The Dreadful Inconvenience of Salad
November 12, 2014 4:08 PM   Subscribe

An article from The Atlantic's Olga Khazan discusses the invention of a $1 fresh salad vending machine in order to make healthier food options available in lower socioeconomic communities like East Garfield Park in Chicago's West side.

"The salads are made from high-end ingredients like blueberries, kale, fennel, and pineapple. Each one comes out in a plastic mason jar, its elements all glistening in neat layers, the way fossils might look if the Earth had been created by meticulous vegans. They cost $1.

The salad machine is the invention of 28-year-old entrepreneur Luke Saunders, who launched his company, Farmer’s Fridge, a year ago at a nearby warehouse. His goal is to offer workers a fast, healthy lunch option in areas where there’s a dearth of restaurants. Instead of popping into McDonalds out of desperation, they can simply grab salads from their buildings’ lobbies and eat them back at their desks.

Most of Saunders’s machines are installed at private office buildings, food courts, and convenience stores, where the salads cost upwards of $7. Eventually, he wants to drive down the price to the point where anyone can afford them."
posted by ourt (80 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
I like it, but salad in a mason jar seems awfully inconvenient. If you toss the thing in a cardboard "boat" anyway, why not just package the thing in a paper or plastic box like all the normal salad lunch places do?
posted by zachlipton at 4:17 PM on November 12, 2014


zachlipton: "I like it, but salad in a mason jar seems awfully inconvenient. If you toss the thing in a cardboard "boat" anyway, why not just package the thing in a paper or plastic box like all the normal salad lunch places do?"

So that people can see they're actually getting fresh ingredients and not rotten vegetable slurry.
posted by boo_radley at 4:20 PM on November 12, 2014 [18 favorites]


Aesthetically, Layered Food In Jars is a thing right now - however silly it seems, it's true. He points out in the article that his brother (I think? The page suddenly doesn't want to reload for me to recheck) didn't think the salad vending was a good plan until the jars came up.

My 9th grade home ec teacher taught me that a huge thing in getting people to eat what you make is appearance. Sure, it seems inconvenient and even ridiculous to buy jarred salad and dump it into a bowl, but you have to get people to buy the salad first, and the jarred salads look really nice and are very appealing. Basic marketing.

And on preview, what boo_radley said.
posted by angeline at 4:25 PM on November 12, 2014 [6 favorites]


I love so much about this. Even if you don't eat salad, you have a jar of veggies to add to your family's hamburger helper or mac and cheese. I wish this man and the easy eating of vegetables all the success in the world.
posted by Homeskillet Freshy Fresh at 4:26 PM on November 12, 2014 [8 favorites]


Can we please have this everywhere? I would eat so much salad if it weren't such a pain to make.
posted by Jacqueline at 4:30 PM on November 12, 2014 [21 favorites]


How am I supposed to know this is good without a picture of a woman eating the salad while laughing?
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 4:31 PM on November 12, 2014 [77 favorites]


If I had a choice of vending options, I would want a salad smoothie machine with a fruit spigot on one side and a veggie spigot on the other, whatever is in season. Mixing them is the key to personalizing it. A coin machine will do fine, and I would bring my own cup.
posted by Brian B. at 4:34 PM on November 12, 2014


A dollar is also a great price for it.

It was only two weeks ago that I said too-large portion size was the single greatest contributor to wasted food (and wasted opportunities and dreams) in my kitchen. And this directly answers that.

I'd love to have one of these near me.
posted by tychotesla at 4:36 PM on November 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


Remember salad bars? I miss salad bars.
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:37 PM on November 12, 2014 [3 favorites]


I wish this guy and his machines Starbucks-like ubiquity. Starting with somewhere near me.
posted by skybluepink at 4:38 PM on November 12, 2014 [5 favorites]


Remember salad bars? I miss salad bars.

Much like all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets, salad bars stop seeming fun after you read a few articles on what kinds of germs love to grow in food that sits around for hours. Not to mention when you start wondering about the real effectiveness of "sneeze guards."

(at least with the Chinese food, most of it's been fried to oblivion, so you just hope that killed off the bad stuff)
posted by emjaybee at 4:55 PM on November 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


There are still salad bars! We still have a few at grocery stores around here (I miss you, Wegmans salad bar!), but sadly, those can add up quickly if you don't know what you're doing (most places around here seem to be $6-7 a pound). I also see a lot of to-go salad kits at stores. I think those are bit silly but I appreciate the convenience factor.

