Posted by Janet Harriett on Feb.18, 2010

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In the movie Food, Inc., there is a scene of a family going through a fast-food drive-thru, spending somewhere around $12 for a meal for the four of them. The family laments that, even though they know that the food they get through the car window is causing major health problems, the fast food is cheap, and, well, fast. It’s what they can afford, and what they have time for. The family is busy and doesn’t have time to cook.

The next scene shows the family shopping in a supermarket, demonstrating just how high the costs of fresh produce are, to prove that families are priced out of healthy eating. But how cheap is this fast food, really? Setting aside the related costs of the health problems that come from eating a diet heavy on fast food, purely in dollars, how much does it really save to eat through the drive-thru?

How Cheap Is Fast Food?

Green Diva Mom has broken down a few common fast food meals into their component ingredients to see how much more expensive it is to make them at home. The prices are from an actual Kroger store in central Ohio, but may be less than some higher-priced areas. We’ve also estimated the time it takes to make the meals. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that most fast food can be made cheaper and healthier at home, and that the prep time isn’t really onerous.

Burgers & Fries

Fast Food: Quarter pound burger, large fry (prices vary by outlet)
Homemade: Burgers using 1/4 pound ground beef and 1 whole wheat bun. Baked fries made from fresh potatoes.
Cost Breakdown: At $1.29 for an 8-pack, burger buns cost about 16 cents apiece. Beef is the most expensive part of this, and using the lean 90/10 ground sirloin, at $4.99 a pound, each quarter pound patty is about $1.25. The 80/20 ground chuck, with a higher percentage of fat that cooks out of the burger, is less expensive at $3.49 a pound, or 87 cents per patty. Depending on the grade of beef, a homemade burger costs anywhere from $1 to $1.50, not including a few cents per burger for condiments. Cheeseburgers add about 25 cents to the cost. For fries, an 8-pound bag of russet potatoes, priced at $3.99, contains approximately 13 potatoes each, making the cost per potato or serving of fries about 31 cents.
Time: To make oven-baked fries, simply cut the potatoes into strips or wedges and toss with a small amount of oil, then bake. Oven baked fries take less than 10 minutes to prepare and about 30 minutes to bake. Burger patties cook in 5-10 minutes in a skillet or countertop grill.

Nachos

Fast Food: Taco Bell Nachos (89 cents)
Homemade: Quesadilla with natural cheese and whole wheat tortilla.
Cost Breakdown: A package of 8 burrito-size store-brand whole wheat tortillas cost $1.29, or 16 cents per tortilla. A one-pound brick or bag of pre-shredded natural cheddar cheese costs $3.99, or 25 cents per ounce. Total cost of ingredients for 8 cheese quesadillas containing 2 ounces cheese and 1 whole wheat tortillas is $5.28, or 66 cents per quesadilla.
Time: Assemble and heat the quesadillas in about 10 minutes.

Burritos

Fast Food: Taco Bell Bean Burrito (99 cents)
Homemade: Beans and cheese burrito with whole wheat tortilla, pinto beans, cheddar cheese and salsa.
Cost breakdown: Ingredients to make 8 burritos, each made of 3 tablespoons salsa, 1 ounce cheese and just under 1 cup beans, costs $6.86, about 86 cents per burrito. A $1.59 bag of dried beans makes about 13 half-cup servings of cooked beans.An 8-ounce brick or bag of pre-shredded natural cheddar cheese costs $1.99. A package of 8 burrito-size store-brand whole wheat tortillas cost $1.29, or 16 cents per tortilla. A 12-serving bottle of salsa costs $1.99.
Time: If you cook dry beans in the crock pot, they have about 5 minutes of active prep time and 3 hours of cook time, which can be done ahead of time. On a stovetop, soaked beans cook in about an hour, and cooked beans keep well in the refrigerator for several days. Estimated heating and assembly time once the beans are cooked is 15 minutes.

Roasted Chicken

Fast Food: $5 Favorite Boston Market 1/4 chicken with 1 side
Homemade: Roast chicken and baked potatoes
Cost Breakdown: Even with a $4.99 deli rotisserie chicken, chicken and potatoes can be had for less than $6.50 for the entire family. Roast your own chicken, and the price for the meal can be even less expensive, with an average roasting chicken weighing in at 4 pounds and costing less than a dollar a pound.
Time: If you’re cooking your own chicken, this isn’t a meal for a busy weeknight. A 4-pound chicken, about the average weight for a processed chicken, takes about an hour and a half in the oven, and baked potatoes go for an hour in the oven. You can microwave “baked” potatoes for 10 minutes apiece, but when the microwave cooking time is multiplied for a whole family’s worth of potatoes, the time savings for microwaving is minimal.

Spaghetti

Fast: Fazoli’s Spaghetti
Homemade: Whole wheat pasta topped with low-sodium spaghetti sauce
Cost Breakdown: One pound of whole wheat spaghetti noodles costs $1.29 and a jar of no-sugar-added prepared pasta sauce costs $1.99. Together, these will make plates of pasta for a family of 4, at a cost of 3.98 total, or about a dollar a plate.
Time: Cooking the noodles and heating the sauce takes 15-20 minutes

The Supposedly High Cost of Produce

What then, of the scene in the produce section of the supermarket, with the family comparing the costs of fresh veggies to the costs of processed foods? It’s taken as a given that subsidies for corn, soy and wheat crops make the highly processed foods the cheapest calories in the supermarket, but that overlooks the factor of satiety. Sure, you can buy 1,000 calories of Pringles for a lot less than you can buy 1,000 calories of pears. However, 1,000 calories of pears is 3.8 pounds of fruit (approximately 9 large pears), while 1,000 calories of Pringles is about 6 ounces, less than one can.

• A large apple is about half a pound. At $1.69 a pound, an apple costs about 85 cents and provides 2 servings of fruit.
• A large banana also weighs about half a pound, so at 49 cents a pound, a single banana costs about a quarter.
• Kale contains about 6 servings per pound. At $1.49 a pound, that’s 25 cents a serving.
• Carrots regularly sell for about 79 cents for a one-pound bag, which contains eight 2-ounce servings that cost just a dime apiece. Even if you went for the bagged baby carrots at $1.50 a pound, that’s still only 19 cents a serving.
• Russet potatoes, one of the most versatile occupants of the produce section, are available year-round at a cost of around $4 for an 8-pound bag. That’s not much more expensive than an 8-ounce bag of potato chips, and by weight, 16 times as much food.

Those are only the vegetables that are generally available at a steady price year-round. Seasonal fruits and vegetables are often found even more inexpensively than these perennial options. Buying fresh produce out of season can bust a grocery budget quickly, but basic, healthy produce isn’t really more expensive than prepared convenience snack foods when you compare the volume of food you get in a pound, and the long-term satiety the food provides. Twinkies are 30 cents each ($3 for a 10-cake box at Wal-Mart), making them more expensive than a banana compared serving-to-serving. If a person were to eat the 1,000 calories of pears all in one sitting, you can bet they won’t be back for seconds until long after the person eating the 1,000 calories of Pringles hits the fridge again.

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Posted under Living, Money Savers, Nutrition.