Hmm, delicious cheeseburger or tasteless goop in a can? That's a tough one.

Maybe my sarcasm detector is off but I don't see how this is a real question.

Because there's nothing I love more than factory farmed animal protein and excessive, unneeded carbohydrates.

Delicious cheeseburger? Have you even eaten at a McDonalds?

McDonalds is fucking delicious.

I'd still much rather put bland goop into my body considering how terrible the contents of a Big 'n' Tasty combo meal is for my health.

I'm pretty darn sure the bland goop eaten in the same quantity is as equally dangerous.

Ever heard of the term 'balanced diet'?

What's unbalanced about Soylent?

Let's recognize the fact that McDonald's food actually tastes good to a large portion of the population, for better or worse. To do otherwise is, IMO, harmful to the discussion of improving what we eat as a society.

Let's also recognize that the American public fails in an epic fashion at nutritional choices:

http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html [More than one-third of U.S. adults (35.7%) are obese.]

http://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/statistics.htm [Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States.]

Millions of people eat at McDonalds and like it. Most people would choose the McDonalds burger. The people that give a shit about factory farming and nutrition are in the minority.

That's what YOU want. Compare that to the status quo and it's hard to argue against the fatty, grease filled cheeseburger.

Delicious unhealthy cheeseburger or a tasteless but healthy goop in a can? I guess you're right, it's a no-brainer either for people with self-discipline and for those without.

> Delicious unhealthy cheeseburger or a tasteless but healthy goop in a can?

I choose -- false dichotomy. Plenty of healthy and not tasteless quick meal replacements that already exist.

Such option was not presented in the hypothetical scenario. It'd be trivial anyway to make the tasteless goop tasty with some flavorings.

If you think it is "trivial" to make a bland substance taste good without substantially changing the nutritional makeup of that substance, there are a lot of diet food companies who would like to have a chat with you and make you fabulously rich. Jamba Juice would like to know the secret, too.

Most things that innately taste good -- stuff that you could drop in a blender and drink and it'd still be agreeable -- are fatty, salty, starchy, sugary, or some mix of all these. Healthy and good-tasting food requires pleasant textures and careful composition that allows a small amount of fat, salt, starch, etc. to enhance the flavor of the whole meal.

I guess I should have said it would be trivial to make it tastier for my own non-demanding taste buds. I could just add a few drops of stevia and I'd be good to go, but I see how it could be a challenge to make something that pleases most people.

"Fatty" is not a synonym for unhealthy by the way. A lot of people consider high fat/low carb diets to be healthier than the reverse.

OP here. I'm currently on the keto diet; fat, in moderation, fat is definitely not unhealthy.

The problem is, McDonalds meals are not healthy, full stop:

Mcdonald's - Big Mac Meal With Fries and Coke With No Onions

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/mcdonalds-big-mac-...

1130 Calories, and 67 grams of sugar. Call me when McDonalds modifies their meals to consist primarily of protein/fat calories.

Don't get fries. Don't get a drink with sugar added. Definitely don't get a milkshake or cookies.

The burger itself is fine. You wouldn't go to Subway for a nice sandwich and drink a liter of Coke afterwards and a bag of chips and complain about how unhealthy it is.

Here you can get some nice fresh crispy raw carrots instead of fries.

> Such option was not presented in the hypothetical scenario.

Right...that's why I called the scenario a false dichotomy.

Where did you get the idea that it's "tasteless"?

Hahah, delicious?

This is one of the more obscure "internet things that irk me", but particularly on HN I keep seeing the word "delicious" applied to any food that is minimally palatable.

The word itself is starting to grate on me, as "lecker" in German already does thanks to its overuse.