McDonalds will have accomplished what the Nazis, Japanese, Russians and the Chinese couldn't.
McDonalds did us in.
For the first time in several years we had occasion to (reluctantly) accompany someone to a McDonalds for breakfast.
We're doomed.
The first thing we noticed was that the drive thru line Saturday morning was at least two dozen cars long. The parking lot was full- we got the last spot. The eating area was jammed and yet there were only two people in line. The efficiency of delivering the food which kills us was breathtaking.
We had trouble ordering for our friend (we asked for, and ate nothing). The menu was confusing only because our companion didn't want one of the two dozen numbered specials. While individuality was accommodated, it was discouraged.
The order was rung up and as the cashier delivered the change a counter person was handing us the bag. No time was lost. We were processed so efficiently, just like the grain and antibiotic fattened cows on the moving walkway that constituted the other side of this frightening transaction.
In the film Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock ate McDonalds food exclusively for a month. He gained 25 pounds, experienced heart palpitations, depression, sexual dysfunction, and his blood lipid profiles went to dangerous levels.
Through the end of last year McDonalds, which sells hundreds of millions of burgers a year, treated the "meat" for its products- which was really "pink slime" with ammonium hydroxide, a chemical otherwise used in household cleaners, fertilizers, and explosives.
The sodium content of meals at McDonalds range from 2150mg (Big Breakfast with hotcakes), 1700mg (Angus Deluxe burger) 1200 (Crispy chicken sandwich)1360 mg (double quarter pounder with cheese). The recommended healthy intake of sodium for an adult (children levels are much lower) is 1500 for adults with hypertension and 2300 for everyone else. One meal at McDonalds gives all children and most adults almost all the sodium they should consume for one day.
The large coke McDonalds sells contains over 20 teaspoons of granulated sugar. The list of health crimes goes on and on. Calories, saturated fat, chemicals, sugar, salt, there is almost nothing at McDonalds that is good for a heathy person to consume on a regular basis.
US Health care spending was 17% of GDP, meaning 17 cents of every dollar spent was on health care. The Commonwealth Fund ranked the US last in quality of health care among developed nations. In 2012 almost 50 million americans remained uninsured.
Obesity rates in the US have doubled since 1970. Two thirds of US Adults are overweight or obese and 31% of low-income preschool children are obese. Source: Food Research and Action Center.
The cost of obesity in the US is approaching 300 billion dollars a year.
That McDonalds sells food that kills is nothing new. The film Super Size me was released in 2004.
And yet McDonalds has won.
McDonalds sells 75 hamburgers a second. McDonalds is the worlds largest distributor of toys (how better to hook the next generation of Americans than to give toys to children?). McDonalds serves meals to 30 million Americans everyday! McDonalds sells over 4.2 million hamburgers a day. McDonalds sells a billion pounds of beef a year and slaughters over 5 million cattle. It takes ten grams of grains to create one calorie of beef.
The numbers are staggering. The disastrous ecological, economic, and health impact of McDonalds on the United States is inestimable, so interwoven is this insidious corporation into our daily lives.
What the Germans, Japanese, Russians and Chinese couldn't do through war, nuclear missiles, or economic challenges, McDonalds is doing through the mega-efficient delivery of food that kills us, bankrupts our nation, and destroys the ecology.
The Good news?
McDonalds has plans to open one store a day in China for the next four years surpassing two thousand outlets by 2013.
See You In Court and stay away from those Golden Arches.
So the answer is what? - send in Bloomberg to grant licenses for a one-trip-only-per-month to McDonalds?
ReplyDeleteUsed to be a time that liberals gave a damn about personal freedom...
BTW, try the salads...you'll lose weight.
I have a big problem with people telling me what I can or can't eat. I exercise, eat healthy and if I want to chow down on a Big Mac every now and then I don't see the problem. What I do have a problem with is people using fast food as an excuse for their obesity problem. Have a little self control and don't point fingers at the fast food industry. Mayor Bloomberg wanted to ban super size soft drinks. Will that stop someone from ordering two large drinks for themselves? It's easy to point the blame at someone else.
ReplyDeleteToday's blog post brought to you by Angry Girl, whose motto is that it is better to be angry than fat.
ReplyDeleteI'm not telling you what to eat. I could care less if you kill yourself with big macs, although I don't want to pay the ER bill when you show up in cardiac failure with no insurance.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of the post is to show that we are voluntarily destroying ourselves, our planet, our economy, and our bodies via McDonalds.
