In our previous blog post, we had Dr. Mark Fusco, a bariatric surgeon whose nutritional research has been published in several scientific journals, weigh in (no pun intended) on his thoughts with regards to the above image. Today we are happy to welcome Marina Delio to our panel for a short Q and A.
Marina Delio is the mother of 2 small children and writer of the food blog YummyMummyKitchen.com. She is also the author of the cookbook, The Yummy Mummy Kitchen, which will be released by HarperOne in Spring 2013.
- What is your initial reaction when you see this image?
When I first saw this image I was thrilled. I’m all for promoting real food over fast food and I loved seeing the visual of the cost difference. It’s easy to assume fast food is less expensive than home cooked meals, so I was happy to see the opposite clearly displayed in this image.
- Is this an accurate comparison?
I think that generally this is an accurate comparison. However, if the highest quality ingredients were used in the home cooked meals, I believe the total cost would be higher. For example, the whole chicken in the image costs $5.96, but a whole organic free-range chicken can cost around $15. Even with more expensive ingredients I think the big picture is correct – fast food is more expensive than many home cooked meals. Of course the cost to one’s health from eating poorly makes fast food even more expensive than this image can show. Homemade dinners have the added benefit of leftovers – saving even more money the next day. A big pot of chili or lasagna easily lasts two days in our house.
- What would you want people to take away from this image?
I would hope people would see this image and realize that they can easily make family dinners that are less expensive than fast food.
Thank you Marina for participating and for sharing your valuable insight and we are really excited for your new cookbook to be released! Up next, Robyn McCord O’Brien, a former food industry analyst and author of The Unhealthy Truth.
