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

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