McDonald's - The Bad Kind of Good

Over the course of the last summer, I had a job that involved getting up at five, driving a lot, and working outdoors. Working ten to twelve hour days is great for saving up money for school, but after months of this your desire to cook your own food falls at approximately the same rate as your standard of what constitutes “food”. At the beginning of summer I only ate fast food every other week or so, but three months in I was eating it three or four times a week. Once I realized how expensive that was, I started looking for cheaper fast food, and that led me to McDonald's. I hadn’t purchased McDonald's food for myself since high school, but laziness eventually wins over quality.

Now, McDonald's isn’t very good. In fact, it’s probably the lowest grade fast food you can possibly buy. But it’s the cheapest, bar none. So even though I was full of the shame of eating this food substitute, I at least knew that I wasn’t spending as much as I could have been. Sort of like if you’re going to drink anti-freeze, just buy the no-name brand because you’re drinking anti-freeze. Why are you drinking no-name anti-freeze? Probably a series of bad decisions, but you had to drink SOMETHING and at least you’re saving a buck.

I went through a few of the meals, but my go-to combo was simply buying two double cheeseburgers, extra pickles. This went on for a time, until one day a co-worker informed me that the McDouble was just a double cheeseburger with one less cheese slice, for cheaper. Intrigued, I switched to the McDouble meal and didn’t notice a decrease in taste or self depreciation, so I stayed with it. I’m done with that summer job and done with McDonald's but recently I decided to compare the difference between the Double Cheeseburger and the McDouble, just to be sure.

Okay okay, I was craving a late night burger run a few weeks ago and decided to make a blog post out of it to justify my hideous cravings.

Size:

Virtually the same height. Burger components:

Both subjects have extra pickles. Otherwise, the Double Cheeseburger is just a McDouble with one extra slice of cheese. A McDouble is $1.29 CND and a Double Cheeseburger is $1.69 CND. So for forty cents you get a cheese slice. But what’s this? You demand more science!? Well then, let’s take a look at the nutrition facts:

So they’re almost the same serving size and everything. There you have it. So if anybody out there is young and crazy enough or old and depressed enough to still eat at McDonald's, go for the McDouble instead of the Double Cheeseburger.

BONUS ROUND!

Feeling like a late night burger run after reading this? Well, here’s how I finally kicked my McDonald's habit. Last week I was driving into town after spending five hours on the road and I was hankering for some cheap, salty, greasy, burgers, and as luck would have it the first place I saw coming into Edmonton was McDonald's. I pulled in, ordered a 1/4 pounder meal, and began inhaling it. I was so hungry that I didn’t notice the burger was chewy, pink, and lukewarm until I was halfway done it. My stomach turned a little but, and I thought about taking it back for a new one. But you know what?

Dramatic pause.

I was so hungry that I just finished it. The whole, gooey, disgusting pink burger. So now every time I get a McDonald's craving I think back to that half cooked 1/4 pounder and the stringy texture of it in my mouth, and the craving slowly fades away.