Worldwide Day of Action Against McDonalds
I am neither vegetarian nor vegan. While I champion the cause of local organic products my diet will at times reach outside those boundaries, but one place it never ventures is the Golden Arches.
Readers working around corporate Rochester may be aware that another Eat Well, Live Well challenge kicked off this week. I am amazed by the females who work around me, constantly complaining about an inability to lose wait, who then show up for their lunch break with a fresh McDonalds bag saying “I just got one of the salads.”
Scenes such as these cause me to realize why there has been a Worldwide Day of Action Against McDonalds for the past ten years: my foodie friends and I know the Arches is shit but is the average American consumer duped by the inclusion of a few pieces of lettuce, often creating something much worse than any hormone-infused, soggy cardboard burger?
Apparently.
So Hair of the Hog is joining in this year and urging everyone who would normally just go grab something from the dollar menu to reconsider. Support a local eatery or, better yet, make your own lunch tomorrow. I will be using the leftovers from the turkeys smoked this weekend to create a nice fall wrap with greens, smoked cheddar, local bacon and a cranberry-wasabi mayo.
I will not be going to MickeyDs, tomorrow or any day, and America’s waistline would greatly reduce if all those ArchHeads would do the same.
Why, you ask:
- Every month, 90% of the children between 3 and 9 in America visit a McDonald’s.
- In a survey of nine and ten year olds, half of them said they thought that Ronald McDonald knew best what kids should eat.
- The average American now consumes three hamburgers and four orders of french fries per week.
- Due in part to the industrialization of agriculture driven by the fast food industry, the United States is losing farmers so fast that it now has more prisoners than farmers.
- The biggest seller of Coke is McDonald’s. Americans already drink 56 gallons of soda per year. Coke wants to increase consumption of its products by 25% a year by focusing more on kids since the adult market is stagnant.
- 30% of American public high schools now sell fast food inside the schools.
- McDonald’s is the largest purchaser of beef in the world. McDonald’s buys from five large meatpackers. These companies have gained a stranglehold over the industry (just as in potatoes) that has driven down prices. Over the last twenty years 500,000 cattle ranchers have gone out of business. Over that time, the rancher’s share of every beef dollar has fallen from 63 cents to 46 cents.
- Even in vegetable oil, Chicken McNuggets contain twice the fat per ounce as a hamburger.
- Feedlot cattle are given shredded packaging, cardboard boxes, cement, and sawdust to put on weight.
- Cattle that go into hamburgers drink dirty swill water and dirty food. Until 1997, they were fed millions of dead cats and dogs purchased from animal shelters. They still eat dead pigs, horses, and poultry. (And chickens are fed dead cattle).
- Cattle are also fed chicken manure, which may contain tapeworms, Giardia, antibiotic residues, arsenic and heavy metals. Federal inspectors report that animals that are visibly diseased, cattle infected with measles, tapeworms, and covered with abscesses are slaughtered and processed into meat. This is why the industry and the USDA are pushing meat irradiation rather then safety, health, and inspections as a solution.
- The rate of obesity in the US is double what it was in the 60s. In children, it is double what it was in the 70s.
- In 1991, only four states had obesity rates of 15% of higher. Today, 37 states do. Fifty million Americans are obese or super obese. Obesity is second only to smoking as a cause of mortality in America today.
- The annual health costs to America stemming from obesity are $240 billion. The costs are exactly double fast food chain revenues.
3 Comments
October 15, 2007 at 4:10 pm
[...] a little bit of activism at his culinary blog Hair of the Hog. The good Dr. passes along some disturbing information about the Ray Crock empire and the factory beef [...]
October 15, 2007 at 7:22 pm
I haven’t eaten at McDonalds in over ten years. Honestly, I don’t remember the last time I ate there (other than to buy a drink when I was thirsty). I do eat at Burger King about once a month
I recall my ex-father-in-law, at one time was raising his grandchildren, and he would drive four miles each way, three times a day, seven days a week, because his grandson wouldn’t eat anything but McDonalds.
The idea to boycott is a good one, its a start. Another idea is to educate at least one person you know about the facts about McDonalds (some of which you provided) on the Worldwide Day of Action Against McDonalds. A set of talking points aimed at children might also help.
October 21, 2007 at 2:12 am
[...] from Divaesq [...]