This is an excerpt from a recent press release, on the McDonald’s nutrition page.
This is a screen shot of McDonald’s breakfast options. Note the titillating color palate and thrilling variety of carbs you can eat between two slices of bread. And those two ‘healthy’ options with fruit at the top of the chart? The yogurt parfait has 23g of sugar and the oatmeal has 32g. Most adults should shoot for 44g in an entire day. Oh, and for the record, the 8g of whole grain in their new egg-white breakfast sandwich is pretty flimsy given the USDA recommends that adults eat 48g of whole grains daily.
Look, I’m not saying McDonald’s isn’t trying, or that you should never eat this stuff ever (OK, I’m sort of saying that), because I realize the reality is that this is what a lot of Americans on the run and on a budget are eating in the morning, and I guess some fruit is better (but like, only a tiny bit better) than no fruit. Fine. But I think its bullshit that McDonald’s is now marketing itself as healthy and nutrition minded, just because a few diced apple pieces swimming in brown sugar make a single appearance on the breakfast menu.
Main screen at Mcdonalds.com. There are small chickens wandering the hillside in the background. Have you ever actually seen chickens wandering a hillside? No. Because that only happens in fairy tales and fast food commercials.
If they want to be a healthy food establishment, they should change their food. If they don’t want to change their food, they shouldn’t market themselves as a healthy food establishment. Is this really so much to ask?
Yes. It is too much to ask. Sorry. I take it back. It was unreasonable of me to expect that a company that is the fourth largest employer in the world, with more than 33,000 restaurants serving nearly 68 million people in more than 119 countries every day, should have to align its marketing with the services it actually provides.
More on that, and the aneurism-inducing “Meet Our Suppliers” ad campaign soon.
Sustaining Starter 