When Free Is Bad
It was about 1:30 in the morning and I heard my brother pull up to the house. My body overrun with anticipation, he dumped the magical bag on the kitchen counter. I tore it open and quickly sussed out the contents. As I rifled through the wrappers like a rabid raccoon I found the magic drug I craved. Prize in hand I retreated to my basement cave and prepared to shoot up.
Empty beers by my side, I took that first magic bite and life instantly started getting better….
Night Shift
The story above was an all too common occurrence in my late teenage years. In fact it ran as described any night that I was home and my older brother worked the night shift.
My brother worked at McDonald’s, and when he closed the store he’d get home well after 1:00 a.m. And 9 times out of 10, he’d have a big bag of free “food”.
I grew up in a lower middle class family. We lived paycheck to paycheck, but we were never on welfare and didn’t go without. That said, we also rarely ever went out to eat it as it was simply too expensive. Even fast food was more expensive than my Mom’s home cooked meals, and she was a pretty damn good cook.
My brother started working at McDonald’s as a high school senior and transitioned to full time after graduation. College was definitely not in his plan, and my parents would have struggled to afford it anyway.
He eventually went full time at McDonald’s and started working late nights more often, and the free “food” started rolling in.
Oblivious And Addicted
I was already very overweight as a teenager, and quickly headed toward obesity. Desperate to escape my traumatic home life, I started drinking heavily my junior year of high school, and the pounds kept piling on.
Like most everyone back then we were oblivious to the dangers of fast food, and I wouldn’t have given a shit even if I knew it was bad for me. So when my brother started bringing home free “food”, my Mother welcomed it from a financial aspect and I quickly became addicted.
Yes, addicted. It’s no secret these foods are chemically engineered to be addictive, and their devious magic worked on me.
Whenever I knew my brother was working a night shift, my evening was pretty much settled. I got a good drunk going, either out with some friends or in the basement of my parents house. And then I waited for that magic moment. The moment my brother got home and delivered the goods that I was addicted to.
After stuffing my face with poisonous “food” I would pass out in a chemically altered state of alcohol and junk.
The bestselling author Gabor Mate says that all addictions are attempts to escape the deep pain of a past trauma, very often a childhood trauma. The thing we’re addicted to gives temporary relief. That thing could be opioids, alcohol, gambling, sex, shopping, or virtually anything.
I my case it was alcohol and McDonald’s, best enjoyed together at 2:00 in the morning.
It’s actually a miracle I peaked at only 230lbs now that I look back. Being an avid BMX bike rider may have been the only thing that kept me from ballooning to NFL lineman weight.
Free Is Often Good
As a financially independent person, I like free stuff. Frugality was probably the key driver that got me to FI, and “free” is magic to a frugal persons ears.
But in many cases free has a hidden cost. Sometimes it may come with the unwritten expectation of something in return. Other times it may expire and start charging you full price, because you didn’t read the fine print.
And in some circumstances the thing that’s free may be something you should just avoid at all cost, even run away from. Because the thing itself is really bad for you. With time and experience you can become skilled at flagging these free trojan horses, but that wisdom usually results from victimhood.
I was a victim of the allure of free “food”. Worse yet, I became addicted to it. It took many years to wrestle my addiction away, with massive costs to my body and health.
I did eventually kick my McDonald’s habit. And that started me on the long journey to lose 70 pounds and become the healthy person I am now. I also learned to be careful of “free”, because it’s sometimes a devil in disguise.
Whenever something’s “for free”, you are the product!
Free food is great, but on a regular basis can be very unhealthy, I used to work as pizzajolo in a pizza delivery firm in the late 1990’s and baked around 200 pizzas per night, had one or another for myself regularly… yummy but not healthy!
Well at least real pizza with real ingredients isn’t nearly as bad as American mega-corps fast food. For instance, McDonalds fries have Pyrophosphate in them. Pyrophosphate is also used to make yoga mats. Yes, yoga mats. Many people find this out and still eat them, which shows either how little they care about their own health, or how addictive this chemical “food” is, or both.
Free food in the office… Never have I seen so many people devour donuts, cookies, and other desserts at 9am in the morning just because it was free.
There are some things I will pay for on sale/free and some I refuse to. It all depends on what the ROI is for me. For example, I will not skimp on toilet paper or bedding. Those two things I use everyday and I see great benefits from not buying the cheapest brand.
YES! A very-overlooked huge benefit of telework and not going in is avoiding all of the junk food and unhealthy stuff that seemingly everyone brings in. They think they’re being nice… being nice would be bringing in a veggie tray.
Glad you turned your health around. Overcoming that kind of challenge gives you a lot of credibility in this space. I never had to struggle much at all in life, which puts me in a position of not really feeling qualified to offer anyone advice the way you can. Free can be good or bad. I inherited a large sum of money from my parents which could be seen as free since I did not work for it. That would have wrecked some people, but it was a good thing in my family’s life because we were already financially independent and good with money.
