Weekly Column by Loretta Redd, PhD
McDonalds owes a debt of gratitude to Santa Barbara for its gift of the late Herb Peterson, who, in the 1960′s with Don Greadel, invented the Egg McMuffin. Though it took until 1972 for this mighty little breakfast orb and renowned hangover cure to become nationally distributed, it remains as much a hit today as it did then.
Of course, McDonald’s didn’t have 27 million daily U.S. customers then (growing by one million per year) and fast food hadn’t become a major component of America’s blubbery big-bottoms tilting the scales of healthcare cost and limiting longevity.
I recently read that the city of Loma Linda is attempting to prevent ‘Mickey D’ from coming to its health-oriented town. Seems that about half of the 22,000 residents are Seventh Day Adventists, who approach their bodies with serious intent: no alcohol, no tobacco, no caffeine, and usually vegetarian.
The residents of Loma Linda have been designated by National Geographic as one of four cities in the world where residents life expectancies reach into their 80′s, 90′s and 100′s. (Okinawa, Japan; Nicoya, Costa Rica and Sardinia, Italy are the others.)
Clearly, these folks are evidence that driving through the golden arches can also fast track you toward the pearly gates. But we live in a society with freedom of choice, and reward developers and their seemingly insatiable appetite for new fast food locations.
Even in towns where the population really doesn’t want them.
Loma Linda does in fact have a del Taco and Carl’s, Jr. but the Happy Meal location is a little too close to “site of the rolling hills that Adventists prophet Ellen G. White envisioned as a haven for the church.”
City Council in between a rock and a Big Mac on this one. The Loma Linda University Medical Center has joined with the Adventists in pleading to restrict the placement, and every council member knows there is another election right around the corner.
So, should Uncle Sam replace Betty Crocker in the kitchen? Is it the role of government- local, state or federal- to control what we eat? I can’t imagine it is a just matter of “education,” because if anyone still believes you can have a healthy body surviving on brown and white fried food seven days a week, they haven’t been to the doctor in a while. And don’t tell me it’s cheap, because in the long run, poor health is anything but.
While it is the government’s role to protect its citizens, many say it is overreach to prevent us from simply making bad choices. The ‘nanny state’ mentality has been a popular theme in this year’s Presidential campaign already; ironically with the one physician of the lot, Ron Paul, the most Libertarian stand of all.
Is putting a KFC within walking distance of an open campus high school a similar health risk to placing an outlet for medical marijuana nearby? I know plenty of parents who would storm the gates of City Hall over ‘legal’ weed being distributed down the street from classrooms, but wouldn’t think twice about the health risks of super-sizing their adolescent.
And what if good food choices are offered in schools, but no one will eat them? Recent ‘healthy meals’ in the L.A. system have not only been rejected by the student bodies, they’ve petitioned to end the practice.
“We, the students of Roosevelt High School, would like to be served food that we can enjoy eating, rather than the ‘healthier’ food that we just throw away,” reads the dictum designed to end the high-nutrition, but often unfamiliar selections like butternut squash and tortellini.
Children are not the only cannon fodder in the food wars. Starbucks, with its 6,500 American outlets, is testing out the addition of beer and wine to its selection of caffeinated ‘highs.’ To quote Clarice Turner, senior vice president of U.S. operations, “As our customers transition from work to home, many are looking for a warm and inviting place to unwind and connect with people they care about.”
Do we really need 6,500 more places for stressed out employees to ‘unwind’ with alcohol before they get back behind the wheel of their cars and head home? However, our street drunks might be thrilled to know they can not only get a cup o’ joe, but a jigger of merlot for their sign-holding efforts. And will the fast food ‘heavyweights,’ soon follow, with bourbon at Burger King, or Taco Bell n’ tequila?
In the battle of mass marketing versus common sense, when should schools, hospitals, churches or governments step in to save us from ourselves?
