Ban Ronald McDonald?

[Svartalf]

In support of Ronald McDonald I am going to eat the greasiest meal possible at McD, it will be the first time in 5 years that i've been there.

Royal bacon with extra bacon? or just le big mac (which in French translates as the great pimp)

[maiforpeace]

In support of Ronald McDonald I am going to eat the greasiest meal possible at McD, it will be the first time in 5 years that i've been there.

Yum!

Beef patties made with fatty factory farmed ground beef, mixed with other meat 'stuff' that is scraped off bones, chemically washed with ammonia and other chemicals, then recolored to make it palatable before it's added back to the ground beef. That's just the beef patty.

Same processing and the end result raw material used to make chicken mcnuggets - it's called "advanced meat recovery".

[sandinista]

disgusting

[Cunt]

liberty requires the right to make choices, not just "the right" choices.

I'm HAVING this.

----------------------

Nobody is taking anyone's choices away...if they really want the toy they can go buy that crappy meal and buy the toy - they will just have to buy the healthy meal too to get the toy. How horrible...they might actually be exposed to healthier eating that way. It's not like they need the toy for their nutrition or their health.

maiforpeace, if you were a purveyor of what is branded 'healthier eating' products, it would simply look like you were cutting down the competition.

If you were, that is.

[Cunt]

In support of Ronald McDonald I am going to eat the greasiest meal possible at McD, it will be the first time in 5 years that i've been there.

Yum!

Beef patties made with fatty factory farmed ground beef, mixed with other meat 'stuff' that is scraped off bones, chemically washed with ammonia and other chemicals, then recolored to make it palatable before it's added back to the ground beef. That's just the beef patty.

Same processing and the end result raw material used to make chicken mcnuggets - it's called "advanced meat recovery".

I have worked in the meat processing industry and just have to call bullshit here. Not because of your facts, they may be true, but because you present it as horrible.

When slaughtering pigs at the plant in Red Deer, they saved everything but the asshole and the squeal (and actually, the former went into the 'protein pit'). They made efficient use of everything. We would, for instance, box up and ship pig uterus's. Pallets of boxes of pig uterus's.

ALL of the meat is used. Would you rather take the 'stuff that was scraped off bones' and toss it out? Would you waste that meat, after slaughtering an animal to get it?

Even if you don't eat meat, you wouldn't look very sensible arguing against efficient use of ALL of the animal.

When I worked at a hot-dog/sausage/donair meat plant it got even better. They take all the undesireable cuts of meat and much 'offal', and grind it up with spices, cheeses, flavouring and love, stuff it into animal intestines and convince meat-eaters to eat it.

Again, would you prefer it be tossed out?

It's easy to drum up disgust among people who are mostly far separated from the source of their meat, but after slaughtering a few animals, one develops a respect for those methods of using more of the animal.

I for one don't like wasting what had to die to pretty up my plate.

[Ronja]

... Americans are as attached to their fast food as a heroin addict is attached to his syringe.

These comments are for the whole thread (I get the impression that with Mai I might be just preaching to the choir ):

There is a possibility that this addiction is not entirely accidental (see link list at the end). AFAIK, no secret memos from inside Big Food have been unearthed, but just my own reading of food labels (which I have had to do all my life because of having a congenital condition of next to no gall (bile) production) shows that the combination of fat+sugar+salt is finding its way into products where it is decidedly unnatural, and where it did not exist 20 years ago. Why, for example, explicitly added oil(s), salt, and sugar/honey in muesli, bread, or frozen potato products, for example? Added sugar in potatoes? Added fat in muesli? Come on!

The answer likely is that the producers know that this particular threesome will make that particular food product more likely to be eaten in bigger portions, more often, and more compulsively, which leads to higher sales. And once one producer adopts this strategy, many competitors are likely to do the same, which makes it drastically more difficult to find the healthier alternatives in the store. (my favorite all-natural muesli, for example, is always on the bottom shelf, and every other time totally invisible, after the first row of packages has been taken - one cannot bump into it accidentally, yet it is the cheapest alternative, too )

If we know, through evidence, that certain combinations of sugar+fat+salt cause measurable and unhealthy changes in brain chemistry (and not only in rats, also in humans), and that eating certain foods directly causes habitual, even compulsive overeating (both in rats and in humans), is it not then the responsible things to ban advertising of such food products to minors, and to develop clear, quick-to-glance labeling for the benefit of the grownups?