What about Shumie and Cigars? Les have him arrested too!
ReplyDeleteRump=
ReplyDeleteI'm your boogy man
I'm your boogy man turn me on,
I'm your boogy man,
that's what I am
I give you whatever I can
be it early morn
late afternoon
or at midnight
it's never too soon
I'm your boogy man
I'm your boogy man
turn me on
"We'd likt to begin the boarding process."
ReplyDeleteExtra word. Process. Not necessary. "We'd like to begin the boarding" is all you need.
Then they want you to "pre-board". What does that mean? They want you to get on before you get on?
Then they say "get on the plane, get on the plane." I say "fuck you, I'm getting in the plane. Let Evel Knieval get on the plane. I'm getting in the plane with the pilot."
Then they say the flight is a non-stop. Well I'm not sure I like that. I want the flight to stop. preferably at the airport I am going to.
And speaking of words they make up, try "near miss" What is that? When two planes miss each other it's not a near miss, it's a near hit. When the plane's collide in mid air, that's a near miss- look at that they crashed into each other- it was a near miss.
Priceless.
Rump says The disastrous ecological, economic, and health impact of McDonalds... Cry me a f-cking river! What about smoking? No disastrous ecological, economic, and health impact from smoking? Smoking, cigars cause cancers of the lung, esophagus, larynx (voice box), mouth, throat, kidney, bladder, pancreas, stomach, and cervix, as well as acute myeloid leukemia. Smoking also causes heart disease, stroke, aortic aneurysm (a balloon-like bulge in an artery in the chest), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (chronic bronchitis and emphysema), asthma, hip fractures, and cataracts. Smokers are at higher risk of developing pneumonia and other airway infection.
ReplyDeleteMillions of Americans have health problems caused by smoking and are hospitalized and seeking treatments but by all means let's go after McDonalds.
Mcdonalds has great coffee. and cheap.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteI think what I was trying to, and obviously failed in your case, was not just show how bad McDonalds is for a person, because there are surely things just as bad or worse, like smoking, alcohol, drugs, etc.
What I was trying to show was the pervasive and insidious way McDonalds has weaved itself like some parasite into our daily life. The food poisons us. The beef raised are done so in an ecologically damaging way. The grain used to fatten the beef wastes millions of acres of farmland that could be used to produce food to feed the entire planet and not just a bunch of fat americans. The toys. The advertising. The waste. The amazing efficiency in which it i all delivered and the unbelievable popularity of a product that we all universally know shortens our life and burdens our already over burdened health care system.
The mere fact that something else exists that is just as bad or even worse doesn't mean we shouldn't do something about this.
Not recognizing the disastrous impact McDonalds has on our society because people also smoke is ridiculous. You can't the make the case for one merely because the other exists.
A happy meal costs 2.99. A good salad costs like 14 bucks. We are fucked.
ReplyDeleteWhy should I care? The asbestos we all get from practicing in the REGJB daily will get us all first.
ReplyDeleteCome on Rump. "Big Mac, large order of fries, coke" that was my childhood man.
ReplyDeleteDiggin a shumie cigar as I sit on my bay front house in the Keys and watch the sun set. So sue me.
ReplyDeleteWhat ever happened to jay weaver?
ReplyDeleteI don't know much about college basketball but I know that if Wichita State beats Louisville, that will be a major upset.
ReplyDeleteThey also buy diseased cows for slaughter cause they are cheaper.
ReplyDeleteIf you're not following @draculawyer (Fake Alex Michaels) you're missing the best of twitter. Here are some examples:
ReplyDeleteFake Alex Michaels @draculawyer
I vin one bet NCAA yesterday and lose one. Only bookie vin yesterday. Again. Bad mood for Monday.
and
Fake Alex Michaels @draculawyer
I sometime think my whole life should have accompanying soundtrack: "How do you like me now" repeating over and over. Vould vork vell.
their coffee aside, eating McDonalds is eating poison. I am with Rumpole, I don't care what you eat. You want to eat McDonalds, smoke crack, drink until your liver explodes, smoke a carton of cigarettes a day, whatever, it's your funeral. I just shouldn't have to pay the medical bills for your cardiac arrest and cancer. Tax that crap into oblivion. A Big Mac meal should cost $12-14 with tax and that money put into the public coffer to pay for medical bills. Fruits, Vegetables and lean meats should be subsidized.
