I posted to Twitter/Facebook earlier with a comment asking if it were worth it to avoid McDonald's despite the fact that I can get a full meal there for $3. While I was being facetious, it sparked an interesting conversation that revealed the many misconceptions I think people have about McDonald's.
In any discussion of the world's largest fast food chain, the documentary Super Size Me is bound to come up. Super Size Me is perhaps one of the most egregious forms of unfounded propaganda of this decade. All Morgan Spurlock proves is that if you eat 5,000 calories a day, you are going to get sick. He chooses to ignore the fact that consuming 5,000 calories a day of any food items is going to make you sick. There is nothing rigorous or scientific about his "experiment". It's merely an exercise in shock value and extreme behavior.
A friend of mine argues that Spurlock was trying to show how McDonald's and all the other fast food restaurants are "socially engineering" people to eat more, crappier foods. I don't think this is correct either. Here's why:
1. If anything, it's quite the opposite. McDonald's has been at the forefront of offering healthier fare for many years. They were selling salads as early as 1987, and low-fat burgers like the McLean Deluxe in 1991. They offer apple sticks in lieu of French fries, and fruit parfait instead of ice cream and shakes. As a matter of fact, they are ranked among the top ten healthiest fast food chains by Health magazine. Let's face it: it's fast food and everyone knows it's not nutritionally optimal. But for what it is, McDonald's should be recognized as an innovator and trend-setter in delivering healthy options well before other comparable fast food chains.
2. Is McDonald's any more guilty of "social engineering" than Burger King, or Safeway, or Cheesecake Factory, or any other food seller in the U.S.? First and foremost, McDonald's is a business. Their goal is to make money, and in order to do that they have to convince people to buy more of their food. It's no different than grocery store tactics that rely on optimal shelf placement for maximizing sales. Making McDonald's a scapegoat for this is ridiculous as it's something that has permeated the entire food industry for decades.
3. Despite what Spurlock asserts in his documentary, McDonald's is much more transparent regarding its nutritional content than most restaurants where one can supposedly get a nutritious meal. My wife and I went to a nice restaurant this evening for dinner. While the food was typical San Francisco fare, and supposedly made fresh with the best ingredients, how am I supposed to figure out the sodium content of my fillet of sole ceviche? There is no easy way to do this, but I know exactly how much sodium was in the McDouble and the McChicken I had for lunch yesterday (1,750 mg... ouch) by simply visiting their website. I can even learn the relevant nutritional information per ingredient and use that information to customize my order.
All that "social engineering" business aside, I will make one final point about the food at McDonald's (or any comparable fast food chain, or anything you eat at all, for that matter): the food is only as bad as the context in which you eat it. In other words, your body needs a certain number of calories; grams of protein, carbohydrates, and fats; and milligrams of sodium and cholesterol per day (among other things). McDonald's food is just fine as long as you are not exceeding these boundaries. If that Big Mac causes you to go over your daily allotment of calories, then it is unhealthy. If you are eating it once per day and are within those bounds, then it's not unhealthy. The context of what you're eating renders it healthy or not, not the food in and of itself.
