{"id":1395,"date":"2008-10-27T09:28:44","date_gmt":"2008-10-27T14:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/?p=1395"},"modified":"2008-10-27T09:32:42","modified_gmt":"2008-10-27T14:32:42","slug":"memo-to-mcdonalds-are-you-kidding-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2008\/10\/27\/memo-to-mcdonalds-are-you-kidding-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Memo to McDonalds:  Are you kidding me?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So we&#8217;re in McDonalds the other day.  (Granny came with us to skating lessons and offered to take us all out to lunch at McDonalds as a special treat for the boys.)  While there is room in my Plan B diet for a rare treat of hamburgers and fries, I&#8217;d rather they be really tasty home-made ones than the crap that passes for food at McDonalds.  Besides, I&#8217;m not even particularly hungry, so I decide to order a salad.  I know they have salads at McDonalds, because I&#8217;ve ordered one before.  They suck, but at least they&#8217;re guilt-free.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m looking at the menu boards above the cash registers, but after carefully perusing each of the half-dozen or so menu blocks, I can find no mention anywhere of salads.  They have giant pictures of the burger combos, and a placard for the Monopoly game.  There&#8217;s not even a board with the kids&#8217; meals on it.  That sign standing by itself, propped in a corner.  <\/p>\n<p>Remember the good old days when the menu boards in fast-food restaurants used to actually show you all the items that were on the menu?  This has been a gripe of mine for a while.  I first noticed it outside at the drive-through.  I figured maybe they don&#8217;t put all the items on display out there because of a lack of space or something, or because the menu boards have to be further away thus limiting the text they use.  But here I am standing inside the restaurant, and I still can&#8217;t find any mention of foods that I know should be available.  I actually step out of line and go read the microprint on the nutritional information poster near the condiment stand to find out whether they still carry salads.  <\/p>\n<p>We eat our lunch, but it&#8217;s still bugging me, so I go up to the counter and ask someone who seems to be in a position of authority.  All of about fourteen years old, from the look of him, but he&#8217;s so quick with an answer that I can tell he&#8217;s either been practicing or has answered this one a few times before.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Oh yes, we still carry salads,&#8221; he says.  &#8220;But head office knows they aren&#8217;t very good, so we don&#8217;t promote them.&#8221;  I&#8217;m too gobsmacked by all that is wrong with this answer to even begin to reply, so he continues.  &#8220;They&#8217;ll be some fantastic new salads unveiled soon, though!&#8221; he says with evangelical zeal.  &#8220;You&#8217;ll love them, and we&#8217;ll have lots of new signs then.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Uh huh.  So the takehome message for me is this:  <\/p>\n<p>(1) McDonalds has salads, but they&#8217;re too embarrassed by the quality of them to admit it publicly.  <\/p>\n<p>(2)  I&#8217;m only allowed to order a salad if I know to ask for one.  And I&#8217;m not allowed to know the price in advance, either.<\/p>\n<p>(3)  Instead of providing patrons with a list of actual food items available in its restaurants, McDonalds would rather display ginormous pictures of their most popular but least healthy items.<\/p>\n<p>(4) McDonalds would rather you just forget about the whole salad thing entirely and have a supersized Big Mac and fries instead.  (That&#8217;s 1090 calories, more than three-quarters of my entire daily calorie consumption.)<\/p>\n<p>Nice, McDonalds.  Very nice.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So we&#8217;re in McDonalds the other day. (Granny came with us to skating lessons and offered to take us all out to lunch at McDonalds as a special treat for the boys.) While there is room in my Plan B diet for a rare treat of hamburgers and fries, I&#8217;d rather they be really tasty &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2008\/10\/27\/memo-to-mcdonalds-are-you-kidding-me\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Memo to McDonalds:  Are you kidding me?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants-and-rambles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}