This is a great idea (and I would totally buy one if I ever saw one) but I doubt it will catch on.

Still, I think we need to keep pushing the idea that salads are cool and tasty and not a punishment. I'm a big fan of salad.
posted by darksong at 4:58 PM on November 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


This article has definitely made me want to make a really big salad this weekend. And it's set to be 35 degrees where I am. Don't care. Big delicious salad, I need it. So even if this guy doesn't bring the machines to my neck of the woods for a while, the photos of his creations have definitely lit a salad fire for me. That's something.
posted by angeline at 5:01 PM on November 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


She’d be willing to pay $2 or $3, but no more than that. “If I'm paying $7,” she said, “I'd want some meat, something more filling.”

This was a money quote for me.

If your nutrition is a constant source of veggies and whole grains and other crunchy things (for at least a month or two), you'll find that the salad with some seeds and rasberries and stuff will fill you up for hours.

This gets me to what is in my opinion the real culprit of the food/obesity/diabetes crisis, the processed food and sugar conglomerates. That woman's body isn't probably even craving the meat, but the carbs served alongside those dishes. Would she rather have an order of french fries or a baked chicken breast? I know where my bet is placed on that question. By addicting the world public to processed foods, even including white bread, juice and chips (not exactly the usual suspects), those companies have intentionally caused many persons' metabolisms to function entirely differently than their ancestors' have over the course of millennia. Sugar, diet sweetener, processed meat and cheese (which almost always have added sugar)--they all do more than just satiate an individual's appetite temporarily, they increase it after, they decrease the ability of that individual to produce insulin and they eventually an inevitable cause massive weight gain when consumed in immoderation.

It's great to see this guy trying to hold a candle to the sun, but I think it's at the point where we need government intervention in the same manner as the AIDS or polio epidemics. Ask any nurse about the diabetes wing of the hospital. It's horrifying to hear about.
posted by gagglezoomer at 5:16 PM on November 12, 2014 [7 favorites]


That woman's body isn't probably even craving the meat, but the carbs served alongside those dishes.

What? She very reasonably wants a lunch salad with protein in it. Her body probably does "crave" protein.

I'm not buying a $7 salad with no protein in it either. One mason jar of lettuce is not a meal that's going to hold most people for 4-6 hours.

I would and sometimes do buy a side salad from fast food/convenience/grocery but even in a 7-11 I'm not paying more than $3.50 for two iceberg leaves and a wedge of nearly-frozen tomato.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:29 PM on November 12, 2014 [24 favorites]


Oh salad (NSFW text on a SFW image)
posted by zippy at 5:36 PM on November 12, 2014 [4 favorites]


In checking out their Instagram, many of their salads appear to include non meat sources of protein such as quinoa (which I know comes with its own problems), egg, cheese and nuts. I wouldn't be surprised to find chickpeas in some of them as well. So there's not a total lack of protein here, and you can get chicken as a side for $2 along with other protein sources. Which brings the costs of the salad in line with the chicken and avocado Cobb salad I get at Panera, at least in my market.

But that one lady probably really is craving protein - from sources she's used to. That's completely understandable.
posted by angeline at 5:46 PM on November 12, 2014 [5 favorites]


for a buck? the dollar menu at McDonalds will win every time. Truth.
posted by shockingbluamp at 5:50 PM on November 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


shockingbluamp: "for a buck? the dollar menu at McDonalds will win every time. Truth."

Based on the fact that people are lining up for salads, I think that they're interested in other options. maybe "the dollar menu has traditionally won every time?"
posted by boo_radley at 5:52 PM on November 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


Would she rather have an order of french fries or a baked chicken breast?

If the breast still had the skin on (and thus some fat+flavor), and wasn't the dry tasteless slab of white meat so often sold as chicken beast, she would probably get that. Because even when you're hungry, taste matters to you.
posted by emjaybee at 5:56 PM on November 12, 2014 [6 favorites]


But that one lady probably really is craving protein - from sources she's used to. That's completely understandable.

I think she's just saying that she'd be happy to buy vegan salads for a few bucks; if the salad is going to run seven bucks or so, it better have something damn special going on. Like meat. Meat's expensive: adding meat accounts for the higher price. Not because she craves meat. Just because if she's paying a premium she expects to get more.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:07 PM on November 12, 2014 [11 favorites]


Well, the real test would be a Mickey D's vending machine right next to the salad vending machine (if you could somehow get the freshness of a just-grilled burger in a vending machine, that is).

