McDonald's: More Devious Marketing, Dumbed Down Menu Changes

McDonald's persists as the devious poster child for what's wrong with the American fast food mega-industry....

Not just because it's the world's largest fast food corporation, which it is with $28 billion in U.S. sales and 34,000 outlets worldwide in 2012.

And not just because the unhealthiness of its food is legendary. McDonald's greasy fare is intentionally larded with addicting doses of fat, salt, and sugar to create a permanent customer base.

But because McDonald's is quite extreme in its single-minded, often stealth corporate goal of profits over people. public health be damned. 

Again, McDonald's has recently rankled health-conscious Americans with...

McDonald's Mighty Wings, newly introduced at the advent of wing-chomping football season. "Mighty Wings are basically McNuggets With Choking Hazards," commented one NPR on-air host. "I was as surprised to find an actual bone in this as I would be to find a bone in a banana," quipped another. 

Bones in Mighty Wings are about as natural as McDonald's ribless McRib sandwich. 

Mighty Wings are three, five, or ten "pieces" (McDonald's website lingo) per box, with the same ranch, barbecue, or honey mustard sauces used for Chicken McNuggets. Ten Mighty Wings have 960 calories, 60 grams of fat, and a whopping 2,900 mgs. of sodium (salt), 121% of the recommended daily salt intake for an adult. 

Misleading headlines about soft drinks in kids' meals hailed "McDonald's Ditches Soda in Happy Meal Menus," and similar, clearly stating that soft drinks would be eliminated in McDonald's popular Happy Meals.  This very positive change was supposedly brokered with the Clinton Foundation, and released as happy news at Michelle Obama's recent White House to-do on food marketing. 

The Center for Science in the Public Interest naively penned:

"Ronald McDonald’s slow march toward healthier meals made a major advance today... Getting soda out of Happy Meals is historic progress that should immediately be adopted by Burger King, Wendy’s, and other chains. Soda and other sugar drinks are leading promoters of obesity and diabetes and one day it will seem crazy that restaurants ever made this junk the default beverage for kids."

Turns out that McDonald's "major advance" is more fast-food baloney. Reading the fine print revealed that McDonald's agreed only to:

• Promote water, juice, and milk in external advertising directed at children
• New beverages will be "evaluated according to McDonald's food commitment pledges"
• In 3 years, McDonald's will fulfill this commitment in "50% of the 20 markets."
• In 5 years, McDonald's will fulfill this commitment in "100% of the 20 markets."

Lucrative soft drinks dropped from McDonald's Happy Meals? Not hardly, not now. Perhaps when public-health hell freezes over... 

Higher-quality hamburgers were dropped by McDonald's last May presumably because the one-third lb. Angus burgers took too big a bite out of company profits.  NBC News noted that U.S. "beef prices hit all-time highs" and cited"The U.S. Department of Agriculture's wholesale beef market report... showed choice beef carcasses rising 24 cents per hundred pounds (cwt) to a record $204.91 per cwt..."

Introduced in 2009, McDonald's Angus burgers provided better quality beef options than the ubiquitous Big Mac, Quarter-Pounder Cheeseburger, or the dollar-menu $1 Cheeseburger. 

"Who would pay $4.79 for a sandwich when the two sandwiches on the Dollar Menu are perfectly good?” defended one McDonald's consultant to Time magazine. Indeed, what foolish consumer would actually expect a quasi-quality sandwich at McDonald's? Nobody, now. 

Disappearing salads on McDonald's menus include its Fruit & Walnut Salad, which was quietly dropped along with Angus burgers.  The Fruit & Walnut Salad was genuinely delicious with "wedges of crisp apples, juicy red grapes, candied walnuts and our low-fat vanilla yogurt,"

Relegated to a tiny corner of the menu are meal-sized "premium" salads: Caesar, Southwest, Ranch, grilled or crispy chicken optional "with select mixed greens, elegant toppings, and choices galore." 

This near-invisible menu marketing ensures that premium salads will rarely be ordered in lieu of more profitable, more addictive,  carb-heavy burgers, fries, wraps, desserts, and sugar-drenched drinks. Look for premium salads to likely also be dropped because sales were low. 

