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Hold the Fries; Shut up, Lady, Don't Upset Us*

It's day 2 of being back on a very low-carb diet. I'm off the sweet potatoes (you know, those wonderful safe starches) and I've cut back the dark chocolate. I thought it would take a couple of weeks to keto-adapt and get back to feeling good, but I'm already feeling like my old self: no more upset stomach, no dragging myself out of bed late this morning, no nap on the bus tonight, and no mid-afternoon grogginess. And no more humiliating thought that Alice Cooper, who started his band before I was born, could probably run circles around me.

Blogger Kia Robertson could use some shame. She's the activist who made a useful idiot of her nine-year-old daughter at a McDonald's shareholders meeting. Mrs. Robertson, through her spokeschild, whined about McDonald's food and marketing.

I doubt the Robertsons are shareholders in McDonald's. Call me a traditionalist, but a shareholders meeting is for shareholders, particularly grown-up ones who understand the business (or want to) and know the difference between marketing and fraud. If Mrs. Robertson wants to hold corporations accountable, she ought to go after pharmaceutical companies that have performed misleading research, buried research whose results they didn't like and whose products have actually done a lot of harm to people. Or she could go after the Girl Scouts, those wicked little flour-and-sugar-flogging cuties. Where are the fruits and vegetables in those cookie boxes? The flaked coconut doesn't count.

Unlike the Girl Scouts, McDonald's has food I can eat without getting sick. I have food sensitivities, and a bunless burger avoids them well enough for me. They list all their ingredients and nutrient counts on their web site. And some of us think of meat--food we've been eating a lot of for two and a half million years (see this and this)--as healthy. Poor little Hannah doesn't appear to get much meat in her lunch.

McDonald's success tells me that a lot of people do want meat in their lunch. Joel Greenblatt, an investor who got annualized returns of 40% for over 20 years, came up with a fictitious money-losing business for literary purposes in The Little Book that Beats the Market. He called it Just Broccoli.

Even when renegade shareholders get an initiative on a ballot, it's usually a waste of time--at least, I've never seen such a measure pass. If the board of directors doesn't go for it, they'll recommend a vote of no.
What the Robertsons did was nothing but a publicity stunt--perhaps to sell their wares? Hopefully not to parents of kids with FODMAPS problems.

*Parody of an old Burger King ad: Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, shut up, lady, you upset us, all we want to do is throw it away, do it my way!

Comments

Anonymous said…
WOW! That site is super-creepy! The first lunch box had cucumber slices, coleslaw and veggie chips. That kid is going to get beaten up at school, and then she's going to be a drug addict because she doesn't know how to handle anything 'rewarding' and then she'll grow up either to be as scrawny and sick-looking as John McDougall and Neal Barnard or with horrible eating disorders! Child cruelty.
Lori Miller said…
It's pretty meager fare for a child's lunch. I hope she gets something more substantial for breakfast and dinner, or at least some vitamins. B-12 deficiency can cause serious, permanent damage.

If she gets some flack at school, it'll be a valuable lesson in being a busybody.
horfilmania said…
Last I heard children are still growing and they need both protein and fat for proper growth and development. That lunch is sadly lacking in both. Poor child.
Lori Miller said…
I totally agree. It's a lunch better suited to a rabbit.

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