The fat and salt content of the meal I’d get at a fancy restaurant is also very high, but nobody would call that “not real food.” Yuppies only fixate about the nutritional content of fast food because the proles eat it. It’s a species of virtue signaling.

Of course you could choose to buy that - but that's like saying I'll fly to Cancun and stay in the worst possible $1/night hotel... obviously you're going to have a bad time.

I personally would choose grass fed beef or bison or chicken, multiple steamed or roasted vegetables and I would not add salt, ketchup or salad dressing. And no soda.

In that case, the food is of much higher quality than anything I can buy at McDonalds.

You've missed his point. People are apt to call fast food not-food supposedly because of its lack of nutritional value, but don't respond in the same way to something like an expensive steak with Bearnaise sauce and buttery mashed potatoes.

Fries and Coke are fries and Coke.

But the burger is certainly food according to anyone's definition. Get a quarter pounder with cheese and tell me how that's nutritionally any different from a burger you make at home with standard supermarket ingredients -- ground beef, hamburger bun, american cheese, ketchup, pickles, onions. Yet nobody complains about that at a neighborhood, family or church cookout.

The yellow, sugary bun is nothing I would ever bring into my own home. Not being American I'm always shocked by how low-quality the bread in the US is. Neither is the cheese, or the ground beef which would be the lowest quality possible meat in existence. What exactly did they feed those cows, and what antibiotics were they given?

You are correct that I could buy and eat that stuff at home, but like I said, I could also buy Doritos, coke, sugar rolls, candy, etc. etc.

Fast food buns don't tend to be particularly yellow or sugary. That's brioche, or called brioche-style at least, and comes with a price premium.

A typical meal from McDonald's would be much higher in protein than a meal of doritos and/or coke. Probably better micro-nutrient profile too, although my no means would it be good.