by: Christina Sarich
Natural Society
We all want to personally thank Hannah Robertson for being one of the youngest corporate accountability activists on record. The young girl recently attended a McDonald’s shareholder’s meeting in Illinois with her mother to comment on the food that the corporate giant sells to the world, and specifically to children. She stated, “It would be nice if you stopped trying to trick kids into wanting junk food all the time.”
Ms. Robertson was not happy with his response, when he tried to tell her that French fries cooked in unhealthy fats, hamburgers, shakes, and happy meals weren’t junk food at all. The CEO, Don Thompson, replied, “we don’t sell junk food.”
While McDonald’s states that it is trying to offer more healthy menu items, their staples are anything but that. For example, a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese is a whopping 740 calories with 42 grams of fat, and 1190 mg of sodium. That doesn’t account for the fries and soft drink that are normally ordered together with the sandwich. Even some of the grilled chicken sandwiches are high in fat and calories. If you add to this, the soda which McDonald’s sells every year (one 32 oz, large Coca-Cola Classic has more than 86 grams of sugar, or over 20 teaspoons of sugar, you could hardly call McDonald’s a ‘healthy choice’ for a growing population of children.
McDonald’s does offer salads, but you can almost guarantee that almost all the fruits and vegetables sourced for the many thousands of fast food restaurants around the globe use GMO wheat, corn, and soy, as well as other crops like sugar cane to round out their menus. What’s worse, some of the restaurant’s food contains dangerous ingredients like autolyzed yeast extract, propylene glycol, and a flour-bleaching agent that is banned in other nations from being used in food.
There is a clear link between fast foods like the ones that McDonald’s serves and increasing Obesity rates. With more than 33,000 restaurants throughout in over 118 countries, including over 14,000 restaurants in the U.S. alone, McDonald’s might want to listen to Hannah Robertson.
Once a 9-year old outs your shady business practices that negatively affect the health of the people, it might be time to radically change your business plan. There is no doubt that Hannah would get along great with the 11-year old boy who verbally took down Monsanto.
