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The Fruit’s Gone Bad…

Fruit's Gone Bad

I’ve been spending my Sunday lying on the couch re-reading Appetite for Profit by Michele Simon and half-watching Favre and Brady battle it out (never mind, it’s Jackson and Brady now). My intention was to blog about the underhanded public relations games the food industry plays in order to bolster its image and dodge legislation. But that will have to wait until tomorrow. Instead, I feel the need to get something off my chest.

I pride myself on being a realist. I guess you can say I swallowed the red pill, choosing to see the world for what it really is. I know that there will never come a day when the aisles of my local grocery store are lined with whole organic foods. I am more than certain that regardless of how many times that “McDonald’s French Fries Don’t Decompose” article comes across my Facebook News Feed, people are still going to order them. Let’s just keep it real.

Several years back when I first read Appetite, I was beside myself with the lack of healthy options the food giants were offering up. And don’t get me wrong, I’m still more than unhappy with the industry status quo. However, what really chaps my hide is the idealist who complains but is never satisfied, the kind of person who somehow believes that our fast food nation will one day wake up and order baked chicken, quinoa, and steamed broccoli with a 16-ounce kombucha through a drive-thru window. Nonsense.

As shady as the fast food industry is, we must admit that they have responded to public outcry and introduced healthier options to their customers. Almost all offer salads. Some have experimented with fresh fruit. The problem is that no one goes to a fast food restaurant to order a salad. That’s kinda like going to a vegan spot and ordering chicken.

The food idealists of the world need to take a few courses in business. If anyone thinks Ronald McDonald is ever going to voluntarily stop the aggressive marketing, drop the pretentious health and physical activity campaigns, or halt all sales of food and beverage items that people obviously want to buy, you’re kidding yourself. I’m not sure what kind of business you run, but would you continue to offer a product that won’t sell? Should Ronald, Jack, and Wendy continue to waste food just to please you? An unsold salad is an unHappy Meal.

Before this blog gets misinterpreted as support for fast food, allow me to voice my disgust for their unfulfilled promises, shameless marketing, and use of celebrity endorsements to keep the Big Mac assembly lines moving. But let’s not kid ourselves about healthy menu options knowing darn well no one is ordering them. When I want a salad or an apple, Burger King is the last place I’m thinking of.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. I am a proud member of Foodie Nation, but I refuse to waste my breath on fast food menu options. At this very moment, there are hundreds of thousands of people biting into double cheeseburgers. None are foolish enough to consider it a healthy choice. They’re fully aware of what they’re eating.

Meanwhile, the salad is wilting and the fruit’s gone bad.

Sean Croxton
Independent Health Blogger, Vlogger, & Radio Show Host
www.undergroundwellness.com
www.youtube.com/undergroundwellness
www.blogtalkradio.com/undergroundwellness
www.twitter.com/ugwellness


Comments

comments

9 thoughts on “The Fruit’s Gone Bad…

  1. Matt O

    Good article my man… You always hit the nail on the head. It’s up to us as individuals to vote with our fork – as Pollan so eloquently put it. I don’t expect to see ‘healthy’ options at a fast food restaurant. Personally, thats ok with me because the idea that i would spend my hard-earned money at one of these corporate cesspools, is just nonsensical. I don’t ‘need’ that option because I buy all my food from farmers markets and food co-ops. My personal belief is that people should be avoiding these false institutions (along with other ideological fallacies) and embrace true health and true freedom by doing what you know is right for themselves, the environment, and society.
    “I’ve done commercials for coke and pepsi, I don’t give a f**K what comes out of my mouth, whatever it takes, thats what I’m saying.” Now, I don’t expect people to be as real as Dave Chappelle is, but I truly believe if people understood how illusory society is, they would understand that people in powerful places do not care for the well being of the average person. We must take our future into our own hands and manifest greatness by opening our eyes to what is really going on, not what APPEARS to be going on. It motivates me greatly to see other people that ‘get it’ and don’t let the overwhelming majority of close-minded people get the best of them. Many people may not say it, but your work is truly inspiring. Keep up the good fight, there are more people behind you than you would ever know!

  2. Bobby Khan

    This is the reason I follow your stuff and read everything you write, mention you in my blog and videos.

    I find this to be the biggest problem among idealist, often the focus is on the wrong place, I am a firm believer of that we need to stop blaming others, in this case people blame the fast food industry for their health problems, when the problem lays with their own choices.

    Yes in some cases we are being bluntly lied to, like with fruit juices, not just the food industry but even doctors and nutritionists tell us they are good for us. In this case it can be hard to find the truth.

    But if you do not know that a number 7 is not the optimal food choice then as far as I am concerned you are a evolutionary glitch.

    Everyone is responsible for their own choices and EVERY business is out to make money, to think anything else is just stupid. No one sells something no one wants to buy or can be programmed to buy.

    Thanks for the thing you do, keep doing it. I hope to one day meet you and take a seminar.

    Rgds.
    Bobby

  3. Emily

    Sean, I agree with most of what you write, tweet and video blog but I disagree with you here. My parents instilled healthy eating in me young so I would never lobby for MacDonalds or any other fast food type restaurant as a child. However, the many school trips, sports competition trips, youth group retreats and mission trips I went on years ago included the bus stopping at MacDonalds off the highway. Every summer when I went to rich-kid summer camp the bus stopped at MacDonalds and we all went in and ordered a meal and a drink. I would have been thrilled to have any even semi-healthy option then. Fast foward 10 years I am not often on a bus that stops at a MacD’s but I have been in work situations where my boss swings by MacDonalds and we all say what we want and eat in the car on the way to a meeting. Are they giving us semi-healthy menu items for the wrong reasons? probably but they are there nonetheless which will help some people who can’t choose to go elsewhere for a salad and grass fed beef burger (w/out the bun of course (-: ….) !

    Best, Emily

  4. ian

    there was a time when mcdonalds used real food, than it went with cheaper is better, it would be interesting to see if they offered all their items organic, with some baked fried, as well as the shit, and compare sales, people go their because its fast and cheap, we can totally make fast and cheap real food,

    i recently read about the amount of money the industries make, who rely on feeding us bad feed, getting us sick, managing our sickness, and selling us drugs, food-medical-pharma industry, they make trillions of dollars a year, keeping us in a sick state, they make more money than many countries,

  5. Kim

    Emily makes a good point. I have found myself in situations where there are no other options and I have welcomed that salad. And there have been times where I’ve simply skipped a meal because the “healthy” alternative just wasn’t any better than nothing. MY definition of “healthy” differs greatly from many who have already wholeheartedly swallowed the blue pill. Great post, Sean.

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  8. Laura

    I agree that I would not seek out McDonalds or Wendy’s if I was craving a healthy salad, however, there have been times when we are on a road trip and our options are Burger Kind, McD’s, Taco Bell or Wendy’s we usually pick Wendy’s so we can order a baked potato or chili while our kids get chicken nuggets with mandarin oranges. It is not a matter of seeking out these restaurants or this food, but sometimes that is all that is available when you are in the middle of Tennessee or Kansas and your kids need food now. The upside is that they have these new healthier options but the problem is that many sound healthy when in fact they are loaded with sugar and fat (think McDonald’s oatmeal).

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