The truth about McDonalds
Sep 24th, 2010 by elichan
Truth: McDonalds seems to be promoting healthier food on their menu.
False: McDonalds is actually turning ways to promoting healthier food.
In my COMM101 class, we talked about how customers around the world have different tastes and preferences because of their own distinctive cultures, hence their own respective menus despite it being the same restaurant. I decided to look into this idea a bit further as I concentrated on the globally-known McDonalds. I find that the Canadian franchises here are promoting their “chicken salad” or their “chicken snack wrap” quite a bit as if they suddenly made a 180 degrees turn to focus on healthier food on their menu. However, I think this is merely a sneaky strategy to temporarily satisfy and keep their customers from turning away to other similar fast food restaurants, like Burger King or Dairy Queen, which actually do offer food that is roughly the same and perhaps maybe a bit healthier. From news back in 2005, the company was talking about labelling all their food products on the wrappers just to notify their customers on how much fat, calories, and nutrition they are about to intake. To me, I would expect anything that comes out of a fast food restaurant to be extremely unhealthy in the first place. So why bother the nutritional information and their “considerate” efforts? The information would just deter anyone from eating the food anyways. Moreover, Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, had agreed that “McDonald’s new initiative did not go far enough and would ultimately have little impact on consumer health.” Instead, he suggested that McDonalds should be “having it on the menu board, [so that] a lot of people to switch to a smaller order of fries, a diet soda, or a regular hamburger instead of a cheeseburger.” Quite frankly, I have yet to notice any difference on the packaging or on the bright colourful menu inside the restaurants, and it is almost 2011, six years later from the revealing of their plan. So instead, alike many other customers, I am already unwrapping the paper to bite into my hot juicy Big Mac burger.
Reference: http://www.frankwbaker.com/mcdonalds_food_labeling.htm