She very reasonably wants a lunch salad with protein in it.

I think that's a charitable interpretation of what is obviously an anecdotal quote. Michael Pollan has made the points gagglezoomer was bringing up, which is that the whole modern food industry is training our taste buds to constantly crave highly processed foods in a way that we don't normally physiologically need to. That's a structural issue, not just a "this product sucks" issue. The skim milk point was also telling in this regard. (Personally, I only really like 1% -- skim or 2% are both too much the other way, and whole milk? Nope.)
posted by dhartung at 6:10 PM on November 12, 2014


I also think it's a huge red herring (again I blame the processed food and sugar industry, along with those who benefit from global food trade and treaties) to equate protein with "meat". Not only because what peoples' brains commonly associate with "meat" is actually the breading or sugar glaze served with the meat, but also because it is a grand scale deception that the best way to consume protein is through meat. Sure, it can be done, even healthfully. But there are more ways that stars in the sky (not really, but bear with me) to obtain the protein you need for a nutritious diet through veggies, grains, seeds, soy, etc. Some are tasty, some are not, some are very cheap, some are very expensive. To think, I need to feed my family protein, ergo, steaks, chicken, fish... well, you've been taken.
posted by gagglezoomer at 6:29 PM on November 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


It's the Salad I Made For You!
posted by batfish at 6:30 PM on November 12, 2014


On topic but off topic: I take salads to work almost daily, and I wish there was a way that I could dress it at home so it is just ready to open up and eat at lunch without it being all wilty, instead of having to dress it right before I eat in order to keep it crunchy.
posted by sourwookie at 6:31 PM on November 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


I think that's a charitable interpretation of what is obviously an anecdotal quote.

I don't know, I think it's a reasonable position. A moderately active 30-year-old woman (for the sake of example) still needs (in very approximate, broad strokes) around 1800-2000 calories a day; that's around 600-750 a meal. The salads discussed here certainly look great, but most of them are in the 200 calorie range, with only one maxing out at around 400. Again, for a dollar that's amazing (and that 400 calorie salad both has protein and looks fucking delicious), but I think finding them a little short of satiating wouldn't necessarily mean you were a patsy of the food industry or anything. You could legitimately just still be hungry. Again, doesn't mean this isn't a great idea, and I really hope it succeeds and takes off.
posted by en forme de poire at 6:34 PM on November 12, 2014 [7 favorites]


Yes, we're always bumping up against the law of unintended consequences. And it hurts.
posted by McMillan's Other Wife at 6:42 PM on November 12, 2014


A moderately active 30-year-old woman..still needs...2000 calories a day.

No, she doesn't.
posted by gagglezoomer at 6:43 PM on November 12, 2014 [3 favorites]


It's also worth noting that the only reason he can afford to sell them for a dollar right now is that they're day-olds that no one bought when they cost $7. I looked at that list of ingredients and went "nope, not sourceable at that price" and was totally unsurprised to find out that $1 is not a sustainable price for fresh fruits and vegetables.

Also, as someone who is a moderately active 24-year-old woman who has been having a rough time getting enough to eat lately--yes. 2000 calories is a reasonable estimation. I like vegetables and fruits as much as the next person, and I do a pretty reasonable job of getting them when my meds aren't killing all appetite. But damn, there's nothing like finding yourself with a headache and no ability to think or get basic tasks done again to make you appreciate food that provides actual calories to get through your day.
posted by sciatrix at 6:51 PM on November 12, 2014 [6 favorites]


No, she doesn't.

Here are two sources that both support the figure I quoted, which was 1800-2000 calories for a moderately active 30 year old woman.
posted by en forme de poire at 7:00 PM on November 12, 2014 [8 favorites]


gagglezoomer is apparently more knowledgable about women's nutritional requirements than the government's own health website!

Please tell us more about your extensive knowledge of women's health!
posted by winna at 7:01 PM on November 12, 2014 [19 favorites]


I find it humorous how in the food service industry, "protein" does equate to "meat" and "garnish" is the vegetable (side, implied, another second-class status). How far back does that go in the culinary tradition -- is it an American thing or French or what?

The "you are really craving breading and sweet glaze" stuff might hold true for some people, but I think your typical meat-fan really does like meat, especially your barbecue (that is, smoked meat, typically pork) and steak fans. I like everything -- sweat, hot, salty, meaty, umami, whatever -- I don't have just a sweet tooth, or a beef tooth, or whatever. I'm a 6" dude who finds you do in fact have to "constantly" eat vegetables and grains to feel satisfied and I get sick of that after awhile. It is high maintenance. Granted, once things like this make it easy, if people aren't scared off by health food evangelists staring on high saying GO ON, GO ON, YOU CAN DO IT, IT'S ALL YOU NEED! it will be a net positive and I would take advantage of it.