If we also know, through evidence, that the decision what to buy (and thus eat) greatly depends on how foods are packaged and placed, both in cafeterias, lunch rooms and in grocery stores, would it not be a good idea to develop feedback loops that encourage systematic preferential placement of healthy foods? Taking away the unhealthy "Edible Foodlike Substances" apparently is not necessary (and especially in school lunch rooms / cafeterias a disciplinary/controlling strategy would likely backfire) - the sales of more real, whole (unprocessed) foods raise dramatically, when they are strategically placed.

A few reports on systematic scientific/scholarly studies:
http://www.scripps.edu/news/press/20100329.html
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/ab ... 91/23/2828
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010 ... ink&st=cse

More edited news/information outlets and blogs likely worth of checking out:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-h ... 64863.html (follow the links in the text to the scientific sources - they are good)
http://www.counselormagazine.com/compon ... -lmhc-ceds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD6kGwg-s9I
http://itsnotaboutnutrition.squarespace ... -food.html
http://www.theendofovereatingbook.com/blog.php

So, if you are willing, let's have a Truly Good Food1 day today - because we are worth it!


1 - Truly Good Food = food that is both good (as in tasty) and good for you (as in healthy)


Edit: deleted something unnecessarily convoluted

[Pappa]

My understanding is that the British laws are quite lax too - the consumption age being "5".... five. 16 "with a meal" and 18 otherwise.

In practice, it's rarely the case, as bars and restaurants are required to have special licences to allow it and they rarely do because they are more expensive. Also, while it is legal to give a child of 5 alcohol in the UK, it is frowned upon, and anyone doing so could risk contravening other laws about the treatment of children (as it could be argued the alcohol is harmful).

[Coito ergo sum]

That's not my understanding. They aren't just supposed to cut the fat - they are supposed to cut the caloric content as well. What they are suggesting is to substitute apple slices for fries and lo fat milk for soda in the meal.

The fact that some of their meals fail because of caloric content - such as the milk and apple slices example Coito gives - doesn't change the fact that they have to cut the fat, too.

I'm not sure how the happy meal "fails" because of caloric content. A meal of about 630 calories, given that the average 9-13 year old should have between 1800 and 2200 calories a day, appears to be quite normal for one of the three meals. Three meals of 630 calories is 1890 calories. That's on the low end of "moderately active" kids of that age. Make the drink a diet coke, and calories are down under 550. How low would be a healthy meal? 500? 400 calories?

What the San Francisco commission should have done is made it illegal for parents to feed their kids hot dogs, bagel bites, hot pockets, frozen pizzas (or pizzeria pizza for that matter), hamburgers on the grill (usually much larger than mcdonald's hamburgers), etc. I'm sure as soon as the regulation applied to the idiots feeding their kids garbage, then it would be acknowledged as inappropriate use of government power.

[Coito ergo sum]

I thought you guys were for less federal government and more local government. You don't live in San Francisco, so what the fuck do you care?

Because it might be setting a dangerous precident.

The precedent was already set by local smoking bans.

The smoking ban, however, was based on the effect one person's smoke has on another person. So, that's an altogether different animal. Kinda like how smokeless tobacco and electronic cigarettes are not covered by smoking bans. They don't effect anyone else.

[Coito ergo sum]

Let me expand. The power to regulate what businesses can and cannot sell has rested with local government for 100+ years. That includes alcohol licenses, public smoking bans, zoning laws, and many other examples. Likewise the state and federal governments have banned marketing cigarettes to children. This San Francisco "Happy Meal" ordinance is not setting any kind of new precedent.
.

Alcohol licenses are different animal - McDonald's already needs and has food licenses in all the states where they operate. That's a safety issue, wherein someone who wants to sell food has to register and pay a fee, and be subject to health and safety inspection. It doesn't tell people what to eat, or what to sell.

Public smoking ban - there really aren't "public" smoking bans. They are smoking bans in certain establishments - but, if you're out in public you can smoke. And, the bans that do exist are there because of the impact smoking has on other people.

Zoning laws are simply an allocation of the town's land area to different uses - residences here - commercial there - industrial over there. It's not the same thing at all as this stupid happy meal nonsense.

