Even picky eaters will eat fast food, especially French fries. A recent survey found the French fry to be baby's first finger food. When I talk to moms, they always insist their children don't eat that many French fries. Someone is in denial. Researchers at Ohio State University analyzed government data on 6,500 children and teens, ages 2 to 18. They found the children were consuming an average of 2 cups of fruit, vegetables, and juice combined a day. French fries account for 25 percent of their vegetable intake. Someone consuming 2,000 calories a day should be eating 2 cups of fruit and 2½ cups of veggies a day—over TWICE the amount recorded. Then there's the nagging statistic that French fries compose 25 percent of children's vegetable intake. While writing "Eat Your French Fries Vegetables," I decided to see if the claim that a Happy Meal will last for years is true. I purchased a Happy Meal on March 3, 2009. To follow Nonna's Happy Meal Blog, you'll want to subscribe to the Baby Bites Ezine.
Nonna's Happy Meal Blog:
March 3, 2009 My newly purchased Happy Meal smells yummy and it's very colorful. I receive a PetShop virtual pet dog in a yellow plastic doggie carry-case, along with my child-size hamburger, small fries, and a soft drink. On one side of the cardboard box the meal comes in are cutouts for a pet shop window and door. What little girl wouldn't absolutely love it? The boy's side of the box has a Spider-Man scene. The Spider-Man side states, "Meet the spectacular Spider-Man in McWorld at HappyMeal.com and go on your own superhero adventure!" WOW what fun. As colorful as my Happy Meal is, the food is mostly colorless. French fries are made from starchy white potatoes and a hockey puck-size brown hamburger is served on a mini-white-bread bun. There's no lettuce, cheese, or otherwise healthful topping, just a dab of ketchup and a slice of pickle.
March 4 Happy Meal greets me as I walk into my office this morning. It's perched on a shelf behind my desk and there is a faint smell of French fries as I enter the room. My husband is concerned about the odor. I ask, "What do ya mean?" After all it smells yummy. He says, "What about when it putrefies, decomposes, and turns rancid?" I answer, "That's the point of my experiment. It's NOT supposed to decompose, only a natural food would do that! If it does, I'll move it into a glass container, to control any unpleasant smell. Then, I'll have more to report.
March 5 Day three, my cheery Happy Meal's yummy smell is hardly noticeable as I come into my office. I can't help but think about the hidden ingredient in much of McDonalds' food. It's even in their fries ...MSG. MSG is an excitotoxin, which over-stimulate brain cells to the point that they die. Many people experience headaches when this occurs. MSG is an excitatory neuro-transmitter or "excitotoxin." Excitotoxins are chemical transmitters allowing brain cells to communicate. Unfortunately, excitotoxins over-stimulate your brain cells and they die. It's a toxic substance. As you would guess, children are most at risk from ingesting MSG in Happy Meals. It can pass the blood brain barrier and even the placental barrier, affecting unborn children. Morgan Spurlock, from the movie SuperSize Me, experienced extreme headaches on his McDonald's diet. In his movie and book, he says his health team was at a loss for the reason. It's a shame they missed the connection to MSG.
March 6: I now own my very own McDonalds' Spiderman toy. Yep, I went back to McDonalds and purchased the toy alone. Now I have a toy for each side of the McDonalds' box. A toy meant for a girl and one for a boy. I was motivated to purchase the second toy, because yesterday, Kelly wrote a comment on my Facebook page after I mention the "Nonna's Happy Meal Blog."Kelly observed, "Sadly, with all the marketing it seems to be more about the toy." And then offered her solution, "I often will make them a healthy lunch at home, and then go thru the drive thru and just buy the toy!"Checking my original receipt, I found my purchase of a Happy Meal cost me $3.02 (after taxes, before taxes $2.79). The toy with the Happy Meal is listed on the receipt as zero. When I purchased the toy alone, it cost $1.69 (of course, plus tax). Using a rule-of-thumb that the cost of an item is doubled, the toy most likely cost McDonalds about 80 cents. It would be my guess the paper products (the box, napkins, and cup) were next in expense for McDonalds. That alone speaks volumes about the quality of the food.
March 6 PM YIKES, I'm becoming a regular McDonalds' costumer! Yes, I went back there today and purchased a second tiny hamburger. Yesterday, I realized my experiment hamburger had ketchup and a slice of pickle on it. I was afraid these two toppings would alter the result, so I went back and purchased a PLAIN tiny burger. It cost me another 89 cents, plus 6 cents tax. Now, I have a control burger without toppings, albeit three days fresher. While I was there, I checked out what it would cost to purchase a small order of fries: $1, plus 7 cents tax. That means that the FOOD and PAPER portion of my original Happy Meal cost me $2.02 and the toy $1.00.
March 7 You'd think at least the ketchup your child is dipping her French fries in and the dab on the hamburger is healthy, after all it's made of tomatoes. Tomatoes are a super food, right? Not so fast. Ketchup is usually one-third sugar (unless you purchase a healthy brand at a whole foods store).The ingredients on the McDonald's Fancy Ketchup read: "Tomato concentrate (not whole tomatoes), distilled vinegar, High Fructose Corn Sweetener, Corn syrup, water, salt, natural flavorings." When you add the High Fructose Corn Sweetener with the Corn syrup, most likely sugar will be the real first ingredient. Ketchup is sugar and worst kind of all.