ReplyDeleteHere here Rumpy.
ReplyDeleteActually all the evidence shows that natural fats from proteins don't make you fat. So you don't need to eat lean protein. Go ahead and eat that roasted pork skin or the marbled beef. Its sugar and grains like wheat and processed carbs- that mostly have meat and sugar in them- that make you fat. It turns out Dr Atkins was right- bacon and eggs wont clog your arteries. But the whole wheat toast with margarine will. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteRumpole,
ReplyDeleteare you saying that whole wheat break is bad for you?
According to Cardiologist William Davis, who has written extensively on the dangers of wheat , two slices of whole wheat bread has more of a negative impact on blood sugar than a candy bar. It has to do with the genetic modification of wheat. The wheat farmed has no relation to the wheat we ate 10,000 years ago when farming started.
ReplyDeleteRump I got a big shumie DR cigar going and my brazilian GF In a thong hanging out on my dock at my house in Tavernier. In a little while we will take my boat for some lunch and beers at a bay side bar and then back to the house for a quick romp, a shower, and an evening drive home to Miami. And we'll do the same thing next weekend too.
ReplyDeleteLife is good mi amingo.
I'm just a broke asa watching basic cable in a cheap north miami studio apt. WTF?
ReplyDeleteGrow a pair leave the state throw up a shingle sleep with a bomdsman or two and start making some fucking flow dude.
ReplyDeleteAmen. Was just about to write the same thing.
ReplyDeleteI can think of a tubby dui defense attorney who needs to lose the carbs.
ReplyDeleteDiary - April 5, 1865
ReplyDeleteAs a practicing lawyer in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln had been associated with an Andrew Johnston. Johnston had a nephew of whom he was fond, and for whom he desired a career in the law. But the young man was adamant that he wanted to follow the profession of arms. Lincoln was instrumental in securing for Johnston's nephew an appointment to West Point.
The young man's name was George Pickett. Yes, that George Pickett – the Confederate commander who many years later led the last-ditch, heroic, and ultimately doomed charge at Gettysburg that marked the turning-point in the Civil War.
On April 5, 1865, Lincoln personally walked through the ruins of Richmond, Virginia, the newly-fallen capital of the Confederacy. The diary of Pickett's wife recounts what happened then and there:
I was in Richmond when my soldier fought the awful battle of Five Forks, Richmond surrendered, and the surging sea of fire swept the city. News of the fate of Five Forks had reached us, and the city was full of rumors that General Pickett was killed. I did not believe them. I knew he would come back, he had told me so. But they were very anxious hours. The day after the fire, there was a sharp rap at the door. The servants had all run away. The city was full of Northern troops, and my environment had not taught me to love them. The fate of other cities had awakened my fears for Richmond. With my baby on my arm, I answered the knock, opened the door and looked up at a tall, gaunt sad-faced man in ill-fitting clothes, who with the accent of the North asked: "Is this George Pickett's place?" "Yes, sir," I answered, "but he is not here." "I know that, ma'am," he replied, "but I just wanted to see the place. I am Abraham Lincoln." "The president," I gasped. The stranger shook his head and said: "No, ma'am; no, ma'am, just Abraham Lincoln, George's old friend." "I am George Pickett's wife and this is his baby," was all I could say. I had never seen Mr. Lincoln, but remembered the intense love and reverence with which my soldier always spoke of him. My baby pushed away from me and reached out his hands to Mr. Lincoln, who took him in his arms. As he did so an expression of rapt, almost divine tenderness and love lighted up the sad face. My baby opened his mouth and insisted upon giving his father's friend a dewy infantile kiss. As Mr. Lincoln gave the little one back to me, shaking his finger at him playfully he said: "Tell your father, the rascal, that I forgive him for the sake of that kiss and those bright eyes." He turned and went down the steps talking to himself, and passed out of my sight forever, but in my memory those intensely human eyes, that strong, sad face – that face which puzzled all artists but revealed itself to the intuition of a little child, causing it to hold out its hand to be taken and its lips to be kissed.
It is incredible just how comfortable the fringes of either the right or the left are with tyranny and authoritarianism -- so long as it suits their own whims, and nothing more.
ReplyDeleteEverybody is entitled to freedom. Unless of course they don't live life like you do. In which case you're for regulating and licensing and taxing until they see it just the way you do.