Is fast food as a business doing well or is fast food dying out, how about vs the chipotle model.

[FrancisK]

Every time I drive past a fast food joint there's a line. I escaped to raise my family in a rural area but in a terrible cruel twist of irony I found that we are not "closer to nature" but rather only have only the crappiest of food available to us. It takes great effort to find good food.

Pretty much everyone defaults to convenience. Which means crap food.

Now this is an interesting topic. So moving to a rural area you have less food choices, less supermarkets, less restaurants and things of that nature. Do the choices in locally grown food options not compensate for it at all? As in there are no farms or small markets/butchers that sell locally raised eggs, dairy, meat and veggies?

 

[Northumber]

Now this is an interesting topic. So moving to a rural area you have less food choices, less supermarkets, less restaurants and things of that nature. Do the choices in locally grown food options not compensate for it at all? As in there are no farms or small markets/butchers that sell locally raised eggs, dairy, meat and veggies?

Have you ever been on a road trip in the middle of nowhere USA and popped into a small town grocery store? It's mostly canned goods and cheap low quality food. The equation with food is simply higher quality will always be more expensive. Where do you find the wealth (usually)? In a city.

I'm in more of a heartland-style rural area (but still near enough to a large city). I'm sure if I were in a wealthy rural area like the Northeast it would be different. But again, wealth.

What we have out here is what salt of-the earth people have been left with. Everything is degraded. People here may work cattle and have farms, but they eat fast food. Most people where I live are obese and in poor health. But they have great hearts, as in, they are very good people. They're just sort of unaware of what food can do.

Yes, there are people I can buy a whole cow from (we do sometimes). But, most see no issue pumping their cattle full of hormones (it's how it's been done- it's become tradition in their mind at this point), There is a butcher (a pretty good one) I can use. But they look at me funny when I request for them not to put in MSG. Agriculture that is here is mostly on the industrial scale. So, the fruits and vegetables are all doused in chemicals and intended to be shipped far away.

We do have chickens. That works well. But with the price of feed I'm not sure it's necessarily cheaper. We a fairly large garden as well. But we've found that it's very expensive and work intensive to maintain it. I think it's just a standard equation of reality. Anything that is higher quality is more expensive. That's just how it is.

So what do we do? It's hilarious but we get most of our food by driving an hour back into the city, past the new Amazon warehouses that now encircle it, and to the Whole Foods with those dystopian biometric hand scanners at the checkout and where the people stunningly still wear masks. Total fail on our part. But, if I'm being positive, it is true if we were locked out of life like we were in 2021, I think we could cobble something together with what we have and with some negotiation with others around us.

 

[FrancisK]

Have you ever been on a road trip in the middle of nowhere USA and popped into a small town grocery store? It's mostly canned goods and cheap low quality food. The equation with food is simply higher quality will always be more expensive. Where do you find the wealth (usually)? In a city.

I'm in more of a heartland-style rural area (but still near enough to a large city). I'm sure if I were in a wealthy rural area like the Northeast it would be different. But again, wealth.

What we have out here is what salt of-the earth people have been left with. Everything is degraded. People here may work cattle and have farms, but they eat fast food. Most people where I live are obese and in poor health. But they have great hearts, as in, they are very good people. They're just sort of unaware of what food can do.

Yes, there are people I can buy a whole cow from (we do sometimes). But, most see no issue pumping their cattle full of hormones (it's how it's been done- it's become tradition in their mind at this point), There is a butcher (a pretty good one) I can use. But they look at me funny when I request for them not to put in MSG. Agriculture that is here is mostly on the industrial scale. So, the fruits and vegetables are all doused in chemicals and intended to be shipped far away.

We do have chickens. That works well. But with the price of feed I'm not sure it's necessarily cheaper. We a fairly large garden as well. But we've found that it's very expensive and work intensive to maintain it. I think it's just a standard equation of reality. Anything that is higher quality is more expensive. That's just how it is.

So what do we do? It's hilarious but we get most of our food by driving an hour back into the city, past the new Amazon warehouses that now encircle it, and to the Whole Foods with those dystopian biometric hand scanners at the checkout and where the people stunningly still wear masks. Total fail on our part. But, if I'm being positive, it is true if we were locked out of life like we were in 2021, I think we could cobble something together with what we have and with some negotiation with others around us.

I kinda already knew the answer to what I asked but I wanted to hear your experience. I live in a very small city, not even sure it's considered a city anymore actually, and I have a friend that lives a couple hours away which is what I envisioned your area is like. She's about 20 minutes away from "town" which consists of a gas station, a very small market, a bar, a dollar store, a pizza joint, a mcdonalds and I believe a subway. She lives on a beautiful property and I love going up to visit her but what you're describing is pretty damn spot on to how she lives as well. All the farms around it are cash crops and just like you she has to drive a long way to get a full grocery list.

I had chickens and as much as their eggs are amazing it's definitely a negative ROI, my family has a large property not far from me or them which is my dads personal playland. He loves farming and those veggies make ANY food taste good but the amount of money and work he puts into it is worse than the chickens.


Don't get me wrong I absolutely think you did the right thing for your family God Bless you for loving them that much that you were willing to provide them a better upbringing even it's not entirely convenient. But it's also pretty wild to think that you have better access to livestock and produce living in a city than you do in the country, i guess it's just the world we live in now. I shared a cow with my friend a few weeks ago we just told the butcher what we wanted done. Next week my uncle is going to be butchering a couple lambs at his restaurant for the crazy boater Christmas dishes. We have multiple farmers market in the warmer months and most of it is a scam but some people actually do come out and sell their home grown veggies, I'm probably only 20 minutes away from being in total farmland. Being single the being in a quiet little "city" is fine for now but when I'm married I would definitely follow what you did, although here in Michigan like I said you can go 20 minutes out and be in the country.

You absolutely did not fail brother, you did well God bless you and yours.