fast food II
For those of you who did not take the time to read the article, here is some more info . . .
“[McDonalds] The company is trying everything it can to win back deserters. Last month,
in keeping with prevailing desires and current nutritional wisdom, McDonald's abandoned
margarine for butter. The company announced recently that it would stop selling chickens
that have been raised with antibiotics that could affect human health, and milk from cows
that had been treated with growth hormones. They introduced low-calorie "artisan grilled
chicken" sandwiches and, this month, began serving breakfast all day-—fulfilling a request
that the Egg McMuffin crowd has been making for years. McDonald's has also jumped on
the seasonal-food bandwagon, having sold about thirty-seven million Cuties, the brand
of clemen-tines that come with Happy Meals. The company has even begun to introduce
restaurants with digital kiosks, where customers can build their own dishes on a touch screen,
then grab a G.P.S. locator, find a seat, and wait until the freshly made product is delivered
by a server who has homed in on the signal.”
“There is also a biological component to our addiction to fast food. Because our brains
evolved at a time when food was scarce, we are biologically predisposed to consume a
diet that is high in calories, sugar, and fat. And that is exactly what Happy Meals, and
most processed food sold in American supermarkets, offer. When you eat a Big Mac,
your blood sugar soars. Your brain then releases a flood of chemicals, such as dopamine,
that induce pleasure and contribute to a tendency to eat compulsively. At high enough
levels, the salt and sugar in food can be addictive; you crave them like a drug.”
“Coudreaut is the guardian of McDonald's menu, which in many respects makes him the
most influential chef in the world. When he decides to add or alter a dish, ripples are
felt throughout the American food system. I asked him about the company's switch
from margarine to butter. "Butter tastes better, and it is more in line with where our
society's mind-set is moving," Coudreaut said. "I can understand butter on a muffin;
I can't understand liquid margarine, which has fifteen or sixteen ingredients. "The shift
to butter means that McDonald's will increase its dairy use by five or six hundred million
pounds of milk each year—enough to have produced all of last year's domestic
butter exports. The impact on the dairy industry will be enormous, and because
McDonald's is doing it similar chains are certain to follow.””
“Healthy food itself is a vague concept, often defined by what it is not: food that contains
too much fat, salt, or sugar, or food that lacks vitamins, fibre, nutrients, and minerals.
Whole-grain products and vegetables are healthy food; so is lean meat. Nothing on the
menu at McDonald's poses a danger to the health of someone who eats there only once a
month. But who does that? People spend nearly half their food budget on meals prepared
away from home, and in the process they tend to consume more fat, more salt, a greater
number of calories, and fewer nutrients.”
"The architecture of the McDonald's Egg McMuffin has not changed," Coudreaut said.
"What made it a wonderful sandwich back in the seventies, when they first came out,
has not changed." Then, rising from his seat and waving has hands with excitement,
he said, "This English muffin is going back to what we had. Fluffy nooks and crannies.
And real butter. Look at the natural juice from the Canadian bacon." He pointed to
another dish that had just arrived, a salad with the new "artisan grilled chicken," and
said, "No artificial flavors or preservatives or phosphate. It's basically pantrylike
ingredients you would expect to use at home. A little bit of lemon. Herbs. Clean flavor.
Not a lot of stuff going on."
“Coudreaut and Yu continued to march me through McDonald's many nutritional initiatives.
There were smoothies with fewer calories, buttermilk fried chicken, and, across the room,
a giant basket of lettuce and kale. Yogurt was everywhere. I asked Chef Dan, as everyone
calls him, if he thought most McDonald's food could be regarded as good for the people
who eat it. His voice tightened. "I believe strongly as a chef there is no forbidden food,"
he said. "Look at that grilled chicken. No artificial colors or flavors. Minimally processed.
No preservatives.Technically, under a U.S.D.A. banner we could call it all natural. But we
wouldn't call it natural. We call it artisan chicken."
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