I like my meat infused with the flavor of smoke or fire and its own fat, I don't need anyone telling me why I like the taste of meat -- there is something viscerally delicious about charred animal protein and fat that you will never come close to in the non-animal realm. That's not really a "processed food" thing so much as it is a hard-wired craving for immediate sources of all nutrients and satisfaction. 10 years ago I'd be aghast at myself for admitting it...

I would ask that nobody insist on telling people what their body really needs if they can't do it without being condescending in the process, and it's very hard to determine when you are doing so, especially if you're particularly zealous and/or a recent "convert."
posted by aydeejones at 7:14 PM on November 12, 2014 [11 favorites]


This article has definitely made me want to make a really big salad this weekend. And it's set to be 35 degrees where I am. Don't care. Big delicious salad, I need it.

Everyone in my house is suffering from or getting over some weird Zombie Plague, so food has been simple this week. Last night was roasted chicken legs and a monstrous bowl of salad - baby field greens, kale, dandelion greens, turnip greens, tiny little tomatoes, chopped scallions. There were chopped eggs and sunflower seeds and cheese on the side.

Elder Monsterette was over, and she had seconds of salad, which she usually doesn't do. Sez she "Sometimes you just need to stick your face in some greens until you remember that the sun still exists."

Sing it, girl. She's absolutely correct.
posted by MissySedai at 7:17 PM on November 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


It's funny to think that a hundred years ago you'd happily crack your neighbor's head open for a turnip.
posted by angerbot at 7:30 PM on November 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


If a single $1 salad doesn't provide enough calories for lunch, you could just buy $2 worth of salad and still be getting a great deal.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:39 PM on November 12, 2014 [8 favorites]


Please tell us more about your extensive knowledge of women's health!

I don't have formal training, but I would never cite to a web page administered by the Federal Gov. of the U.S. for any of my "extensive knowledge". It's almost laughable, the U.S.'s history with nutritional advice.

By the way, "calories" are a very crude way to regard energy intake. (IANANC)

Calories are a heuristic.

E.g., 1 tbsp of "peanut butter" from JIF that is 100cals is not the same of 100cals of finely ground peanuts. Body does not process the same.

In a way, this is knowledge we all possess already.

Peas and broccolli have "calories" but no one thinks eating a bag of peas (160 cals) is somehow equivalent to a candy bar (160 cals).
posted by gagglezoomer at 7:43 PM on November 12, 2014


Please tell us more about your extensive knowledge of women's health!

Geeze. It's not unreasonable to raise eyebrows at those calorie suggestions. I can only speak from my own experience, but as a 20-something woman of average height, I'm definitely alarmed at the idea of eating 2,000 calories a day while sedentary. I start gaining weight when I'm eating 1500.

(If you don't eat a lot of calories, lean protein's still important for feeling full.)
posted by Solon and Thanks at 7:56 PM on November 12, 2014 [5 favorites]


Another benefit of the layers is that picky eaters can more easily remove ingredients they don't want. That anti-oxidant salad looks great to me, except for the cheese.

It would also be good if each salad had a suggested dressing, but the machine let you choose your salad and dressing separately.

And another problem with making your own salad is that if you want any variety of ingredients and you're just one person, you're either going to be wasting food, eating the same thing for a week, and doing a whole crapload of work without any economies of scale (cook one spoonful of quinoa, soak 1 spoonful of dried lentils overnight, etc.).

However, again, for those of you who didn't read the article, the salads DO NOT COST $1. The salads cost about $7. The owner then sells the leftovers in places with many poor people for $1, which is nice of him, but not the same as saying the salads cost $1.

Finally, the highest calorie count I see is 419 calories for the Body Builder, which has 25 grams of protein.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:22 PM on November 12, 2014 [5 favorites]


I think I'm a pretty healthy eater. I don't eat meat, relatively few carbs, no white bread, lots of veggies, no soda...but gosh, I hate salad. A pile of cold, uncooked vegetables? Sounds like misery to me.
posted by stray at 9:32 PM on November 12, 2014


If a single $1 salad doesn't provide enough calories for lunch, you could just buy $2 worth of salad and still be getting a great deal.

