 |
| |
|
|
Boris Godunov
|
 |
Portland, OR
Aug 2001
time: 00:35
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by mrmitchell
If you are poor, what are you doing at McDonald's to begin with? You're either too poor to be there at all, or wealthy enough to (very!) carefully budget in your food supplies at the grocery store.
|
As Theben pointed out, it's also about time. Poor people work long hours, too, and there's the added burden of having to care for kids. They don't have the time to prepare food. It's not as simple as just going to the grocery. You have to make a list, get to the grocery, get back from the grocery, prep the food, cook it, and then clean up afterwards. It's time consuming, and when there's a quick, messless alternative like McD's around the corner which purports to be nutritious, people are going to go for that.
The supersize thing is related, as people see it as getting more value for their dollar. When the deal is that the more food you buy, the cheaper it is, that's another incentive to buy it.
No one's absolving people of their personal responsibility -- the filmmaker pointed that out. But how much responsibility does McD's have for offering its customers the nooses with which to hang themselves?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Kontiki
|
|
Canada
Aug 2001
time: 00:35
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Boris Godunov
But how much responsibility does McD's have for offering its customers the nooses with which to hang themselves? |
I'd say just about nil, with the only exception being instances where items are falsely advertised as being healthy.
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Capt Dizle
|
|
McDonalds certainly has a responsibility in my opinion. They intentionaly target their advertising at children and this puts pressure on parents. Sure, you can say that parents have to take the bull by the horns and all of that, but in any society any institution that seeks to enrich itself should have to answer to all. We have a right to take them to task when the public health is concerned. If you can't deal with fast food purveyors then you can't deal with cigarette makers. Whether you approach this as an issue of personal responsibility or by societal law is a matter of how much involvement you want government to have in your life. But the fact is that their product is harmful and something needs to be done about it.
I'd rather have a president who runs and takes pride in his health than the one that we had that ate junk food. I don't think that a good example is too much to expect.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Arrian
|
 |
Kneel before Grog!
Jul 2001
time: 00:35
|
|
quote:
This is all assuming, of course, that the grocery stores are actually WHERE the poor people are. Is there transportation for car-less poor people to get to these places? Do they even accept food stamps or other vouchers?
Poor people, in general, have much less access to grocery stores that offer healthy nutrional staples, so they do rely on junk-peddlers like party stores and McD's for food. |
While I think there is some truth to this, I really don't think it's much of an excuse for people eating Mickey D's all the time.
When I was in college in Hartford (shitty area), the local grocery store was accessible to the surrounding area. It wasn't the nicest grocery store, certainly. We evil rich kids all drove out to the Super Stop & Shop a few miles away because it was nicer. It didn't stink, for instance.
HOWEVER, if I had a choice between the smelly Walbaums and eating McDonalds all the time... I mean, are you kidding me?
-Arrian
|
|
| |
|
|
|
mindseye
|
 |
A Yankee living in Shanghai
Apr 1999
time: 13:35
|
|
One of the unfortunate consequences of moving to China is that I eat about 900% more fast-food than when I lived in culinary paradise San Francisco.
I really love Chinese food, and while there is a very great variety of it, sooner or later (after about two years in my case) you crave some variety. Cheese! Potatoes! Besides offering a chance to eat some non-Chinese food, being able to eat lunch in 15 minutes is a big plus to a teacher occasionally dashing between classroom locations over the noon hour.
In Shanghai you can easily find just about any kind of international cuisine (I had Nepalese recently). However, international restaurants are expensive, even while the food is often second-rate. At a typical neighborhood restaurant, I can have a pretty good dinner for about 25 renminbi. At the French restaurant in my neighborhood, the price would be more like 300 renminbi (without wine).
So, that leaves McDonalds and KFC. Pizza Hut is also here in abundance, but it's crazy expensive (the equivalent of an American paying $30 for a 9" Pizza Hut pie). There is one Taco Bell in Shanghai, but it's an expensive sit-down waitress-and-menu joint!
Here in Shanghai (as in most large Chinese cities). McDonalds and KFC are everywhere, perhaps even more common than the are in an American city! Within a radius of six blocks of my apartment, I think there are three McDs, four KFCs and a Pizza Hut. I live in a largely residential neighborhood. Downtown, I have seen two KFCs on the same block.
Unfortunately, as Morgan Spurlock discovered, eating so much American fast food is not without effect on the health of young urban Chinese. One of my friends had a job teaching at a local hospital. According to the doctors there, obesity was just one problem. They were also very concerned over the effects of children and teens consuming so much hormone-laced meat (chicken and beef served at McDs and KFC is imported from the US). One of the first things visitors to China notice is how much taller young people are than their parents. It's striking. Fatter, taller -- now the Chinese are being super-sized! Young Chinese are also starting puberty earlier, perhaps due to the increase in hormone consumption.
Fortunately, my weight has not changed even one pound in over 3 years of living here, so I guess the healthy Chinese food outweighs the increase in American fast food. 
---
That Chinese love American fast food so much is truly ironic, since most Chinese are absolutely uninterested in trying any other kind of non-Chinese food. The standard opinion is that "everybody knows Chinese food is the best in the world, so why bother eating anything else?" Chinese tourists or business travelers can spend a week or two in Thailand or Europe, and never eat anything but second-rate Chinatown Chinese food. I'm not exaggerating this. One of my friends had a corporate teaching gig working with a Chinese staff who were planning a three week business trip to Milan. After they returned, he asked them how they liked Italian food. During three weeks in Italy, not one of the staff tried even a single bite of Italian food!
I often ask students about Thai food, since Thailand is now a popular Chinese vacation destination. A typical exchange:
Me: "Why haven’t you tried Thai food?"
Student (invariable answer): "It's too spicy".
Me: "How do you know it's too spicy if you never tried it?"
Student: "Everyone knows it."
Me: "Do you personally know anyone, or ever heard of anyone, who has tried Thai food?"
Student (after pause): "No."
Me: "If you don’t know even one person who has tried Thai food, how does 'everyone' know it's too spicy?"
Student: "Everyone knows it!"
Me: "Well, I've personally eaten lots of Thai food and lots of Chinese food, and I can tell you, Thai food is much less spicy than Sichuan (Szechuan) food."
The conversation always stops here, they cannot respond to this. It's as if I was claiming that from first-hand knowledge that Thailand was north of Canada.
Yet while Chinese will turn their noses up at cuisines like Thai and Indian - not even willing to sample them - they will stand in a line outside in the winter, waiting to get into ... Pizza Hut!
Below is a typical lunchtime line outside a Pizza Hut not far from my apartment. On a weekend or holiday, the line can be much longer.
 Attachment: pizza hut line.jpg
This has been downloaded 74 time(s).
|
|
| |
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:35.
Apolyton Time is 00:35. |
top of page
|
| archivepost |
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
05-05-2004 11:05
The heresy!
|
