prices don't justify the quality.
I largely agree with what your saying that fast food should be saved for travel or times where the time/convenience is necessary, but can you go into your rationing example? I'm having trouble visualizing a situation where I would need to ration the food I have at home and instead of replenishing it would buy more expensive fast food meals.
All my aussie friends who've been to the US mentioned the fast food there is really gross and the portions are concerning. Food quality difference maybe, I'm not sure
"It tastes good so it must be OK"
Big brain time
It's definitely a gut bomb.
Consider not doing that to your body on a regular basis.
People do go every weekend. And don't forget Uber eats delivery during the week.