McDonald's Tries to Convince Moms That its Food is Nutritious

In an effort to convince consumers that its food is nutritious, McDonald's is letting a group of six mothers, aged 35 to 42, go behind-the-scenes at McDonald's restaurants, processing plants, orchards and test kitchens.

The mothers will share their experiences with the world via online journals.

McDonald's says that it will have no control over what the women write. The women are not being paid, but McDonald's is paying for their travel and they have been given laptop computers that they will be allowed to keep.

McDonald's is calling the program Mom's Quality Correspondents. The six mothers were picked from a group of 4,000 applicants.

Currently, only 48 percent of women believe that McDonald's food quality is "excellent" or "very good", according to a survey of 14,000 women.

USAToday.com June 12, 2007

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

McDonald's, of course, is banking on the fact that these moms, hand-picked from a pool of thousands of applicants, will help give them a more family-friendly, "mom-approved" reputation amid growing claims that fast-food giants are contributing to obesity and a host of other diet-related health problems across the country.

Frankly, it's shocking to me that even 48 percent of women associate McDonald's with "quality food."

Only this year did McDonald's finally start to remove trans-fat from some of their French fries (and many of their fries still contain it), and their menu is full of non-nutritional "fake foods." Just check out the movie SuperSize Me if you want to know how this food affects your body.

I am fond of telling patients that one French fry is worse for your health than one cigarette, so you may want to consider this snippet before you order your next 'Biggie' order. One of the best things that you can do for yourself and your family is to stay away from fast food restaurants, and carve out some time to prepare healthy food.

If you want to get or stay healthy, someone is just simply going to have to spend some serious time in the kitchen. The time you save by eating at fast food restaurants is not worth the future health complications it could cause.

Please avoid exchanging convenience for your health. Your health is far too precious to lose for a few moments of free time. If you think that you truly don't have the time to do this, take a look at my past article:

Six Easy Ways to Get Better Nutrition Even if You Don't Have the Time.

It will be interesting to see what the moms report. Keep in mind that their journals are being posted on a McDonald's-run Web site, and that there is a strong likelihood that they will be seeing precisely what McDonald's wants them to see. As this Slashfood post points out, this really is a pretty transparent ploy by McDonald's -- there is no doubt that the response will be rave reviews about the quality of McDonald's products, even though any teenager actually working at McDonald's could tell you otherwise.

The Slashfood post goes on to wish that McDonald's would just admit what they really are and stop trying to fool everyone into believing that, against all logic and evidence, it's a healthy place to eat. I couldn't agree more.