Man tests theory that it's better to buy medium over large fires at McDonald's
One man has tested the theory as to whether or not it's better to buy a medium instead of large fries at McDonald's.
The fast-food aficionado has figured out all the calculations, so you don't have to worry about securing the optimum bang for your buck.
Dubbed the 'McDonald's Fries Theorum' - this an experiment like you've never seen before.
Heads up - there's a whole lot of data to wrap your head round and theorist, Jim, has spared no details.
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Jim, widely known as 'Everyone’s Favourite Jim', took to Twitter on Wednesday (15 March) to share with his followers the exciting new theory all about fries, quantity and value for money.
"I've got a lot of work on," his announcement began, "so naturally I ignore it all and do something silly instead."
Jim went on to upload a thread of nine separate tweets - complete with photo evidence - chronicling his bizarre experiment.
After the introduction tweet, the first part of the thread explained: "When ordering McDonald's, my wife asked for medium fries rather than large 'Because there's not actually any more chips in them, it's a con!'"
"So," Jim continued, "I decided to test it."
And test it he did.
Jim concluded the tweet writing: "FALSE: There are more fries in a large. Job done."
But, this is where the true hypothesis begins as he then started to speculate that the reason for this was because 'the large fries are in a larger box...'
"So," he explained to Twitter, "I zero out the scales with a bowl and weigh the chips."
Unsurprisingly, the test came back 'FALSE' yet again with Jim confirming 'There are more fries in a large. Job done.'
Noting the exact measurements, he added: "18g more, to be precise..."
The findings then led him onto the third stage of the experiment - determining the role of the cardboard packaging for both portion sizes of fries.
He 'interestingly' found that the large fries has '2g of extra cardboard' and proceeded to upload photo evidence of exactly what '18g of fries looks like'.
Nine sad-looking fries, it seems.
"But..." Jim continued, just before he got into the really brainy side of the theory.
In the fifth tweet of the extensive thread, he documented: "A large has 116% of the fries of a medium.
"But, at £2.29 vs £1.79, is 128% of the price."
That led Jim to the conclusion: "Surely, then, there is a point where it's cheaper to buy more medium portions than large portions."
And it turns out that there is and, according to the theorist, it's 'not as many as you might think'.
Jim then posted a graph table, detailing the results of seven different sets of data: number of portions, large cost, large weight (g), medium cost, medium weight (g), weight difference (g) and cost difference.
"I wanted to find the crossover point where buying just one more portion of medium fries made it more cost-effective than buying large fries," he captioned the tweet.
Through analysing the data, Jim found: "If you buy five portions of medium fries, it's cheaper than four portions of large fries by 21p."
"And," he confirmed, "you get 37g more fries!"
Adding to the already impressive body of work, Jim posted the penultimate tweet with further evidence to show: "This works up to 7 mediums vs 6 large where you get 1 gram extra of fries for £1.21 less!
"After that, it gets cheaper but you do get fewer fries," he concluded.
Finally putting the theory to bed, Jim ended the series writing: "So there you have it.
"I suspect there is much more important maths yet to be done, but it will have to be by smarter people. If you also have an inquiring mind, do some tests yourself and report back with your results," he advised any other fellow investigators.
"Now, back to work," he finished.
It's fair to say that the internet couldn't get enough of Jim's deep dive into the world of fries with one Twitter user commenting: "This is the kind of investigative journalism I need in my life. Keep up the fantastic work"
A second added: "Thank you for your service. Important work."
"Lovely stuff," posted a final Twitter user, "the world needs more of this silliness instead of 'work'."
Topics: Food And Drink, Hacks, McDonalds, Twitter
Rhiannon Ingle