Hospital Food

I spend every Monday afternoon volunteering at Abbott Northwestern Hospital and in return for my time I get free food. For each shift that I volunteer, I get the option of eating in the hospital's cafeteria or in the McDonalds that is also in the hospital.

Let's just pause right there. McDonalds in a hospital?! That's what I thought when I first saw it and it's something I commonly hear from people who are visiting the hospital. It certainly doesn't seem like a great idea to me, but apparently it is fairly common in hospitals across the country. Here's an article about it: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/26/nyregion/26fast.html

Back to my weekly options: the cafeteria or McDonalds. My decision is usually influenced by food selection, the dollar amount worth of food that I get, and the hours that each are open.
-The cafeteria has many more options as far as healthy choices, though it has its fair share of unhealthy choices (such as burgers, pizza, etc). It's a pretty standard cafeteria. If you're familiar with UDS, you get it. McDonalds has everything that any other McDonalds would have: greasy burgers, overpriced salads, you get it.
-If I go to the cafeteria, I get get $6.50 worth of food. If I go to McDonalds, I can get $4 worth of food.
-The cafeteria is open until 8 (I think) but only has "hot meals" during specific periods around breakfast, lunch, dinner. Of course, my shift always ends about 45 minutes before the hot meals are available. McDonalds is open 24/7 and you can always get the usual menu (with the usual exception of the breakfast menu).

So what do I choose? Generally, I go for the cafeteria. There are more "healthy" options available and I can afford to get a larger amount of food. Occasionally though I get sucked in to McDonalds. I usually justify this with "it's faster" or "I just really want some of those french fries". It really isn't that much faster. Those fries just get me sometimes. I don't know how they did it, but McDonalds somehow tricked me into believing that their fries are so delicious that it outweighs the health/economic factors in my decision.