It’s a good thing for me that people here aren’t so nosy about what one eats. If I got crap from my co-workers for eating at, say, MickeyD’s, I’d start eating there every day just to tick them off.
But Memphis is the national capital for unhealthy eating. Hospitalized, and dreading that hospital food? No problem, my friend–several well regarded barbecue joints here will deliver ribs, pulled pork, and all the sides right to your room!
Cheers,
bcg
Taco Bell.
Every Monday.
I tend to always get the same thing, but it cycles. So currently, I’m on: Mexican Pizza minus beef, add guac and sour cream on the side. Medium diet Coke. Drive thru. I pitch a fit if there’s beef in it.
I love fast food, but rarely eat it anymore. I love Big Macs. The BK chicken sandwich and the Big fish are classics, and the sausage Crossainwich is an old favorite. I love almost anything from Taco Bell, and would eat there several times a week, if I could. White Castles, yum. Wendy’s double cheeseburger with ketchup & onions. Hardee’s breakfast sandwiches. Ohhh, I miss fast food, but it gets too expensive now because all of my kids want some too.
When my husband and I first met, he thought I was a real food snob, because of how I cook at home and how carefully I watched nutrition and ingredients. Then he pulled into McDonald’s one time while we were on a road trip, and half-asleep, I mumbled to him, “Number 1 with a diet.” Yes, I have the value meals memorized. He was shocked.
May I recommend:
BK Veggie burger, add lettuce, tomato, cheese, pickles, onions, ketchup, hold the mayo.
Taco Bell’s 7 Layer burrito is also vegetarian, straight off the menu. But not what I’d call healthy.
There is a bit of fast food shame here in SF. Especially for Taco Bell, since there are amazing taquerias all over the place. The two exceptions are In N Out (for obvious reasons) and less acceptably, DelTaco, which is rare in the Bay Area.
There’s a Taco Bell/KFC directly between my house and a bar I frequent, and I like to brag that I’ve never been there in all these years I’ve been going to that bar. What I don’t say is that if it were any one of the burger chains, I’d be there damn near every time I went to that bar.
But generally, there’s so much good, cheap food in my immediate area, it’s more convenient to get “real” food if nothing else. It’d be like getting Sbarros in Chicago or New York, why would you? Though I will say, when I had a car, a hungover trip to the drive-thru McDonalds was fairly standard. I wasn’t proud, but dammit, sometimes a man needs a sack of $1 cheeseburgers.
Pizza? Once a month or so. Kebab? Once every week or two.
Typically a bucket of chicken twice a month. When my wife and I go grocery shopping the trip is usually an hour and a half, then we’re looking at an hour minimum to put the food away (I have three teen aged sons). Our collective feeling is “damn if I’m cooking”. Other than that maybe a burger joint once a month I’m partial to Carls Jr. and Burger King, my wife In N Out, the kids Hot and Greasy if that can be called a preference.
That is exactly what I thought when I see the tossed aside bags of McD’s/bk or subway on the road leading into my neighborhood. Someone is ashamed of their habit and has to hide the evidence by tossing it out of the car. It is really the only litter I see when walking, the discarded fastfood bags tossed out at the corner.
If this is true I have to wonder why there is shame in being seen eating fast food, but no shame in throwing the remains to the road?
I don’t. My hope is that at some point in kindergarten some kid will mention McDonald’s to my child and she’ll say “Huh?”
I will then tell her about the back room at McDonalds where the bad kids go into the wood chipper (so as to get the most motivational impact from the story).
ETA: Just read the thread–I eat at Subway, but nowhere else.
Dude, www.peapod.com will change your life.
I eat fast food, but not so much because I love it as because the healthy or restaurant-prepared food I’d rather be eating tends to cost much more.
It’s much more fun when you say it out loud. 
I eat Chic-Fil-A and subs from a local shop a lot. No guilty feeling here. Sometimes Wendys on the way home from work, but that is rare.
I can totally understand that motivation.
Forgot about fried chicken, mostly because that’s a once three times a year for me thing (I eat a lot of chicken, but mostly grilled or stir-fried). Every several months I’ll get an urge for fried chicken, mostly because my mother used to serve it a lot when I was a kid, and I really don’t have the skills or motivation to make it myself.
Cheers,
bcg
A lot of this is my answer, too. I used to have about 3 Wendy’s Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers a week, and fast food was an after church regular event. I still eat fast food fairly often, once a week or so, but not as much in one sitting as I used to. I used to partake of Taco Bell’s fare, too but never feel great after I’ve eaten there.
The Wendy’s locally have awful service, aren’t clean, and the food despite having taken forever to get to me seems to have been sitting…bleah. There is a range in the quality of local McDonaldses, and the last time I was in the nearest BK someone pulled a gun (didn’t draw it…pulled his jacket back and put his hand on it, but it stayed in his waistband. It rattled me and my kid).
I guess the real difference is that I used to eat it mainly for the convenience and price. Now I eat it when I feel like “hmmmm I could really go for a cheeseburger”.
I wish. I’m in California.
I like fast food. I eat fast food. But only rarely. And now you guys have me craving McD’s. But that’s okay–I already have plans to go to Olive Garden for lunch and have the soup, salad and breadsticks. That’ll keep me out of McD’s.
I like fast food. I eat it all the time. I even like Chinese fast food at Panda Express. And no, I’m not fat.
I eat it much less than I used to mainly because my middle-aged metabolism isn’t as efficient as it once was. But on the occasions that I do indulge, it doesn’t occur to me to feel any shame. I do try to avoid bringing it back to the office, as I get mighty sick of hearing every other schmuck say “oooooh, that smells good”. Mostly I have McDonald’s hotcakes and sausage on the weekend and I have no problem telling the boyfriend to fucko off when he mocks me for it.
I like fast food. From Taco Bell to Long John Silvers, I have a cast iron stomach and no shame. The only place I can think of that I can’t stand is KFC. How you can screw up fried chicken that bad, I’ll never understand.
I do like to cook and would usually rather have an actual nice meal; but if I’m hungry, in a hurry, and it’s available I’ll eat it and enjoy it.