Seven reasons to hate McDonald's

This is for those who think that bringing children into McDonald's is innocent fun. Sorry for those who don't appreciate it, but in my opinion, people should not go to McDonald's, much less take children to consume that garbage. But to each ...

by Altamiro Borges

The seven worst facts about McDonald's

One. They want employees to work on holidays without paying overtime.
McDonald's has a long history of harmful labor practices, but this is especially greedy: the company maintains its franchises open on Thanksgiving Day (U.S. holiday) and Christmas. Worse, employees working these days do not get overtime. According to a company spokesman, "When our stores are open on holidays, staff willingly offers to work. There is no extra pay."

 Mark E. Anderson's Daily Kos did some calculations and found that McDonald's earned $36 million extra for staying open on Thanksgiving Day. Anderson notes that "It's bad enough that McDonald's pays lousy wages, but they cannot go further and pay extra for employees who give up their time off to earn the company millions of dollars." Wow.

2nd. Employees are not paid well in general.
That they do not receive overtime for working on holidays is already bad, but that they barely earn much throughout the year is a reality for workers at McDonald's. As Sarah Jaffe wrote in Atlanticrecentemente, "The term McJob has become synonymous with all that is wrong in poorly paid jobs in the service sector of the U.S. economy, because, no matter what job you have, it will be better than working in a fast food restaurant."  And of course, McDonald's is the largest existing fast-food chain.

This fact sums up the problem:  an ordinary employee of McDonald's would have to work a million hours - or more than a century - to earn the same as a CEO receives in a year (8.75 million dollars). The good news is that the employees in the fast food sector, including McDonald's employees, recently began to organize to demand better wages and better treatment.

3rd. Their marketing aimed at children is "creepy and predatory."
Two years ago the group, Center for Science in the Public Interest, announced its intention to sue McDonald's for its "creepy and predatory" marketing aimed at children. In his letter, CSPI compared McDonald's to "that stranger in the playground offering candy to children" and said the company uses "unfair and deceptive marketing to attract young children."

"The ambiguous approach of targeted marketing to children by McDonald's can be seen in a recent press release that says that the promotion company for the movie "Shrek" will encourage children to 'deshrek' their Happy Meals around the world with menu options such as fruits, vegetables, milk and juices."  In reality, however, the main point of the Shrek promotion is to attract children to McDonald's, where they end up making less healthy choices and eating caloric meals."

Not the first time that McDonald's is under fire for using Happy Meal toys to lure children as consumers, and as the company is the world's number one distributor of toys, it certainly is not the last.

4th. It has a salad with more fat than a burger and fries and the least healthy granola on the planet.
McDonald's launched a Caesar salad more greasy than a burger and fries. The Daily Mailnoticiou reports that "with the seasoning and croutons, the salad contains 425 calories and 21.4 grams of fat compared with 253 calories and 7.7 grams of fat in a burger." Adding a serving of fries to your burger, the calories still add up to 459-with less fat than the salad (16.7 g). Impressive.

More recently, the granola (which comes along with yogurt) - another "healthy" menu option - was criticized for being no good for you. Mark Bittman wrote in the New York Times that the company's granola is not nothing but "junk food" (you can make really healthy granola at home with very little money). He continues: "a more accurate description than '100% natural whole grain , soft raisins, sweet cranberries and crisp fresh apples' would be 'oats, sugar, sweetened dried fruit, cream and 11 weird ingredients you would never have in your kitchen.'"

5th. The burgers do not decompose.
Who can forget that there was a woman a couple of years ago who left a burger and fries from McDonald's on a table for six months only to find that the snack does not decompose?

If you think this is a legend, a researcher found that McDonald's hamburgers can actually ruin under certain circumstances, but in general they do not decompose on their own. According to him, "The burger does not spoil because their small size and relatively large surface area help to lose moisture. No moisture, no mold or bacterial growth." Basically, the burger meat becomes dry before they decompose. That is, there is a question of nasty chemicals that keep the burger intact, but it is still nothing but slop.

6th. McDonald's used "pink slime" for years.
Not long ago, we saw and we were horrified with the image.
"Pink slime" is a substance derived from mechanically separated chicken parts which for years was used to make the nuggets from McDonald's, at least in the U.S. and the UK.  The substance is considered illegal for human consumption. Recently, thanks to activists, 'pink slime' was banned from U.S. school lunches.

The good news is that, since the image began circulating, McDonald's was forced to discontinue the use of pink slime. (The company ensures that the public outrage had nothing to do with the decision.)

7th. McDonald's is everywhere.
You can try, but never escape McDonald's. In the U.S., the only place where you can be 100 miles from a McDonald's is a desert on the border of Oregon and Nevada.

Translated from the Portuguese version by:

Lisa Karpova
Pravda.Ru