Yeah, but then you'd have two portions of salad to consume.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:39 PM on November 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


I eat salads on the daily (for a multitude of reasons), and I pretty much break my non-existent college bank on them.

DC salads are especially expensive. If this kind of vending machine existed everywhere, I, along with every other college kid I know, could basically live off actual nutrition for less than the proverbial "ramen every night" diet.
posted by ourt at 9:47 PM on November 12, 2014 [6 favorites]


I don't have formal training, but I would never cite to a web page administered by the Federal Gov. of the U.S. for any of my "extensive knowledge". It's almost laughable, the U.S.'s history with nutritional advice.

These numbers aren't "advice" in the same sense as, for example, the FDA food pyramid (which I'd agree has historically been a product of lobbying, not science). They're just estimates, i.e., descriptions of a population. Caloric expenditure is unlike something multifaceted and complex like "health" in that it is a single quantity that is actually possible to measure -- it's just cumbersome and expensive, and involves things like measuring oxygen consumption and/or using metabolic tracers. So typically what people do is measure a sample of volunteers and then fit a model to predict metabolic expenditure based on factors that are easier to measure, like age, BMI, gender, etc. This is a pretty extensive body of research that has been going on since 1919.

Anyway, the resulting estimates are definitely far from guaranteed to be correct or even very close for any given individual (so what Solon and Thanks said above is not surprising, though it's worth noting once again that I said "moderately active" and not "sedentary", which are pretty different descriptors). But these estimates don't have to be accurate for every single person to give a reasonable sense of a population average.

And again, to reiterate my original point, considering that each of these salads nets between 200 and 400 calories, if you really want this to be a meal, it would not be at all surprising to me that this would legitimately leave you feeling hungry for reasons that are more fundamental than just being used to fast food or a Standard American Diet. For $1 that's obviously less of a problem, but for $7, I'm not so sure.
posted by en forme de poire at 10:19 PM on November 12, 2014 [5 favorites]


The problem with salads and fresh veggies is always shelf-life. Their project is a great idea, but they need to be careful that supply doesn't exceed demand much.

And on the same subject, this reminds me of another salad story I saw recently:

A dormant Toshiba plant near Tokyo has been turned into a salad factory of sorts. Growing hydroponically in a sterile environment gives their salads a week-long shelf-life.
posted by p3t3 at 10:35 PM on November 12, 2014 [3 favorites]


It is hard to get a sense of scale for how big the servings are, but just eye-balling, many of those calorie counts look very... conservative to me. That or the photos are very generous.

I would probably buy these if there was one near my work. Salad places in NYC charge around $10, anyway. They make them fresh, but I find the wait of lining up and preparation time annoying, and sometimes I just don't feel like talking to people during my lunch break. (Yes, I'm that lazy). But then, I eat a metric shit-tonne of salad and I suspect I could easily eat two of these pretty happily.
posted by retrograde at 11:55 PM on November 12, 2014


Caloric expenditure is unlike something multifaceted and complex like "health" in that it is a single quantity that is actually possible to measure -- it's just cumbersome and expensive, and involves things like measuring oxygen consumption and/or using metabolic tracers.

That's completely unsupported by the new science on nutrition. "Calories are calories" is one of the biggest lies sold us re food in the past 50 years.

I will not disagree there is a scientific notion of a calorie and that the idea of a calorie bears some relation to how we gain weight, use food for energy and so on.

However, the problem with your reasoning is many people receive much of their calories today through sugar and processed foods. 100 calories from a "Nutrigrain bar" is not the same as 100 calories of almonds. Sugar calories (which includes granola things like cane juice, sorry) and "flour" calories are in no way, shape or form treated the same way by the body as a calorie from whole grains, grain-fed animals, veggies, non-juiced fruit, nuts and etc.
posted by gagglezoomer at 3:39 AM on November 13, 2014


gagglezoomer, you are conflating several different things, and arguing against things that people are not saying.

Let us look at the statement that [the average] moderately active 30-year-old woman needs 2000 calories a day.

It is entirely true that if this theoretical woman gets 2000 calories a day entirely from eating icing sugar, she will not be healthy.

However, if this same woman gets 1200 calories a day entirely from nutritious, wholesome sources, she will ALSO NOT BE HEALTHY.

No one is saying that every food source is equal and that calories are the only thing that matter.