You’re right, I think most folks would not be able to handle a large inheritance. The data show most spend all of their money now, even the high earners.
Dave, it makes me wonder about all of those teenage boys who “binged”, but never “saw the light”. As I sit halfway through my 58th year, it’s telling to see other folks my age who are started an accelerated decline vs. those of us who are still feeling as though we’re in our “prime”. Thankful we “saw the light” before the tunnel started closing in…
We put the work in, that’s why we’re still in our prime. It took me a long time to get here, but man is the grass greener! I ain’t lettin that tunnel close on me dude, and I know you aren’t either
Glad you were able to turn things around! This is another story of yours that I can deeply relate to…
Food is also my kryptonite, specifically sugar. And I used to give into those cravings 110% of the time when free food was involved. Whether it was eating all the “free” cookies when I worked at Subway as a teen, or binging on the “free” snacks and junk food that my work used to stock for us (in return for forcing us spend 80+ hours a week in a conference room during our busy season).
We always used to joke that free food didn’t have any calories. But when you get it all the time, and your addicted to it, free food can destroy your body. I’m almost 40 and still trying to undo the damage, though have made some good progress.
You’re absolutely right – there is a cost to everything.
I empathize, sugary junk food is so addictive. Even a Whopper from Burger King has something like 12 grams of sugar – in a hamburger! They know it’s addictive, so they add it in. Hamburgers shouldn’t have sugar in them. The stuff is toxic and a large portion of our expensive and screwed up healthcare system is due to the havoc that fast food and junk food have wreaked on our country. Good luck with your fight, I’m in the fight too – don’t think I have it all figured out or that it’s easy for me.
i worked for mcd’s for a couple of years in that late night closer role. thankfully i was rail thin and able to withstand all that junk i ate every day, although i’m quite sure it didn’t do a lot of favors for my running performance!
herpes is free but i don’t want that either.
Oh man, you always have a zinger!
You get what you pay for–and that applies to free as well! I grew up lower middle class as well, and still have a hard time turning down freebies–even if I’ll end up paying for it in other ways.
So so true, thanks for stopping by!
I worked are Arby’s briefly as a teenager and know all too well about that “free food” at the end of the night. Fortunately I had so much of it that summer, it permanently put me off fast food forever. Even now, when I make a venture to Arby’s every 5 or so years, I immediately regret it. Yep, sometimes free is anything, but.
Kinda like how you can’t stand the smell of the first liquor you ever got drunk-sick on. And Arby’s… eeewwww
What is pyrophosphate used for?
Tetrasodium Pyrophosphate is an odorless, white powder or granular solid. It is used in household and industrial cleaning compounds, as a water softener, metal cleaner and food additive, and for oil well drilling.
^^^ Yuck!
Yuck indeed. Yet people keep whoofing it down, even after they find out about it. It’s been widely known for years.
Recognizing your addiction is the first step. People can be addicted to a great number of things–shopping, alcohol, junk food, sugar…. Food has got to be the worst. You can’t live without it, and the big food companies have whole divisions that research how to make their food products more addictive. Some junk food actually stimulates the same areas in the brain that Heroin stimulates making it some of the most addictive foods on the market.
So so true. Getting off an illicit drug is probably hard, but heroin is not something you need to survive. But as you point out when you’re addicted to food or have an eating disorder you still have to deal with food every day – forever. And I’ve heard the same thing on some science podcasts, these bastards are engineering this crap to hit at key dopamine centers in the brain. Americans need to wake up and take a stand against this crap!
Thanks for the great comment!
Glad you managed to kick that McDonald’s habit! I agree that a lot of “free” stuff comes with strings attached. Especially free food.
But there are exceptions. Sometimes free is really free, and it’s good too!
Oh yes I agree – like credit card points. They are indeed fully free, as long as you pay your monthly bill and there’s no credit card fee. Thanks Tako!
My parents worked in a pizza joint when I was young so we got free pizza pretty often.
Luckily, they worked there only for a few years. After that, they opened a small Thai restaurant.
Free Thai food is a bit healthier than free pizza. 😀
It’s hard to say no to free stuff. Now that we’re more comfortable, I don’t take free stuff unless I will really use it. Otherwise, it just clutter up the house.
This is why, no matter how much we try to save every penny possible, we give ourselves wiggle room on groceries. I don’t care if vegetables quadruple in price, I’m still going to buy as many of them as I can, and I’ll support policies to get them in the hands of people who can’t afford them. Nice job prying yourself away from the fast food trap. I’m sure it wasn’t easy!
That’s a great hill to die on Mrs. FCB, I agree. And thanks for the kudos!