Day 001 - 28 Jun 94 - Page 10
1 portraying McDonald's as a happy, circus-like place where
burgers and chips are provided for everybody at any hour
2 of the day (and late at night), traps children into
thinking they aren't 'normal' if they don't go there too.
3 Appetite, necessity and - above all - money, never enter
the 'innocent' world of ronald mcdonald.
4
Few children are slow to spot the gaudy red and yellow
5 standardised frontages in shopping centres and high
streets throughout the country. McDonald's know exactly
6 what kind of pressure this puts on people looking after
children. It's hard not to give in to this 'convenient'
7 way of keeping children 'happy', even if you haven't got
much money and you try to avoid junk-food."
8
Heading: "Toy Food". Blob: "As if to compensate for the
9 inadequacy of their products, McDonald's promote the
consumption of meals as a 'fun event'. This turns the act
10 of eating into a performance, with the 'glamour' of being
in a McDonald's ('Just like it is in the ads!') reducing
11 the food itself to the status of a prop.
12 Not a lot of children are interested in nutrition, and
even if they were, all the gimmicks and routines with
13 paper hats and straws and balloons hide the fact that the
food they're seduced into eating is at best mediocre, at
14 worst poisonous - and their parents know it is not even
cheap."
15
Again, my Lord, if your Lordship should conclude that the
16 implication of that passage is that McDonald's
deliberately snared or inveigled or seduced children into
17 eating food which is likely to be, at its best
unnutritious, at worst poisonous, then again this passage
18 is a complete falsehood.
19 Another box headed: "Ronald's dirty secret. Once told
the grim story about how hamburgers are made, children are
20 far less ready to join in ronald mcdonald's perverse
antics. With the right prompting, a child's imagination
21 can easily turn a clown into a bogeyman (a lot of children
are very suspicious of clowns anyway). Children love a
22 secret, and Ronald's is especially disgusting."
23 Heading, Blob: "In what way are McDonald's responsible
for torture and murder? The menu at McDonald's is based
24 on meat. They sell millions of burgers every day in 35
countries throughout the world." My Lord, of course those
25 figures are now out of date. "This means the constant
slaughter, day by day, of animals born and bred solely to
26 be turned into McDonald's products.
27 Some of them - especially chickens and pigs - spend their
lives in the entirely artificial conditions of huge
28 factory farms, with no access to air or sunshine and no
freedom of movement."
29
Pausing there, my Lord, whilst it is true that a lot of
30 chickens live in large sheds, it is not true of pigs. The
pigs used for McDonald's food in this country at least
