So, I’m in Taunton Dean services. Feeling a little peckish.
I go to check out the sandwiches.
£4.39 for a chicken salad sandwich.
I check out the salads. Over £5 for a Ploughman’s.
And there, in the corner, is the Golden Arches of a fast food giant with a creepy clown as their mascot beckoning me over to sample their menu of wallet friendly but heart attack inducing fast food.
And so I peruse the giant touch screen, two metres away from my equally hungry mask wearing citizens of this Covid dystopian world in which we now live in.
I press the tab for the burgers.
And there, jumping at me is a bacon double cheese burger.
It’s 495 calories.
A quarter of the average males daily intake.
But it’s only £1.99.
But I’m not average.
I’m waaaaay to short to find my self in that category.
But still, I order two.
Boom. 990 calories.
But it’s ok.
Cuz it was only £3.98.
A friggin bargain when you compare it to the salad.
Food ordered.
Card swiped.
And I wait for the young lady with the nice eyes to call my number.
It wasn’t the number I was hoping she’d call.
But I approached and she handed over my prize in a brown paper bag.
We made eye contact.
We spoke.
But I haven’t got a clue what she said due to the hum of the services and the fact that she was wearing her best Ninja mask.
And so.
I shuffle off with my brown paper bag, like some meth addict and I sit and eat.
Surrounded, but at a distance, by the purple haired ladies on their coach trip to Devon.
And just like that all to brief interaction with my little Ninja at the serving counter, it was over.
I’d consumed 990 calories in a couple of moments.
And then I realise, although I’ve always known, that no wonder the nations health is in tatters when you can get two greasy burgers for less than the price of a salad.
It’s not that people don’t want to eat healthy.
It’s not that people don’t know how to eat healthy.
It’s a simple case of economics.
Put simply, it’s often too friggin expensive, especially for low income families, to eat healthy.
And unless there is something done to address this, the country will role from one health crisis to another.
MK