However, when you flatly state, as you did, that she does not actually need 2000 calories a day, you are still incorrect.
posted by kyrademon at 4:28 AM on November 13, 2014 [9 favorites]


This is a really cool idea, and I'd definitely try something like this for lunch if we had the vending machine in my work building.

As an asian person, I have a love/hate relationship with salads. On one hand, it's a good way to get your vegetables when the only other options are fried things or creamy soups, but sometimes I think that If I cooked my reasonably large salad of spinach, lettuce, etc., it would just wither down into a small portion. It hardly looks like anything at all, and then I realize why I don't stay that full for long. A salad that can be eaten in one sitting actually doesn't contain that many vegetables to me; it's the water content that feels filling, but that goes away quickly.

The vegetables I'm used to require cooking, and not only are they tastier to me (sauteed with just some oil, salt and sometimes with minced garlic, depending on the veg) but I end up eating a lot more of it and remain full for longer. I need to be near a Chinatown or 99 Ranch again, the produce around where I am is so boring and the variety is lacking.
posted by extramundane at 6:12 AM on November 13, 2014


Any chance we can move this away from a discussion of how calories work? It's not really on-topic, and it's sort of triggery for some people with eating disorder issues (which is to say, me).

I don't get a lunch break at work, and we have no decent food options within close distance of my office, so when I forget my lunch I'm basically limited to what's in the vending machine downstairs or the really, really gross cafeteria across the street. The best thing in the vending machine is a bag of trail mix, which is loaded with fat and salt, and I guess the best thing at the cafeteria is to get a string cheese and a (mealy, gross, Red Delicious) apple. The cafeteria most sells deep-fried, breaded, meat-flavored processed food products, which they serve with ranch dressing or blue cheese sauce. Yeah. I would *kill* for a salad vending machine.

I think it would be a hard sell, though, because people don't associate vending machines with freshness. It took me a while to warm up to the pre-made sandwiches at Pret a Manger, because pre-made doesn't feel fresh, so I think people would need to be convinced that vending machine salads wouldn't be sad and wilted.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:27 AM on November 13, 2014 [2 favorites]


Some of those salads look delicious but I can't be the only person left in the USA who doesn't want fruit in my salad. Please stop putting berries everywhere, foodies.
posted by lydhre at 6:38 AM on November 13, 2014 [7 favorites]


Does anyone remember The State's "Get A Job" sketch? That was the first thing I thought of when I read the title of this article.
posted by snottydick at 6:43 AM on November 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


Well, the real test would be a Mickey D's vending machine right next to the salad vending machine (if you could somehow get the freshness of a just-grilled burger in a vending machine, that is).

I'd be astonished if McD's hadn't been testing vending machines for yonks.

The whole idea of meat-at-centre--with-veg-as-garnish isn't, I think, a specifically French thing, it's basically a Western thing. Cuisine in the Eurocentric part of the world is aspirational; most of what we consider 'normal' food is a direct reference to the dining habits of aristocracy and the wealthy merchant class. That is, the people who could readily afford meat, with a sprinkling of standards that come from farm tables (stews, Shepherd's pie etc, predicated on eating what you've grown yourself). See also our collective taste in breads; there's a rich irony that the poor are now eating fluffy white bread which would have been reserved for the rich, while now the rich are into sourdoughs and whole wheats and such. I mean sure, any French or Italian cookbook is filled with vegetable dishes, but rarely are they meant as the centrepiece of a meal or course. Contrast with customs all over Asia.

Salad is surprisingly difficult to make really well, IMO. Striking a balance isn't super easy once you venture from the tried and true. And while this business model seems difficult to sustain--what happens when the upstream provider of day-olds fine tunes their prep requirements for less waste?--anything that gets more vegetables into people is a good thing.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:47 AM on November 13, 2014 [2 favorites]


I'm a moderately active 29 year-old woman, and I start gaining weight past 1700 calories a day. Your age, sex, and activity level are not good estimates for your BMR. You need height and weight at the bare minimum to be able to tell about how many calories a given person needs.
posted by domo at 6:49 AM on November 13, 2014 [2 favorites]


I am a 37 year old woman who does yoga twice a week, strength training/toning three times a week, and cardio on Saturdays. I'm vegan. I aim to eat as well as I can with all the good stuff I'm supposed to consume, but there's no way I eat 2000 calories a day. Usually I hit around 1400/1500 with no ill effects.

In any case, I love salad! But I like happy ones, not ones composed of "what the hell dude is this only lettuce and sad tomatoes".
posted by Kitteh at 7:06 AM on November 13, 2014 [2 favorites]


However, if this same woman gets 1200 calories a day entirely from nutritious, wholesome sources, she will ALSO NOT BE HEALTHY.

