• HAL_9_TRILLION@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 months ago

        You can buy 10 of them for less than McDonalds’ price for 1 ($3.42 versus $3.49).

        Put one in an air fryer for 12 minutes at 350. What comes out is indistinguishable from the McDonalds version.

        If you don’t have an air fryer, they can be had at Goodwill all day every day for around ten bucks.

        • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          I guess you could do that… OR you could do an hour of grueling work and have your boss give you two of them.

        • zip@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          3 months ago

          Have you by any chance commented something like this before? Somebody did, and I tried it, and the results were delicious! Thank you for spreading the word.

          I don’t think they’re indistinguishable from the McDonald’s version, but they’re extremely close! I like to have them with some of those frozen sausage biscuits (Tennessee Pride are by far my favorite ones, and the closest to McDonald’s’ I’ve found) and some orange juice; it hits the spot and satisfies that craving for what used to be a nice and cheap little drive-through breakfast treat.

          I have a very difficult time finding foods that I can access and afford, easily make despite my disabilities, can stomach and keep down with my weird health issues, and actually enjoy - and you helped me find something that fits the ticket AND also helps satisfy that specific craving that I’ve been missing quite a bit. Thank you so very much!! I sincerely appreciate it! 💖

          • HAL_9_TRILLION@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            3 months ago

            I don’t honestly know if I’ve commented it before, but it sounds like something I would do! :) I’ve been a fan of them for a long time. 👍

        • MyNamesNotRobert@lemmynsfw.com
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          3 months ago

          They’re not exactly the same but they’re close. I find frying loose hashbrowns on a skillet in a pancake shape with lots of vegetable oil is a little closer to the authentic mcdonalds taste but that of course depends on which ones you use. If done correctly you can make it into a mashed disc pancake like shape that holds together so you can eat it without utensils.

          • HAL_9_TRILLION@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            3 months ago

            The difference is these patties aren’t just raw potato. They’re filled with oil and because of this, when you air fry them, the final product is damn close to McDonalds, I honestly can’t tell the difference.

            • PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              I’ve had an air fryer for years and I love the thing but you can’t honestly say it’s as good as deep frying. I’ve also had the hash browns you linked and if you deep fry them they are indistinguishable from McDick’s, but the air fryer just doesn’t make the cut.

              • HAL_9_TRILLION@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                3 months ago

                Well, it’s certainly not to say that an air fryer is as good as deep frying in all circumstances, that’s definitely not the case.

                But as far as these hash browns go - and I swear, I’m not being glib here - I literally cannot tell the difference between these things air fried and McDs. Like I have specifically gone and gotten McDs just to test the theory and I just can’t say that I find them any better at all.

                Not to mention, even if there was a perceptible difference in flavor or texture or any of it - air frying is definitely marginally healthier, so in my book: a win for air frying.

                But if you just plain disagree, I don’t mean to call you a liar. It’s just how I feel about it.

      • makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        Making your own in a pan with butter, rather than deep frying, is next level. The cost is 1 potato, salt, pepper, butter. So good, and so cheap.

      • morrowind@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        McDonald’s hash browns are unnatural, they have the taste, texture and appearance of fried fish

  • taiyang@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I like that even a well paying job sounds ridiculous when paid out in equivalent hashbrowns. Look at Mr. IT over there, earning over fifteen hashies an hour. Must be nice eating so many hashies, yum yum.

    Bezos made 7.9 million an hour, so converted to the new metric, he’s eating 2.25 million hashbrowns an hour. Seems a bit excessive, you’re definitely going to have indigestion.

  • theneverfox@pawb.social
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    3 months ago

    So you’re saying that in one hour, they can earn enough calories for at least 1.5 hours of hard labor?

    Sounds like a living wage to me, with only 16 hours a day you can provide for the most demanding caloric needs

  • JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    The hashbrowns McDonald’s sells are sourced from Simplot Foods. If I remember correctly, you can buy around a hundred of them for $20 or $30 or so. Insane markup, especially at the scale they must buy them at, but not surprising. How else would the C suite survive?

    • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      You’re also paying for rent, staffing, equipment, oil, taxes, salt, and probably a lot of things I’m not thinking of.

      Still they’re only costing them maybe a buck, tops.

      • protist@mander.xyz
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        3 months ago

        So I’d be interested to know how the flailing commercial real estate market is affecting McDonald’s prices right now, given that McDonald’s is a real estate company.

        Former McDonald’s CFO, Harry J. Sonneborn, is even quoted as saying, “we are not technically in the food business. We are in the real estate business. The only reason we sell fifteen-cent hamburgers is because they are the greatest producer of revenue, from which our tenants can pay us our rent.

        Instead of making money by selling supplies to franchisees or demanding huge royalties…the McDonald’s Corporation became the landlord to its franchisees.

