Lean times, cheap eats, bigger waists | Bread & Butter

People have got to eat.

In these tight times, we don’t need a new pair of shoes, that cute new shirt, a video game, a pedicure or any other number of luxury items to survive; but the one thing we absolutely still need is our food.

It seems people have less money to spend nowadays, but the one place they are still putting it is where their mouth is. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t still looking for a good deal.

With more people looking for bargain meals, conventional restaurants have introduced “recession menus” – boasting cheaper prices but smaller portions – in order to lure hungry, cash-strapped consumers from their homes.

But fast-food restaurants are ahead of the curve and reaping the rewards, as they’ve always been happy to oblige the thrifty consumer with their value menu deals, where more is actually less.

In the midst of the global economic crisis, fast-food restaurants such as Domino’s Pizza, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King and McDonald’s have all posted a sharp increase in profits while most other businesses face a devastating decline.

In 2008, McDonald’s posted a net profit of $6.55 billion in the United States alone, a staggering increase of 80 percent. But the phenomenon of price-conscious consumers seeking out cheaper eats is not limited to our burger-loving country, as fast food chains make plans for expansion (global domination) the world over.

After posting a 25 percent profit increase in 2008, Domino’s Pizza plans to open another 50 stores in Ireland and the UK this year. And according to a report in the Daily Telegraph, KFC plans to open another 300 stores, creating 9,000 new (low-paying) jobs, in the next three to five years in the UK as well. Reuters reported in February that McDonald’s in China plans a massive expansion of 500 new stores in the country in the next three years.

While it may be heartening to some to hear that any company is posting profits, expanding or creating jobs in these fiscally uncertain times, the World Health Organization is among the many groups and individuals that worry our health is going to suffer on a global scale because of it.

It seems that recession menus and dollar value dinner deals are packing on what’s been dubbed as the “recession pounds.”

It appears the trend of health conscious, organic and natural foods is finally ebbing in the wake of the financial crisis, as is evidenced in the profit margins of companies competing for your grocery money.

While McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner claims publicly that the golden arches continues to be “recession resistant,” brands like Whole Foods continue to suffer. It appears that even the most devout organic food followers are fair-weather granola munchers and have abandoned Whole Foods in favor of more cost-conscious eats.

Adam Drewnowski, director of the nutrition sciences program at the University of Washington in Seattle told Reuters in a recent interview that people who are trying to save money in these tough times are eating more processed and refined foods simply because they’re cheaper in the face of rising fresh produce prices.

“Things are going to get worse,” Drewnowski told Reuters. “Obesity is a toxic result of a failing economic environment.”

America leads the world in the obesity epidemic, as more than one-third of adults in the United States, or 72 million people, finds themselves overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But as the recession stretches on and the global economy continues to suffer, no one yet knows how much this will tip the scales in regards to perpetuating the increased occurrence of weight-related illnesses such as diabetes or heart disease, which according to the American Heart Association is still the leading cause of death of Americans.