1,200 calories is a bit on the low side, sure. There are too many factors to make a generalized rule, but I've found that a moderately active woman of average size and a moderately active man of average size need about 1,500 and 1,800 calories a day, respectively, from healthful sources mind you, to maintain a healthy weight. If you get these calories from fast food and simple carbs you WILL be hungry all the time.
posted by gagglezoomer at 7:24 AM on November 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


Ok, so I guess that's a no on the not-talking-about-calories thing! Moving right along....
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:29 AM on November 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I'm over the weird daily calorie allotment discussion, too.

For the same price as these (1.29), you can get a small salad at McDonald's, but it's iceberg lettuce, a few greens, some carrot shavings, and something that looks like a cherry tomato but tastes like despair. The salad itself is 20 calories. They also give you a giant packet of dressing that'd be enough make the whole thing into dressing soup if you actually used the whole thing, and that'd bring the total to 200 calories or so, thanks to fat, sodium, and sugar.

I would love one of these in my neighborhood, even at a higher price point. I live alone and produce goes bad so quickly, which makes it tricky to make salad at home.
posted by mochapickle at 7:50 AM on November 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


for a buck? the dollar menu at McDonalds will win every time. Truth.

No, not "truth", opinion.

Well, I could also say "bullshit", but I'll be nice.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:52 AM on November 13, 2014 [2 favorites]


> If a single $1 salad doesn't provide enough calories for lunch, you could just buy $2 worth of salad and still be getting a great deal.

Yeah, but then you'd have two portions of salad to consume.


And, since two portions of salad would be twice the number of calories as one portion, consuming two portions of salad would be a good way to increase the number of calories you'd eat for lunch, which was the entire point of purchasing $2 worth of salad in the first place.

Don't take this the wrong way, 2N2222, but....how were your grades in math class?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:57 AM on November 13, 2014 [2 favorites]


I think 2N2222's point is it's an ordeal if you don't like salad.

Lots of people don't like salad. Lots of people love salad. And then there are the people who tell you they like salad, but what they really like is an opportunity to eat bacon bits and cubed ham in ranch dressing by the forkful.
posted by mochapickle at 7:59 AM on November 13, 2014 [5 favorites]


I think 2N2222's point is it's an ordeal if you don't like salad.

A fair point.

But then that just raises the counterpoint that someone who doesn't like salad probably wouldn't be using one of these things in the first place, so why are we taking them into consideration when evaluating the salad's calorie count?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:02 AM on November 13, 2014 [3 favorites]


EmpressCallipygos: "I think 2N2222's point is it's an ordeal if you don't like salad.But then that just raises the counterpoint that someone who doesn't like salad probably wouldn't be using one of these things in the first place, so why are we taking them into consideration when evaluating the salad's calorie count?"

Because they've been exposed to garbage salads? If they're taken into consideration, maybe they would eat more salad?
posted by boo_radley at 9:09 AM on November 13, 2014


Yeah, also a fair point.

I'm thinking of it this way: Lycopene is an antioxidant found in tomatoes. I'd be willing to drink one glass of tomato juice (which I hate more than anything) to get the benefit, but I wouldn't be willing to drink two.
posted by mochapickle at 9:10 AM on November 13, 2014


The whole idea of meat-at-centre--with-veg-as-garnish isn't, I think, a specifically French thing, it's basically a Western thing. Cuisine in the Eurocentric part of the world is aspirational; most of what we consider 'normal' food is a direct reference to the dining habits of aristocracy and the wealthy merchant class.

Is this "valorization of meat-eating as a reference to the eating habits of the rich of the past" thing just Western, though? When I was in Hanoi earlier this year, I had the damnedest time finding anything like a meal that didn't have meat or fish in it...
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:12 AM on November 13, 2014


I think it's more Western than not, yeah. Cuisines all over Asia are replete with recipes that don't include meat and are intended as main dishes. The Western canon (with the major and notable exception of pasta in Italy, which although not a 'main' course there is considered as such outside of Italy) doesn't have quite so many.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:18 AM on November 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


Because they've been exposed to garbage salads? If they're taken into consideration, maybe they would eat more salad?

Let's back up a minute.

* This whole tangent started when someone talked about how "if your concerns about this are that one salad isn't enough calories, you could just get a second salad and it would still be a good deal".