        They bought the properties and then leased them out – at large markups. In addition to that regular income, the corporation would take a percentage of each shop’s gross sales.

        Today McDonald’s makes its money on real estate through two methods. Its real estate subsidiary will buy and sell hot properties while also collecting rents on each of its franchised locations.

          • meowMix2525@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            Eh I kinda highly doubt it. It’s not like they ever charged lower prices out of the kindness of their hearts. They charge what they can get away with.

            They also make money by charging their franchisees rent, which is probably pretty stable. McDonald’s customers aren’t really making decisions based on real estate prices whether or not to give them money so the franchisees don’t have anything less to pay them with unless their costs are inflated elsewhere.

      • meat_popsicle@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        …not even. A burger doesn’t even cost a buck to make. Their margins are off the chain.

        Soda and fries are even crazier. It’s why the $1/any size drink works - going larger doesn’t impact their bottom line materially at all since the COGS are so low.

      • tacosplease@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Back when I ran a restaurant the rule of thumb was to charge triple whatever you paid for the food, and that would cover all the other stuff. I’m curious what it is now.

        • Syrc@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          I know there’s restaurants in my area that charge 10€/lt of Coke. At supermarkets it’s like 1,50€, and they probably pay it even less.

        • gerbler@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Not sure about food but for liquor it’s 5x. Triple might be right for food as at least for bars it’s a loss leader.

      • Psythik@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        No you’re not, your franchise owner is. They do all the hard work, and all you gotta do is sit back and collect your profit, and make sure the the ice cream machine keeps breaking.

      • Osito@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        So if they’re around 30 cents at cost and 3.19 at sale, that’s about 11X markup to account for OH, G&A, and profit

        Depending on the location of the restaurant, OH can be to to 400%, they have to pay a franchise fee, 45K a year, which is not significant compared to sales, but let’s its 5% of sales, that means that around 6X of the markup is profit

        They can just lower their expectation of profit and still be more than ok

    • Neato@ttrpg.network
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      3 months ago

      Well an hour has 3,600 seconds. And US federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour or 725 pennies an hour. So that crank would get you about 1 penny every…5 seconds of cranking. Holy shit that’s bad. Imagine if cranking that was your actual job. Just on a treadmill of sadness.

          • Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            You want to know something crazier. Sometimes the treadmills weren’t even hooked up to anything. Prisoners were “lazy” for being locked up so make them work. Don’t have work for them to do just make them walk on the treadmill even when it does nothing. It was literally Sisyphean.

            Spelling

            • affiliate@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              yeah and when you compare the calories it’s not even close. hash brown gets you a measly 140, while the gasoline gives you 31,000.

          • FellowEnt@sh.itjust.works
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            3 months ago

            You should look up the Lumière brothers’ work. There is film from 1895, and some amazing upscaled/enhanced versions.

        • lad@programming.dev
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          3 months ago

          Later, when prison philosophy changed, using the energy to power pumps and corn mills became acceptable. 44 prisons in England adopted this form of hard labour to grind grain. Others remained “grinding the wind”

          Well, it was just proof-of-work

  • SpeedLimit55@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    These were 2 for $1 a few years ago. The only way to do McD for cheap now is to order in the app, they always have coupons and bogo deals. I was against these apps for privacy reasons for a long time but the upside is not having to hand your card to a random McD worker and worry about it getting skimmed. Also if you drive thru you just tell them your name or order number and that’s it.

    • callouscomic@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      This was their intention. Artificially force you to think you HAVE to use the apps. Then in the apps these companies collect all your data and also you waive lots of potential rights like forced arbitration.

        • Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          You know, this simple and concise answer sums up the argument pretty well.

          It’s borderline extortion to raise prices on you unless you’re using the app, but what if the app selling your data enables the food to be cheap?

          Is the data you are protecting, which is essentially just information about what you do and where you go with your phone, worth selling for an occasional free burger?

          Do you live in a socioeconomic group that allows you to pay premium to keep your data private? That’s essentially what this has become. Either you let this corporation sell your data for a free burger or you pay full price for their menu.

          Frankly, from the bigger perspective, it’s more than a lot of apps will give you for your data anyway.

          • Psythik@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            If you use the DuckDuckGo app and enable App Tracking Protection, it severely limits the amount of data apps can collect on you.

            Go get that free burger, king.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Do you live in a socioeconomic group that allows you to pay premium to keep your data private? That’s essentially what this has become.

            Except they know that even many in that group will use the app because just because you can afford to pay a premium doesn’t mean you don’t want a deal. Also, people think the app is somehow more convenient than just giving your order at the speaker.

    • FabledAepitaph@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I love the whole push to the apps-for-discounts thing. Instead of downloading their app, I simply eat less fast food because the prices are dumb, and definitely not worth giving them access to any of my data.