Lastly - I haven't seen anyone suggest here that it is "unconstitutional" for the local government to do this, or illegal for them to do this. City councils have general police powers and so long as they aren't prohibited by state or federal law, or the constitution, from doing something, they can do it, subject, of course, to the will of the people. They can do a lot of things -- like, for example, a city could make an ordinance called the Defense of Marriage Ordinance, saying that justices of the peace in that city could only perform marriage ceremonies between men and women - however, many of us would point to that and suggest that it is: (a) stupid, and (b) not an appropriate use of government power.

A city might ban meat sales in its town, based on the precedent that many towns are "dry" relative to alcohol. Or, they may ban vegetables, and become a meatatarian town. That doesn't make the rule right.

This happy meal ban is irrational. It's purpose as stated by San Francisco is to help combat obesity, but there is no evidence at all that children eating happy meals is a contributing factor to the obesity problem. There is plenty of evidence, however, that other things are primary causes of obesity: (a) a 20% increase over the last 40 years in the number of calories that parent shove in their kids' mouths every day, and (b) a tremendous increase in children's sedentary (non calorie burning) activities over that same period, namely television watching and computer gaming, to the tune of many hours a day on average, and (c) a tremendous decline in outdoor and other non-sedentary play activities among children.

It ain't the happy meal. Kids eat more, and burn fewer calories, than they did 40 years ago. That's the problem.

[Coito ergo sum]

My understanding is that the British laws are quite lax too - the consumption age being "5".... five. 16 "with a meal" and 18 otherwise.

In practice, it's rarely the case, as bars and restaurants are required to have special licences to allow it and they rarely do because they are more expensive. Also, while it is legal to give a child of 5 alcohol in the UK, it is frowned upon, and anyone doing so could risk contravening other laws about the treatment of children (as it could be argued the alcohol is harmful).

Fair enough. My point was to answer the person's question about whether I would support eliminating the smoking age. My answer was yes, and I see many very nice countries around the world that do just fine with extremely lax drinking and smoking laws. We're so used to Puritanism in the US, that we forget that 18 and 21 are just arbitrary numbers. There is no magic to them

15 year olds used to leave home and strike out on their own, up until the mid-20th century. I have a relative who left home in the 50s at the age of 16 and joined the "merchant marines". He was also lawfully entitled to smoke a cigarette. He never smoked, though.

[Coito ergo sum]

In support of Ronald McDonald I am going to eat the greasiest meal possible at McD, it will be the first time in 5 years that i've been there.

Yum!

Beef patties made with fatty factory farmed ground beef, mixed with other meat 'stuff' that is scraped off bones, chemically washed with ammonia and other chemicals, then recolored to make it palatable before it's added back to the ground beef. That's just the beef patty.

....soooooo....you conclude from that that a reasonable solution is to not allow McDonald's to sell toys in the same bag as a hamburger?

Anyway - there is no such thing as unfatty ground beef. It's all got lots of fat in it. So what? So does salami and pepperoni.

As for the "stuff" scraped off the bones....so what? People eat bone marrow and heads and feet. They take the "giblets" of fowl and make soups and gravies. If you make home made chicken soup, you take the chicken and boil the hell out of it in a pot and then strip it down "scraping the bones" free of the meat. Much of the "stuff" you refer to is distributed into the broth.

I used to work in a butcher department as a teenager and I made sausages. You'd not like to see that made, even under the "good" circumstances in the place where I worked. So what?

If there is something wrong with the process used by McD's then wouldn't the solution be to correct the process, or prohibit the sale of burgers at all, rather than prohibit the distribution of toys?

[Coito ergo sum]

I agree, government has a long history of allowing or disallowing individuals from doing any number of things. It's about consistency for me.

Well, yes - the government "can" do a lot of things, but that doesn't make all the things that it does equally stupid. This happy meal thing is ahead of the stupid curve.

[Cunt]

... Americans are as attached to their fast food as a heroin addict is attached to his syringe.

These comments are for the whole thread (I get the impression that with Mai I might be just preaching to the choir ):

There is a possibility that this addiction is not entirely accidental (see link list at the end). AFAIK, no secret memos from inside Big Food have been unearthed, but just my own reading of food labels (which I have had to do all my life because of having a congenital condition of next to no gall (bile) production) shows that the combination of fat+sugar+salt is finding its way into products where it is decidedly unnatural, and where it did not exist 20 years ago. Why, for example, explicitly added oil(s), salt, and sugar/honey in muesli, bread, or frozen potato products, for example? Added sugar in potatoes? Added fat in muesli? Come on!