* 2N2222 said "the problem is that you would have to eat two portions of salad".

* I responded to that with a comment that basically said "well, duh".

* Mochapickle pointed out that the "two portions of salad is a problem" comment may have been a backhanded critique of the concept of salads overall, because "two people don't like salads."

* I allowed that that was a good point, but then asked "why are we talking about them anyway".

My ultimate point, though, is that "is one salad calorically enough food for a single human" is a completely separate point from "are salads yummy". If you don't think salads are yummy, then how many calories you can find in one salad aren't gonna matter because you ain't gonna eat them anyway. And if instead you're asking "is one salad calorically enough, or would you need two," then "salads suck LOL" don't answer that question.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:19 AM on November 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


"two people don't like salads."

This is weird. I don't see any text where this quote comes from and those aren't my words. Did something get deleted?

But yeah, my lycopene example might be addressing your point. People who don't usually eat salad might eat one for the the health benefit, but not two.
posted by mochapickle at 9:26 AM on November 13, 2014


Two small salads equals one larger salad. I mean, if you're going to argue that someone will only eat a small salad, fine, but would people really look at a $2 double-size version of these things and go "Nope, I will only eat half of that"?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:29 AM on November 13, 2014


I wouldn't drink a growler of tomato juice, but I'd drink a 6oz glass.
posted by mochapickle at 9:34 AM on November 13, 2014


A growler of tomato juice is a ridiculous serving and unlikely to be suggested as a portion, so that's not a particularly good example.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:37 AM on November 13, 2014


how about a growler of tomato liqueur?

What if that growler was just $1?
posted by boo_radley at 9:38 AM on November 13, 2014


I have never seen tomato liqueur but I am now fascinated by the idea.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:39 AM on November 13, 2014


feckless fecal fear mongering: "A growler of tomato juice is a ridiculous serving and unlikely to be suggested as a portion, so that's not a particularly good example."

A growler is ~32 oz, or a medium to large drink from a fast food place.
posted by boo_radley at 9:39 AM on November 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


...and is unlikely to be suggested as a portion of tomato juice.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:41 AM on November 13, 2014


If my Secret Quonsar sends me a growler of tomato juice, Imma be pretty upset.
posted by mochapickle at 9:44 AM on November 13, 2014


Foodieland. Where kale is "high-end" for 7$ and the exact same but discounted veggies can supplement "hamburger helper" a day or two later.
Calorie policing salad? Really? Lecturing the 1$ recipients on micro nutrition? Original.

When talking about bringing fresh(er) options to food deserts, how about not judging food choices/current availability. Food purists aren't generally interested in feeding the world and those attitudes come through again and again in food threads.

High-end, enough for a 30 year old hypothetical active woman on Wednesday. Congrats, you understand nutrition.
Discount, better feed your entire family with these day old healthy options and remain clearly uninformed on Thursday. But good on you for finally making one healthy choice.
posted by lawliet at 9:48 AM on November 13, 2014 [2 favorites]


"two people don't like salads."

This is weird. I don't see any text where this quote comes from and those aren't my words. Did something get deleted?


D'oh - actually it was more like the "two" SHOULD have been deleted.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:51 AM on November 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


I'd rewrite that to "good on you for finally being given a healthy choice to make in the first place," given what food deserts are like. I'm a food purist inasmuch as it's generally better for people to eat less processed stuff. I will unapologetically applaud ideas that deal away with the economic and time hurdles which prevent people from being able to do so.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:53 AM on November 13, 2014


The pictured salads look delicious. If we had these near my work it would be a daily lunch for me. At the $1 price point I have no idea how this is even possible. So - godspeed sir, and I hope this succeeds.
posted by naju at 11:13 AM on November 13, 2014


The $1 is for day old salads donated to machines in community centers that are in low income areas. The day old salads come from the corporate machines in food courts and offices, inventory that didn't sell in the main machines the day before. The corporate machine average salad cost is $7. That's in the fourth paragraph of the linked article.

So no. $1 a day salads like this are not a sustainable business model, so it's a good thing that's not what their total business model is. Although he does hope to bring prices down for the main machines, which would be nice. I'd still pay $7 for any of the salads shown, but I wouldn't sneeze at a lower price point.
posted by angeline at 12:00 PM on November 13, 2014


A growler is ~32 oz, or a medium to large drink from a fast food place.

Are there multiple varieties of growler? In the context of beer they run either 1/2 gallon or 2 litres.
posted by mr. digits at 2:40 PM on November 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


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