{"id":4896,"date":"2011-05-24T06:43:50","date_gmt":"2011-05-24T04:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/?p=4896"},"modified":"2015-02-16T09:08:03","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T14:08:03","slug":"ronald-mcdonald-ambassador-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/ronald-mcdonald-ambassador-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Ronald McDonald is an Ambassador for Good???"},"content":{"rendered":"

So sayeth McDonald’s CEO, Jim Skinner…<\/a><\/p>\n

“Ronald McDonald is an ambassador to McDonald’s, and he is an ambassador for good,” Skinner said. “Ronald McDonald isn’t going anywhere.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The occasion was a recent shareholders’ meeting in Chicago, where McDonald’s came under fire (again)\u00a0for its advertising to kids…<\/p>\n

Critics’ main beef with McDonald’s is its marketing to America’s children, thus side-stepping the thorny retort “If you don’t like McDonald’s, don’t eat there.”<\/p>\n

Children are susceptible to the advertising that McDonald’s spends hundreds of millions of dollars on each year, said Juliana Shulman, national campaign organizer for Corporate Accountability International.<\/p>\n

…That marketing, including the Ronald McDonald mascot, is why Dr. Steven Rothschild, director of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, signed an open letter published in several newspaper advertisements this week.<\/p>\n

“You don’t put a clown in front of an adult face because it’s a happy association. It’s aimed at children,” Rothschild said. “Parents do have to say no to their children. This is not the nanny state issue. This is one of creating conditions that make it a fair fight \u2014 so parents can make good choices, so they have McDonald’s working with them not against them.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I “get” the defensive response on the part of the company, but honestly… McD’s ought to have better responses to critics\u00a0by now.\u00a0I had to laugh at\u00a0the company’s\u00a0reaction to the above…<\/p>\n

“We now provide more choice and variety than anyone else in the industry,” a spokeswoman said. “Fruit and walnut oatmeal is the latest example, and that complements our premium salads, apple dippers, and 1% low-fat milk.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

LOL… here’s NYT columnist Mark Bittman<\/a> on that “fruit and walnut oatmeal” …<\/p>\n

The aspect one cannot argue is nutrition: Incredibly, the McDonald\u2019s product contains more sugar than a Snickers bar and only 10 fewer calories than a McDonald\u2019s cheeseburger or Egg McMuffin. (Even without the brown sugar it has more calories than a McDonald\u2019s hamburger.)<\/p>\n

The bottom-line question is, \u201cWhy?\u201d Why would McDonald\u2019s, which appears every now and then to try to persuade us<\/a> that it is adding \u201chealthier\u201d foods to its menu, take a venerable ingredient like oatmeal and turn it into expensive junk food? Why create a hideous concoction of 21 ingredients, many of them chemical and\/or unnecessary? Why not try, for once, to keep it honest?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Paul on those “premium salads” …<\/a><\/p>\n

My salad was pathetic. The worst chicken salad I\u2019ve EVER encountered.\u00a0 When I pulled the lid off, I was greated by 4 anemic slices of luke warm chicken, two rings of red onion, one slice of barely ripened tomato, and a cup and a half of wilted lettuce. McDonald\u2019s online nutritional calculator claims the salad contains 33 grams of protein. I can guarantee you my salad contained nowhere near that amount\u2026 even if you were generous enough to include the nutritional content of the serving containers and the napkins it came with.<\/p>\n

…Now I realize that quality may vary from outlet to outlet (although McDonald\u2019s prides itself on a consistent experience at any one of its franchises \u2013 a Big Mac in California should taste the same as the one in Geneva, etc), but to me, this experience demonstrated how serious McDonald\u2019s commitment to healthy meals really is. This was not, in my opinion, a credible attempt at creating a viable alternative to high calorie burgers. No red-blooded, burger eating guy from your average TV commercial is ever going to order this; and if he does, he will NEVER order it again. I certainly won\u2019t.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And I’m well aware of some of the other “choices” – like the desserts and sugary coffee drinks prominently advertised on the marquee of the local franchise I drive past several times a week.<\/p>\n

Seriously… McD’s really should stick with the “personal freedom” argument, since\u00a0most of the so-called\u00a0“healthy choices”\u00a0offered really don’t stand up to examination. Ronald McDonald isn’t an “ambassador of good” – he’s a straight-up marketing tool, and to pretend otherwise is laughable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So sayeth McDonald’s CEO, Jim Skinner… “Ronald McDonald is an ambassador to McDonald’s, and he is an ambassador for good,” Skinner said. “Ronald McDonald isn’t going anywhere.” The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,23,28],"tags":[631,632],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4896"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4896"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9847,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4896\/revisions\/9847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}