We must begrudgingly admire McDonald's though, for disciplined corporate consistency. Consistency in:

• Pitching unhealthy fast food to kids, regardless of public and political pressure
• Dumbing down their menu to the cheapest, fastest, saltiest, fattiest food possible
• Eliminating healthier options if profit margins don't reach those of cheap burgers and fries

And consistency in extraordinary corporate profitability at the direct expense of public health.  

There's a reason why McDonald's persists as the devious poster child for what's wrong with the American fast food mega-industry: they've earned and deserve it. 

My only question: when will Americans finally stop supporting McDonald's profits-over-people agenda for our nation's health? For our children? 

Obama, Bush, Romney, Clinton: "Let Them Eat Cake" Politicians on Organics

Who eats organic fruits and vegetables? Top U.S. political leaders, both liberals and conservatives, but most desperately don't want you to know.

Many, many D.C. politicians select the highest-quality, healthiest foods for themselves, but insist that far lower quality fare (often grown by their donors) is good enough for the rest of America. 

Wanting to eat organic produce is understandable, given that organics are:

• Not genetically modified.
• Free of chemical pesticides, herbicides, fungicides
• Free of antibiotics
• Free of chemical fertilizers, plant steroids
• Not prematurely ripened with chemical gases

Understandable, since these bureaucrats have likely heard that the EPA, which is part of the U.S. Agriculture Department, "considers 60% of herbicides, 90% of fungicides, and 30% of insecticides potentially cancer-causing."

Or maybe our leaders have heard the dire results of research done on this new experiment called genetically modified foods. "The results range from intestinal damage, allergies, liver or pancreatic problems, testicular cellular changes, tumors, and even death in the experimental animals."  (Source - Care2.com)

So who are these "let them eat cake" politicians who quietly quaff organic goods while foisting legislation and federal agency appointees on us to aggressively force non-organic food on American homes? 

Gaudy New Frito-Lay Chips Embody Wrongs of U.S. Industrial Foods

Three gaudy new Lay's potato chip shock-and-awe flavors embody all that's destructive and wrong and seductively delicious about U.S. industrial foods. 

Frito-Lay, Inc. is betting millions that these taste-exploding snacks will be the next red-hot must-buy in grocery markets, convenience stores, and gas stations nationwide.  If U.S. culinary history since the 1950s is any guide, Frito-Lay is likely correct.  

These chips, the brash embodiment of fake food in all its tasteless glory, would be an addictive party-and-a-half for junk food aficionados.  I should know... I sampled all three flavors after my son picked-up giveaways pushed this past weekend at a major supermarket chain.  (Click here for Lay's "Vote to Save Your Fave" contest at Facebook.) 

In extraordinary new bestseller "Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us"Pulitzer Prize journalist Michael Moss writes of two corporate suppliers of key ingredients to American junk-food manufacturers:

"These were no run-of-the-mill ingredients... These were the three pillars of processed foods, the creators of crave, and each of the CEOS needed them in huge quantities to turn their products into hits. These were also the ingredients  that, more than any other, were directly responsible for the obesity epidemic.  Together, the two suppliers had...

• the salt, which was processed in dozens of ways to maximize the jolt that taste buds would feel with the very first bite;

•  they had the fats, which delivered the biggest loads of calories and worked more subtly in inducing people to overeat;

•  and they had the sugar, whose raw power in exciting the brain made it perhaps the most formidable ingredient of all, dictating the formulations of products from one side of the grocery to the other."

Author Moss recounts in lurid, well-documented detail how Kraft, Nestle, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Mars, and other industrial food corporations used tobacco industry marketing tactics to addict Americans to radically unhealthy foods laden with salt, fat, and sugar.   

Moss also describes the extreme addiction of industrial food corporations to rich, near-endless profits reaped by junk foods that are making Americans fat and sick... and how the U.S. government is too cozy with industrial food executives and lobbyists to stop the sickening of America. 

Notes the New York Times review of this book:

"Virtually everything you can buy in a supermarket that’s not an outer-aisle pure food like milk or kohlrabi has been fiddled with to make you shiver with bliss — which will in turn make you buy the product again and again."