MMarch 8 It's day five, and somehow I don't feel consoled by McDonald's website reassurances: "McDonald's offers a range of menu options to help meet your family's nutrition needs. When it comes to eating with your kids at McDonald's, you can feel good knowing that our Happy Meals and Mighty Kids Meals contain important nutrients that growing kids need. Many of the foods we serve at McDonald's are the same trusted brands you might purchase for your family at your local grocery store. "My Happy Meal looks pretty much the same as the day I purchased it. The only difference I can tell is the ketchup and the pickle are being absorbed into the mini-white bun. Of course, the plain burger I purchased looks the same, so do the fries. If this were real food, there should be some decomposition. In Morgan Spurlock's (Super Size Me) McDonald's experiment found fries are turning black from decomposition by 2 weeks. But, McDonald's fries never did decompose. That can't be food, for food to nourish your body it needs to decompose. Could the lack of decomposition be because of trans fat? I thought McDonalds said they no longer use trans fat, but according to the McDonlds website their French fries are prepared in hydrogenated soybean oil, corn oil, or canola oil. Any hydrogenated oil is a trans fat! Trans fat is created when a vegetable oil is overheated. Restaurants use their frying oil for a week. It's heated over and over again. Trans fats can't release any useful mediators. Their shape keeps them from being recognized by enzymes. Explains a lot, don't you think.
March 9: How many times have I heard "It's cheaper to eat out than cook at home"? I don't know maybe a million! I don't get it. A Big Mac Meal costs $5.39 and a Happy Meal, $2.79, plus tax. For a family of four that's $16.36 or a mom and one child $8.18; not including taxes. Not a bargain when you think what that could purchase. Last Spring, I worked out a food budget for two people on food stamps. With a meager food stamp budget of $300 a month for two people, about $10 a day you can feed two people whole foods. One trip to McDonalds would cost almost as much as a day's groceries. If you ask me, that's NO bargain.
March 10: Today, is day 7. My Happy Meal still looks happy. The fries haven't changed a bit, although the French fry smell is faint. The hamburger itself looks like it did on day one. The ketchup and slice of pickle have dried. The mini-white bun is now hard and has split. If you look closely at my original photo at the top of this blog, you can see a vertical crease in the bun. It looked as if it had been squished or bent before the patty was placed on it. The split is in the crease. (My second PLAIN Burger, purchased three days after is still perfect.)
March 12: What is a natural flavor, exactly? McDonald's says their fries contain a natural flavor. A substance can be natural, but it may violate a religious or dietary restriction or it may cause allergic reactions in some people. It turns out that today, "natural" can mean just about anything. The natural flavor in McDonald's fries is beef flavor containing hydrolyzed wheat and hydrolyzed milk as starting ingredients.
March 15: The Happy Meal was launched in 1979, by 2003 the Happy Meal accounted for 20 percent of all meals sold at McDonalds! It was pure marketing genius when Ronald McDonald became their mascot. In commercials, Ronald McDonald inhabits a fantasy world called McDonaldland. He has adventures with his friends Mayor McCheese, the Hamburglar, Grimace, Birdie the Early Bird, and The Fry Kids. Our kids have been taken captive, by a clown. According to Barna Research, kids ages 2 to 7 watch an average of 25 hours of television a week and see about 40,000 television ads per year. It's no surprise Ronald McDonald was number two on a list of the most recognizable people in the world. This, of course, relates directly to our kids' addiction to junk food!
March 16: My Happy Meal is 12 days old. I'm taking it off my shelf, just for a little peek to see how it's doing. Ya'd think that there would be some sort of decomposition going on by now. I don't see any...nope none at all. My Happy Meal is still looks perky.
March 19: It's too bad that even in the midst of the recession, parents are finding the financial wherewithal to keep their kids supplied with Happy Meals. February's sales were up 5.4 percent above last year. January's global comparable sales leaped 7.1 percent. Wouldn't it be wonderful if parents cooked whole foods at home? No only would they save during these tight financial times, but their kids would be healthier, too.
March 30: Do you know the: 1) percentage of potatoes which end up French fried: 22 2) age when a toddler first eats a French fry: 6 mo 3) percentage of toddlers who eat French Fries everyday: 21
March 31: I'm taking my Happy Meal on its first field trip. It's going to be my show-and-tell for tonight's presentation to preschool moms in Littleton, Colorado. No one will believe my Happy Meal is one day shy of four week's old! It looks as good as it did on day one.
April 10: You remember the jingle, "Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun." What's in the Big Mac® special sauce: Soybean oil, pickle relish
April 29: Since I began this blog, I've written another post about Monosodium Glutamate. MSG is a common ingredient in McDonald's food. Unappetizing as it is, my Happy Meal is just as perky as the day I bought it, nearly two months ago!
June 3 How sad are Americans? Despite all the cautions about fast food, a recent poll found that 44 percent of Americans say they like the taste of fast food too much to give it up. Greg Chu, senior vice president of health care for Synovate in North America, says people in the USA have "a love-hate relationship" with fast food. "We love the convenience. We love the taste. We love the assurance that you can count on it. But we know it's not good for us."
December 14 I wish I could say that my Happy Meal has changed in some way. But it looks pretty much the same nine months after I purchased it. The bread is crusty. That's all!
March 3, 2010 Read about my Happy Meal's first birthday, CLICK HERE.
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