Salad vs. Burger: And the loser is...

Why does a salad cost twice as much as a burger?

Seriously.

Why?

I'm asking.

I'm not just talking about some foo foo salad at a fancy restaurant either. I'm talking iceberg lettuce, dry carrot strips and a squishy cherry tomato. If I made that at home - 25 cents? Heck, even with retail costs I'm guessing it could be done for no more then 12 cents. But at some fast food place they think they're being nice by putting it on the 99 cent menu. Showing that they have gone healthy. (See folks, fast food isn't bad for you - we have salads!) Ya know what else is on that 99 cent menu? A bacon double cheese burger. A quarter pound double stack. A southwest barbecue burger. The list gets bigger every day.

I can't make a quarter pound double cheese burger for 12 cents. Beef is expensive. Farmers have to buy the seed to grow barley and hay and grass and whatever else cows eat. They have to pay for someone to harvest it. Farmers have to pay to grow the cows. Manufacturing plants have to pay their workers to... um... make the animal a food product that no longer vividly resembles an animal. Truckers have to load and deliver - paying more and more for the gas. Then there are most likely half a dozen middle men before it actually gets to market somewhere in between all that. Then what? After all those folks have been paid and have had to pay, Fast Food Buyer A gets their product. Then they have to pay for it to go through some processing plant to put it into perfectly sized patties. Saves time, costs money. Then those perfectly shaped patties are boxed and sent via all sorts of shipping methods (which do not run cheap for heavy frozen items) to get them to Fast Food Store A. Now what all that is happening, someone is doing the same thing with the wheat that makes the bun, and even the companies cranking out that special sauce. None of it's natural - and it takes a lot of work.

So how is that hamburger equal in cost on the Dollar Menu to rapidly browning iceberg lettuce?

The lust for beef money ruins rain forests. In High School I remember learning how many acres of the rain forest had been destroyed by McDonald's alone as some of those farmers were expanding their farms as beef sold at such a high price - but those dang trees were getting in the way of their fields.

The drive for heartier beef leads good hearted farmers to make decisions they would rather not do including smaller areas, hormones and anything else that he hears might help him to get an extra $1 per head for his heard.

The craving for beef is enough that even when folks know they shouldn't eat it, they order it in massive quantities. McDonald's Triple Cheeseburger. Burger King's Quad Stacker. Ordering 10-20 White Castles. We do it because we can. Because it tastes good. We know it's not good for us, we know we're hurting ourselves. But....

A burger costs as much as an iceberg lettuce salad. Costs just as much, but won't leave you hungry when you're done. When you're hungry, which one feels like the better value? It's just not a fair game they're playing.

And before you walk away - want fries with that?