The answer likely is that the producers know that this particular threesome will make that particular food product more likely to be eaten in bigger portions, more often, and more compulsively, which leads to higher sales. And once one producer adopts this strategy, many competitors are likely to do the same, which makes it drastically more difficult to find the healthier alternatives in the store. (my favorite all-natural muesli, for example, is always on the bottom shelf, and every other time totally invisible, after the first row of packages has been taken - one cannot bump into it accidentally, yet it is the cheapest alternative, too )

If we know, through evidence, that certain combinations of sugar+fat+salt cause measurable and unhealthy changes in brain chemistry (and not only in rats, also in humans), and that eating certain foods directly causes habitual, even compulsive overeating (both in rats and in humans), is it not then the responsible things to ban advertising of such food products to minors, and to develop clear, quick-to-glance labeling for the benefit of the grownups?

If we also know, through evidence, that the decision what to buy (and thus eat) greatly depends on how foods are packaged and placed, both in cafeterias, lunch rooms and in grocery stores, would it not be a good idea to develop feedback loops that encourage systematic preferential placement of healthy foods? Taking away the unhealthy "Edible Foodlike Substances" apparently is not necessary (and especially in school lunch rooms / cafeterias a disciplinary/controlling strategy would likely backfire) - the sales of more real, whole (unprocessed) foods raise dramatically, when they are strategically placed.

A few reports on systematic scientific/scholarly studies:
http://www.scripps.edu/news/press/20100329.html
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/ab ... 91/23/2828
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010 ... ink&st=cse

More edited news/information outlets and blogs likely worth of checking out:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-h ... 64863.html (follow the links in the text to the scientific sources - they are good)
http://www.counselormagazine.com/compon ... -lmhc-ceds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD6kGwg-s9I
http://itsnotaboutnutrition.squarespace ... -food.html
http://www.theendofovereatingbook.com/blog.php

So, if you are willing, let's have a Truly Good Food1 day today - because we are worth it!


1 - Truly Good Food = food that is both good (as in tasty) and good for you (as in healthy)


Edit: deleted something unnecessarily convoluted

Ronja, I don't have a problem with most of what you say, but it is based on the word 'addiction', and I humbly submit that your argument deserves a better foundation.

Also, manufacturers and stores might indeed be squeezing your preferred foods out, but that's the way of it. You do have a vote (with your money) and you CAN campaign against them (such as you are doing here, and I hope in your off-line life)

I refer you to the thoughtful and important words in my signature. People have the right to make some decisions - even if you think they are wrong. This includes the decision to place salt, fat and sugar into products they sell.

Good thing you have the right to stop buying such products eh?

[Coito ergo sum]

Also, the hamburgers sold at McDonald's are not really that bad for you. They're not worse than hamburgers cooked at home on the grill, which tend to be larger and supply the chil'run with more grams of fat and more sodium, if only because they eat more of it.

The french fries are worse than the hamburgers, as is any and all fried foods. But, singling out mcdonald's is borderline retarded, because bigger culprits are home made french fries and tater tots, etc., as well as chain restaurants like Chilis, Ruby Tuesday, Cheddars, Red Robin, etc. They are just as bad as McDonalds if not worse, and the portion sizes tend to be bigger.

Also bad for you are soft drinks like Coke and Root Beer. These are high in calories and loaded with sugar. But, what McDonald's sells is no worse than the bottles put in the refrigerator at home, and no worse than "juices" like "Hi-C" and "Sunny D" and all that crap.

Probably the worst foods anyone can eat are donuts, sodas, french fries, other fried foods (including "fish and chips") like fried chicken, fried shrimp, etc. But, again, these have nothing special to do with McDonalds.

The culprits here are individuals, and parents. Kids are fat because the parents of the last 30 years fed them shit, and too much of it. Take McDonalds away, and the kids would be just as fat. They wouldn't have had a cheeseburger from McD's but they would have had one at home or from a different restaurant. Or, they would have been fed "grilled cheese sandwiches and tater tots" instead - which is no better. Then they'dve gone back to the television and the XBox, instead of going out and playing street hockey, tag, baseball, or some other activity that raises the heart rate a smidge.