THE COMPARISON

The Comparison: Text

Price

A common assumption is that fast food is one of the cheapest food options out there. If you're comparing chains like McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King to other sit-down dining restaurants, the fast food options will be less expensive per dish. But what about home cooked meals? Most people will quickly say that cooking at home will always cost more than picking something up from a fast food restaurant. While it can be more expensive to cook at home, that certainly is not always the case.

$3.99

Big Mac

Prior to tax, one Big Mac costs $3.99. A Big Mac Meal (burger, fries, drink) is $5.99. If a family of four went to McDonalds for Big Macs, they could easily spend $16-24 on their meal.

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<$1.00

Recipes

One serving of each recipe costs less than $1.00 without factoring in tax. If you had to purchase every ingredient from scratch you might end up spending roughly $10-15, but it would yield at least 6 servings.

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Now what do you think is more affordable?
Fast food or cooking these Mediterranean recipes at home?

The Comparison: Infographics

Footprint

While it’s great that my family recipes are affordable, I wanted to guarantee that they had a footprint per serving that was far less damaging to the environment in comparison to a McDonald's Big Mac.

Only the amount of beef (3.2oz) was included in the Big Mac footprint, not the toppings or bun. If those ingredients were to be added, then we can assume that the footprint would be larger. All but one of the recipes fall significantly below the benchmark criteria. Red Lentil Kufte’s water footprint exceeds 35% of that of a Big Mac. Since the burger toppings and bun are not included in the footprint calculation, it is probable that Red Lentil Kufte’s water footprint does fall within the criteria if a Big Mac’s true footprint was used.