I'm awestruck by the shameless, in-your-face brass of Frito-Lay in testing and releasing these three grotesquely over-the-top junk foods in the face of First Lady Michelle Obama's courageous three-year campaign to urge American children to eat more veggies and fruits, and less unhealthy fare.   

Yes, I'm awestruck at the corporate gall of unleashing these aggressively unhealthy snacks. 

But I'm also quite awestruck by the absolutely awesome taste of Lay's Chicken & Waffles flavored potato chips.  (I confess: see my empty bag, at right!)

Therein lies the deadly diet dilemma for us and our children and grandchildren. For the very vitality of our nation. 

Something needs to be done. Something needs to change. 

My suggestion? Make better food choices. Don't buy these scrumptious snacks that are intentionally designed to hook you and yours into a deadly, delicious cigarette-like habit. Just say NO. 

How to Avoid Eating Horse Meat, Other Mystery Meats

Surprised by horse meat in the world food supply? Then you're not paying attention...  

If you eat frozen or processed dishes, whether at home or restaurants, chances are good that you consume mislabeled mystery meat with murky, unappetizing origins. 

U.S. meat inspection laws have been diluted over the past few years for imported meats.  And U.S. loopholes for stealth use of imported mystery meats are larger than a truckload of cattle headed for the slaughterhouse. 

Europe's 2013 horse meat scandal may be the proverbial "canary in the coal mine" for processed foods in the U.S., signaling troubling revelations to come about the "meats" in frozen entrees, processed meat products, and your favorite fast food fare.  

Food fraud in meat is nothing new, although we rarely learn the sordid details hidden from the public. Irish Times newspaper recently recounted:

"Most people thought we were entering uncharted territory when it emerged that horse meat had been found in burgers and other beef products. But there was a sense of deja vu for anyone who remembered the Australian meat scandal of 1981.

"It was revealed by an alert food inspector in San Diego who thought that three frozen blocks of Australian beef looked darker and stringier than they should. His instinct was right: it emerged that horse, donkey and kangaroo meat, masquerading as beef, were being exported to the US.

"Papers released last November after a 30-year freedom-of-information battle by the journalist Jack Waterford showed that the scandal was bigger than originally thought, with meat destined for pet food being sold for human consumption.

"'The flesh of donkeys, goats, kangaroos, buffaloes and horses, killed in the field and without regard to any consideration of hygiene . . . was used indiscriminately to produce food for human consumption,' said an appendix to a report into the issue."

IKEA meatballs, Taco Bell tacos, Birds Eye spaghetti bolognese, frozen entrees as lasagnas, moussakas, and shepherd's pies... the list of horse-meat tainted foods found in 2013 in Europe grows daily. 

Of course, that's because European countries are intentionally testing for improperly labeled meats, and publicly releasing results of testing.  

Is the U.S. Testing Imported Meats?

Is the U.S. testing for mislabeled meats at U.S. grocery stores and food purveyors?   Uh... sort of. Sometimes. 

Are we consuming horse or other horrifying meats of murky origins in our fast-food crunchy taco supremes and deluxe veggie works burritos, or in freezer-section pot pies, lasagnas, enchiladas, and those delicious egg rolls?  Maybe. Likely sometimes. 

The Ugly, Angering Reality of Obama's New Food Safety Regulations

President Obama's sweeping Food Safety Modernization Act ("FSMA") regulations are likely destined to be the No Child Left Behind Act of 2013. Both... 

• Were conceived to address draconian public problems;
• Are voluminous, with over 1,000 pages of rules and guidance;
• Require massive government oversight and enforcement efforts

And both face(d) radically inadequate funding by the federal government, to disastrous public detriment.  Underfunding which will undoubtedly weaken the "enforcement teeth" of FSMA, just as it undercut the effectiveness and precast the failure of NCLB.  

Here's brief background of the Food Safety Modernization Act, to refresh your mind:

• Introduced in Congress in March 2009, and passed by both Houses in late 2010.
• Signed into law on January 4, 2011 by President Obama.
• Actual FSMA rules, requirements, mandates were rolled out by the Obama administration on January 4, 2013, an astonishing two-year delay presumably caused by fear of pre-election political fallout over more government regulations.  (And fear of losing Big Ag political donors?)
• For more, read Obama Burying Food Safety Rules for Political Gain?