Mayor Rhodes Rigsby of Loma Linda is personally frustrated with the attention his town is receiving. His belief is that, “we should keep people from harming one another, but government doesn’t have a strong need to keep people from harming themselves.” Across town, Dr. Wellhausen, from the University’s school of preventative medicine, views fast food promotion with a more ‘jaundiced’ eye. He believes that saying there is a “healthy menu at McDonald’s, is like putting 5 milligrams of Vitamin C in a cigarette.”
Whether it be fatty livers in obese children ten years of age, or folks driving drunk after getting barista’d at Starbucks, the government is likely going to try to save us from ourselves…at least until we decide that living a long, active and healthy life is the smarter and ultimately cheaper choice to make.
Government has forced chains to list the calorie count and it is quite an eye opener. Went to the El Torito by the beach and couldn’t believe the numbers listed on the menu.
You have seen it with health care. You are starting to see it with higher education. The era of BIG GOVERNMENT is here. A takeover of people’s decisions.
More spending for bigger government! nanny state gone wild. they can make better decisions for the stupid people that can not or will not care for self. Are people dumb enough to go for the lib dem agenda again? inform yourselves america.
Why have any freedom at all if the politico is going to make all my decisions for me… That’s what it truly boils down to. Many people believe we can solve these problems with the “we’re all the same” cookie cutter mentality. It will never work.
The reason is very simple, we’re not all alike. I can put down four McMuffins, put in four hours labor and not gain an ounce. On the the other hand, someone can eat just one, sit on the sofa all day and gain three pounds. So when the government asks the food chains to limit calories, they’re doing me a disservice…. I need to pay for more or make bricks with less straw so to speak.
Same with med MJ, i can smoke the best all day long and still solve algebra questions, yet there are some big time light weights in the world who take one hit and never come down….
Is it the governments job to limit my intake of med MJ while so many in the world use other more potent and addictive drugs to satisfy their needs. Just put down the wine glass and cigarettes for a minute and think about ok!
Whole post is elitist bs. McDonalds serves the community, especially the poor and elderly with their dollar menu. The mc muffin is 300 calories. It is a english muffin and one egg a slice of ham and can be ordered without cheese. Also on the breakfast menu is Fruit and maple oatmeal, fruit and yogurt parfait, fruit and walnuts and my favorite the sausage and egg mc griddle! Other great items in a clean environment and free wi fi. Beautiful!
There are people that go to the grocery store and buy nothing but ice cream, potato chips and beer. Should we ban grocery stores? Keep them far away from kids schools? Get your nanny state out of my life, I can think and make decisions for myself!
McDonalds is essentially food for the homeless…..or those a few steps away from being homeless.
As always, survival of the fittest is about awareness (call this elitist if you like) but in every culture in the world its known to be true, “you are what you eat.”
So go ahead and eat it if it resonates. When I’m feeling really down/depressed a happy meal can actually lift my spirits!
If food void of any significant amount of life force turns you on its only a matter of time until you lack life force, (a.k.a. presence )which in effect on some level makes You essentially homeless.
This comment cements it…Bob was right. Walmart and McDonalds bashing is elitist code for class warfare against the little people. It’s the same rationale behind plastic bag bans…I use my reusable hemp shopping bag, so why shouldn’t every person be forced to?
I don’t even use a reusable hemp shopping bags, because I grow my own and knit my own clothes from collected pet hair. Dahl and naan is far better than Big Mac dollar Wednesdays if you really care about good nutrition. If you don’t, then keep packing away those burgers and recklessly sucking up global resources to graze beef cattle. Get real, get down and get nutrition, if you want to combat hunger.
@bottemline, best comment ever!! ” I grow my own and knit my own clothes from collected pet hair.” Hahahaa!! awesome
Almost had me fooled, but a true believer would never refer to an animal as a “pet” rather than a “non-human cohabitant american”.
Or maybe Feline-Americans, or Canine-Americans, or worse, and I’ve actually heard this, “fur children.”