Monday, February 23, 2009

Recession Bites: Do Lean Times Mean Leaner Bodies?

In the early days of my first magazine job, an older, wiser, much-more-senior editor told me the story of her early days as an editorial assistant. She was skinnnnny, she said, because she had so little money to spend on food. "I would buy a pretzel from the guy on the street and that was my breakfast and lunch," she lamented. (Side note: Yikes.) Well, it wasn't like I was making a mint myself, but I guess the salary had improved over the decades because I could afford more than a pretzel for lunch each day.

Anyway, this got me thinking about how the current blah economy is influencing our food intake and spending habits. Are we all on our way to becoming skinny-minnies since we're all in penny-pinching mode? Certainly, super-pricey restaurants like Alinea must be feeling the pinch. But if that's the case, then are super-cheapo spots, especially fast food restuarants, rolling in the moolah? And if they are, aren't we on our way to becoming even
more overweight as a nation, since eating at places like the Golden Arches tends to be highly caloric and uber fatty? Friends, I do not know the answer, but I found a few articles that look into the topic. Photo grabbed from kmrphotography on Flickr. Posted by Liz
  • Fast food nation: The sequel, in The Guardian, says fast food joints are kicking some butt in the sales department.
  • Huff Post's Paula Crossfield looks at how the bottom lines of these chains are changing how we eat.
  • Funny post on Gizmodo about how to compute when you'll literally have to tighten your belt.
  • Probably the first time the phrase Recession Diet was coined, the NYT looks at how rising food costs influence our waistlines.

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