    • over_clox@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I tried a Domino’s online coupon one day a few years ago. The online coupon was half off for a medium pizza. The full price in store was $6.99 at the time.

      So I went through all the shit to download the app and place the order, to pick up ourselves, no delivery.

      But what do they do? They jacked the OG price up to $13.99 because we used the app, and cutting the price by 50% just left us paying the original $6.99

      And they got away with getting our info no less! Same damn price!

      I uninstalled that app real fucking quick!

      Never again.

      • psud@aussie.zone
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        3 months ago

        Those work by having coupon discounts only discounting from full price - you’re not allowed to stack discounts. But pizza places discount their pizza pretty much always

        I like the fact that in Australia we still have local non-chain pizza places (and fish and chip and burgers places) where they make family pizzas sized for a family (or for one young man) with our own standard toppings which I haven’t seen elsewhere, and they cost less than similar amounts of Domino’s

      • SpeedLimit55@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Yeah Domino’s has their own thing where you get a decent price if you get two or more similar items for pickup. We typically do 2 medium 2 topping and wings or bread bites for around $20. They have the same deal online or in app but I think the app gives you bonus points or something.

        • I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Years ago before Pizza Hut moved out of my area they had an online deal- 2 medium 2 topping pizzas for $22. I paid online and went to pick them up, but they were out of one of the toppings I ordered, so since they weren’t 2 topping pizzas they wanted to charge me $48 for two non-deal abiding, one topping pizzas. They actually had the audacity to tell me I couldn’t have my pizzas unless I paid the additional $26 in store and they didn’t want to refund me the original $22 either. I’m not usually one to make a fuss in a store but I was not having either of those outcomes. I was making $8 an hour at the time. They tried to steal 3.25 hours from me, because they were out of jalapenos. I’m still salty.

        • over_clox@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Did you not read the numbers?

          Well allow me to round up, for convenience sake so you can actually read the ripoff.

          $6.99 ~ 7 - In store price, single medium pizza.

          $13.99 ~ 14 - Online order, what’s half of 14 again?

          We got totally fucking ripped off as they doubled the price just because we used the app!

          I will never, and I mean never go to Domino’s again! Or for that matter ever even use online coupons again!

          It’s all a scam.

  • Neato@ttrpg.network
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    3 months ago

    And at 140 calories a piece your 8 hour shift gets you 16, about 2,240 calories. So like, just barely enough to live.

    I know other McD’s food is better at calorie/$ but still.

    • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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      3 months ago

      I mean potatoes were a pretty staple food item for the poor so if you are getting paid only enough for your basic calorie needs of prepared potatoes from one of the largest food providers in the world that’s still saying a lot about how low minimum wage is.

      It’s some really poignant math still.

    • Ignotum@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Just get yourself 2 fulltime McDogshit jobs, work 16 hours and sleep the remaining 8, you’ll have enough to eat and you won’t have any expenses since you don’t have time to do literally anything!

      Now keep doing that for around 300 years and you miight have enough hashbrowns saved up to make a deposit on a house!

      • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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        3 months ago

        So I’m not sure what your math is for this but I made me intrigued to just check something.

        So assuming a person literally did this. Got 2 back-to-back positions at a minimum wage paying McDs. Put the first paycheck into paying just for hasbrowns for calories, put the second entirely into the cost of a house bank account right now and do nothing but sleep the last 8 hours. And don’t move on days off to avoid requiring calories.

        Ready for this?

        You would have enough saved up to buy a house in 29 years.

        At the average house cost of course which is now $418,000. Up 36% since 2020.

        Holy shit.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            I worked in fast food when I was in my 20s back in the 90s and even back then the managers watched like a hawk to make sure you weren’t stealing more than your one free meal you got at your short break. And the technology was nowhere near the level it is now. I would not be surprised if every single hash brown patty is accounted for through networked scales and the employees are on camera the whole time these days.

    • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      And if you can do that kind of basic math, you can also figure out that spending your food money at fast food places is a huge waste. Local grocery stores in these parts have bags and boxes of hash browns just like those at McDonald’s for about 3.50 and they contain 10 to 20 hash browns each.

      • psud@aussie.zone
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        3 months ago

        They appear to be on the $1, $2, $3 menu, so it’s likely converted. The conversion of the US price given is $AU5.36 right now

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      3 months ago

      That’s working 24 hours straight though.

      We’re talking 80 hash browns in exchange for a week of full-time labor. How many hash browns do you think a McDonald’s worker sells in a week?

      • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        What, and let my bosses boss lose out on potential profit? I gotta get back to work

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      This is about the U.S. and it probably depends on the location. It’s $2.69 here according to GrubHub’s website.