Nov 18, 2001 01:14 PM
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(Updated Nov 18, 2001 01:14 PM)
I hate clowns, and Ronald McDonald gives me yet another reason to dislike those laughing, painted creatures that annoyed the poop out of me as a child. Indeed, Ronald McDonald and the sub-par restaurant he represents just bother me to no end.
Why? I have two small children. While my 11-month-old daughter isn't old enough to pester me about McDonald's, my five-year-old son is. Kids love to go to McDonald's and play all over the little ''kiddie park'' they've got going there. What that means is, my son is too busy trying to play on the indoor jungle gym at McDonald's to worry too much about eating his dinner there, and I'm stuck eating fries, drinking Coca-Cola and muttering curse words under my breath.
McDonald's is geared for children, see, and the restaurant has one goal in mind when it comes to food -- keep it cheap as possible. That translates into chicken nuggets that are full of dark meat and God only knows what else and hamburgers that have too high of an ''eye ball'' count for my liking. The fries taste okay, but the potatoes used to make them are so, errr, ''genetically enhanced'' that I'm not sure you can accurately call them potatoes any more. The food, for the most part, tastes rather like cardboard and is as bland as can be.
And, breakfast isn't much better -- dry biscuits and scrambled eggs that taste rather like simulated eggs. The cheese Danish there is okay, though, but I try not to think about what's in it. The coffee there is okay, but it's nothing special -- just cheap ol' Folgers, Maxwell House or something along those lines.
While I might sound like I'm being a bit harsh toward McDonald's, it's because that's my intent. Out of all the fast food spots in the world, McDonald's uses about the cheapest food substitutes it can find, and anyone who claims to find anything healthy there is lying. While good health isn't a concern of fast food restaurants, McDonald's is about the worst of the bunch -- using the cheapest ingredients can't lead to anything good.
Want proof that McDonald's uses cheap garbage? My wife works for the corporate headquarters of Tyson Foods, one of the largest providers of chicken (and now pork and beef since the company purchased IBP) in the world, and makes the chicken nuggets for McDonald's. McDonald's has directed Tyson to create nuggets made with the cheapest stuff allowed by law. The emphasis, see, is on quantity and low prices rather than food meant for human beings. The story is, I'm sure, the same for beef and everything else served at McDonald's.
Oh, and one more thing. Avoid this place.