The purpose of the FSMA is to stem the shocking level of foodborne illnesses in the United States. Explained the Center for Food Safety in 2012:

"FSMA is the first major piece of federal legislation to overhaul food safety since 1938. Continuous high profile outbreaks related to various foods, ranging from spinach to peanut products to eggs, underscored the need for serious legislative and regulatory reform.

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that every year, as a result of foodborne diseases, 48 million people (1 in 6 Americans) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die.

"... FSMA enables FDA to better protect public health by strengthening its ability to regulate and granting the agency enhanced preventative and mandate authority. The law also provides FDA with new enforcement capacity, such as mandatory recall authority, and the ability to require that imported foods comply with U.S. inspection and preventive safety standards."

Where FSMA Stands in 2013 - The Ugly, Angering Reality
About 1,200 pages of farm-to-table food safety regulations were rolled out by the FDA amid self-congratulatory hoopla and a plethora of admiring press.  

"'It’s a big leap forward in applying modern, preventive measures across the whole food supply. It’s important to see these rules as setting the standards for food safety,” cooed Michael R. Taylor, an FDA deputy commissioner in a Washington Post article, FDA Begins Implementing Sweeping Food-Safety Law.   

Except that it's not. Not being implementing, I mean.  

The FDA's rollout of massively elaborate FSMA regs seemed semi-misleading, and the press stupidly swallowed the public-pleasing bait. 

The ugly reality of where implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act stands in 2013 is this: 

 Merely proposals, issued for public comment - FSMA regs rollled out by the FDA on January 4, 2013 are merely proposals, issued for public comment, and won't be in effect for several more years, at best.

Innumerable exceptions have already been granted to FSMA, exceptions that are  estimated to exempt nearly 80% of all growers and producers.  Included among the exempt are producers with annual sales of $500,000 or less, and producers growing "products that are rarely consumed raw."

Obama Eliminates Life-Saving Produce Inspection Program

I fully agree with Food Safety News that the most egregious food safety story of 2012 was the killing of the USDA's Microbiological Data Program ("MDP") that performed "80 percent of federal testing for foodborne pathogens of fresh fruit and vegetables," including:

• E. coli 0157:H7 - A bacterium that can produce a deadly toxin and causes approximately 73,000 cases of foodborne illness each year in the U.S.
• Salmonella - Most common bacterial cause of diarrhea in the United States, and the most common cause of foodborne deaths. Responsible for 1.4 million cases of foodborne illness a year. 
• Norovirus - The leading viral cause of diarrhea in the United States. Poor hygiene causes Norovirus to be easily passed from person to person and from infected individuals to food items.
• Shigella - Causes an estimated 448,000 cases of diarrhea illnesses per year. Poor hygiene causes Shigella to be easily passed from person to person and from infected individuals to food items. 

Death by Produce

"CDC estimates that each year roughly 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of foodborne diseases." (Source: Center for Disease Control website)

In 2010 the National Institutes of Health acknowledged "fresh fruits and vegetables as major vehicles of foodborne illness." 

"MDP was killed because the produce lobby wanted it killed."
"The program’s demise likely means there will be more illnesses and deaths in 2013 from foodborne pathogens associated with fresh fruits and vegetables," per Food Safety News. 

"MDP was killed because the produce lobby wanted it killed. The Obama Administration went along by not asking Congress to renew MDP’s funding of about $5 million a year, and lawmakers were content to let it expire."  (Source - Food Safety News) 

A highly effective $5 million dollar federal program killed for political expediency. A $5 million program that annually can save thousands of American lives. 

$5 million is an microscopic portion of the $3.8 trillion 2013 United States federal budget. A tiny fraction of the Defense Department's $600 billion annual budget. 

$5 million is expendable pocket-change compared to the $20 billion in annual farm subsidies (i.e. government handouts) paid by the federal government to certain certain farmers and agribusinesses.... the very growers of fruits and veggies that will no longer be inspected under MDP auspices for dangerous foodborne contaminations.

What Can You Do? 
1. Complain loudly and clearly to your elected representatives in Congress. Now. Restoring one $5 million public safety program should be an easy task. 

