I was speaking to an American friend of mine recently and he brought up a very similar point. I simply could not understand how fast food could have come to be associated with the poor in the United States - he simply pointed out that I live in England, where a decent take-out often costs the equivalent of $8-$10 US, for a much smaller portion, and that almost any American would see that as bordering on extortion.

If nothing else, I feel that this highlights how ill-conceived our ideas can be when we try to reason about a world that many of us simply don't live in.