this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2025
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Today I went to burger king for the first time in years. It was even worse than I remembered it. (had the vegetarian option, don't know if it's as bad with the meat burgers) Additionally it's fucking expensive and not as quick as it used to be. So my question is why do some people go there regulary?

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[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What is your definition of food? Because it certainly fits mine and the dictionary's.

[–] enbyecho@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

any nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink or that plants absorb in order to maintain life and growth

Fast food in general is neither nutritious nor does it particularly maintain life and growth. Arguably it does the opposite.

Mainly fast food is a profit center for the industrialized food chain. It's designed to maximize the extractable value from cheap raw ingredients through extensive processing and to provide a sustainable revenue stream for large corporations by fucking with your body's natural taste and diet control mechanisms.

If you want good food fast then you are far better making it yourself or if you are not able to do that, finding a taco truck or similar independent vendor who does not rely on highly processed crap disguised as "food". In many parts of the world street vendors are common and personally I want to encourage that as much as possible.

People want to make my comments out to be some kind of elitist blah blah whatever when in fact they are the opposite. My desire is to strongly encourage people to maintain their food independence and health and to stop supporting huge corporations out of convenience and ignorance.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

any nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink or that plants absorb in order to maintain life and growth

By that definition Burger King is food, you can survive on it and gain enough nutritional value to allow you to grow.

Fast food in general is neither nutritious nor does it particularly maintain life and growth. Arguably it does the opposite.

It's not as nutritious as home made cooking, but claiming it has no nutrition is factually inaccurate.

I'm not saying it is good for you, or that you can survive eating only whoppers (but you also can't survive eating the same salad over and over so it's a moot point). But by any definition of the word Burger King and other fast foods are food, extremely calorically dense and filled to the brim with saturated fat food.

[–] enbyecho@lemmy.world 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

By that definition Burger King is food, you can survive on it and gain enough nutritional value to allow you to grow.

Technically, dirt contains some nutritional value. So yeah, you are correct that fast food does contain some nutrition. Eating a diet of strictly potatoes will, technically, allow you to "grow" but like industrial fast food, will come with adverse health consequences. So the question isn't if it technically has some amount of nutritional value but whether it's actually good for you. Does the "food" allow you to maintain life and grow to a degree consistent with the average seems to me to be a reasonable definition.

A diet with a lot of fast food is nutritionally poor and full of many things such as sugar, salt, and saturated fats that cause long-term adverse health consequences. It's been linked to everything from a lower capacity for memory and learning to diabetes, heart disease and of course obesity.

There is simply no way that you can say that fast food is "good" for you or that it should be eaten routinely. Making the clear distinction that fast "food" is not food to the same degree as a healthful diet is one of the best things you can do for community health.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I never said it's healthy or that someone should eat it regularly, so that's a strawman. But it is still food, with much higher nutritional value than dirt, and it can definitely sustain you, which you yourself admitted, so by that same definition you gave fast food is food.

[–] enbyecho@lemmy.world 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Define "sustain".

You are reading a lot into my words in order to try to be right about a quibbling little thing and frankly it's annoying.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

If you're stuck in an island for years where the only thing you have to eat is fast food you will survive therefore food. The same cannot be said for dirt.

[–] enbyecho@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

LOL. What was that you were saying about a strawman?

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You asked for a definition of sustain, I gave you a concrete example of what I would use to qualify things as providing sustenance, or indeed qualifying as food. Which is why I qualify fast food as food, you on the other hand do not, so perhaps you should define sustain instead of asking for my definition.

[–] enbyecho@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Nope. You shifted your goal posts and are determined to be "right" at any costs. You don't even have an actual point to make.

Good bye.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

I never shifted my goals, from the beginning I'm calling you out on saying fast food is not food, you're the one who used dirt as a counter example of things that are clearly not food yet would, according to you, fit the definition of food. I'm giving you an example that clearly exemplifies why fast food sustains you, and is therefore food, but dirt doesn't. If you weren't babbling on and on trying to throw as many arguments as possible to try to evade from the simple fact that you haven't even given a food definition that doesn't include fast food you might see the point that by any meaningful definition of the word (including the one you gave) fast food is food.