2. Be very, very careful about where you buy your fruits and veggies. My advice is to either buy directly from local, reputable, certified organic sources, or from the largest grocery chains that presumably have in place quality control procedures. 

Please note that organic produce is not immune from foodborne contamination. However, organic certification does denote a very high-bar for quality control of a grower's produce. 

3. Grow your own.

Obama School Lunches Leaving Kids Hungry

Kids of all ages are going hungry at school, thanks to the newly-implemented Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. And ironically for the federal school lunch program, kids from the lowest-income families are suffering the most. 

Intentions were terrific behind this initiative led by First Lady Michelle Obama: a healthy, balanced lunch for every child, regardless of family income.  The goals are to serve less salt and fat, and more fresh produce and whole grains. 

The bill, the first school lunch overhaul in 15 years,  thankfully corrected egregious food choices foisted on kids by past federal  lunch programs, including mystery meats, highly-processed goops, and a dearth of fresh produce. 

(Remember when President Reagan's 1982 budget classified such fake foods as catsup and pickle relish as vegetables?) 

But as so often happens when government tries to regulate private behavior, the Obama administration went too far. Way too far. And kids across the nation are going hungry at school as a result.  The bill overreaches by setting very restrictive lunch rules, including:

Caloric  ceilings: 650 for elementary school, 700 for middle school, 850 for high school.

Obama Burying Food Safety Rules for Political Gain?

Election year politics are suspected of playing serious havoc with food safety, and putting public health at risk, per The Center for Food Safety and the Center for Environmental Health.

And the Centers are putting might behind their fighting words. 

This week, the non-profits filed a law suit against two federal agencies... the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)... for failure to implement many vital mandates of the Food Safety and Modernization Act (FSMA), signed into law by President Obama on January 4, 2011.  In their legal filing, the Centers explain:

"FSMA is the first major piece of federal legislation to overhaul food safety since 1938. Continuous high profile outbreaks related to various foods, ranging from spinach to peanut products to eggs, underscored the need for serious legislative and regulatory reform.

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that every year, as a result of foodborne diseases, 48 million people (1 in 6 Americans) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die.

"... FSMA enables FDA to better protect public health by strengthening its ability to regulate and granting the agency enhanced preventative and mandate authority. The law also provides FDA with new enforcement capacity, such as mandatory recall authority, and the ability to require that imported foods comply with U.S. inspection and preventive safety standards.

" ... FDA has missed not one, not two, but seven critical deadlines, and counting, in failing to implement FSMA's major food safety regulations."

Both the Washington Post and New York Times have openly urged President Obama's White House to move forward to stop burying food safety measures in the depths of bureaucratic muck. 

U.S. Food Supply Injures More Americans than Gun Violence Each Year

It's puzzling: Colorado-grown cantaloupes killed  more innocents in 2011 than did the recent murderous shooting-spree in a Colorado movie theater, yet no one seems to give a damn. 

Each year, preventable foodborne illness strikes 48 million Americans, hospitalizing a hundred thousand and killing thousands. Each year! 

 In 2011, 36 people died because they ate cantaloupe grown at Jensen Farms in Holly, Colorado. The melons were bought at WalMart, Krogers and other trusted neighborhood grocers.

Cantaloupes that looked, felt, and smelled ripe and healthy. Cantaloupes that were infected, though, with deadly Listeria bacteria. Infected cantaloupes that should have been detected by internal, third-party, or FDA-mandated inspections.    CNN investigated for months:

"... CNN has found serious gaps in the federal food safety net meant to protect American consumers of fresh produce, a system that results in few or no government inspections of farms and with only voluntary guidelines of how fresh produce can be kept safe...

" The 2011 listeriosis outbreak... should not have happened, and it could have been prevented, according to numerous food safety experts and federal health officials.

 "... the story of what happened at Jensen Farms, and why no one stopped the sale and shipments of the cantaloupes... sheds light on serious problems in the nation's fresh produce food safety net, and a voluntary system created by businesses to ensure a quality product, known as third-party audits."

In all, 36 men, women and children suffered painful deaths and 146 others became quite ill because inspection procedures failed to detect  poisoned cantaloupes sold in U.S. supermarkets in May, June and July 2011. 

Tragically, this massacre is not an isolated incident in U.S. modern industrialized food: