L.A. Councilwoman to South Central: No Fruit and Walnut Salad for You!
An L.A. councilwoman is making good on her longtime “health zoning” threat to ban new fast-food joints from her South Central neighborhood, the WaPo reports:
Citing alarming rates of childhood obesity and a poverty of healthful eating choices, a city councilwoman is pushing for a moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in South-Central Los Angeles.
“Some people will say, ‘Well, people just don’t have to eat it,’ ” said Jan Perry, the Democrat who represents the city’s overwhelmingly African American and Latino District 9. “But the fact of the matter is, what if you have no other choices?”
I don’t know South Central, but I do know that its things like this, from the LAT last year, that tend to limit choices:
[British grocer] Tesco has said it will put stores in low-income neighborhoods, including one that’s planned for Los Angeles at East Adams Boulevard and South Central Avenue.
[...]
A coalition of 25 community organizations in Southern California is set to call on Tesco today to sign a “community benefits agreement” that would bind the British retailer to its previous promises to pay its Southern California workers well above the minimum wage, offer health benefits and to be environmentally responsible when it launches its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market chain of small grocery stores this fall.
Right. Way to encourage choices. As the excellent Katherine Mangu-Ward writes in the latest issue of Reason, “Few sins are less forgivable in polite society than offering poor people products they actively seek.”
Note the evil McDonald’s “fruit and walnut salad” in the WaPo’s story photo, btw.
Winehouse Fried
Amy Winehouse might not be ready to cut a record, but she’s always ready to chow.
Crispy sharing too much about Ms. Winehouse’s eating habits here.
Snap via The Superficial.
Speaking of Golden Arches, Simon Says ‘I’m an Idiot’
Is the Quarter Pounder really just a quarter pound of ground-up worms? No. And McDonald’s is launching a campaign to counter (admittedly amusing) falsehoods like that one.
Their See what we’re made of campaign includes a web-based Q&A:
Q: I’ve heard McDonald’s uses leftover parts of the cow in its beef. Is this true?
A: Absolutely not. McDonald’s uses well-known cuts of meat that you might buy at the grocery store, such as chuck and round.
You’d think this was a good thing, right? All those food nannies are always talking about how people have no idea where their food comes from, and they wish companies would disclose the information voluntarily.
But nooooo. It ain’t close to good enough for one whining food nanny.
…Michele Simon, an Oakland, Calif., public health lawyer and nutrition advocate believes McDonald’s is being disingenuous. If McDonald’s wants to be transparent about its menu items, it should stop fighting laws that would require them to post calorie counts and other information on their menu boards, e (sic) said.
“Who are they kidding?” said Simon, author of the 2006 book “Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back.” “Yes, maybe the beef is 100 percent beef, but that doesn’t make it good for you. I’m assuming they are selecting menu items that are the least disgusting when it comes to their ingredients.”
What in holy hell is she talking about? Seriously. She’s an author?
More here from the Boston Herald. McDonald’s invites you to see what they’re made of here.
Buy a jar of Por Kwan Pad Thai Crab Paste from Amazon (sales rank: #33,454) and push Simon’s book out of the #33,453 spot.
Crispy on YouTube: Rum + McDonald’s Shamrock Shake = McJito
Kudos to Roxanne for expert direction and Jerry for keen film editing. I’ll be adding more videos to our new YouTube Channel as we make them.
Floridians Freaking Out Over McDonald’s French Fries
You’ve probably heard by now about the grandmother who was arrested yesterday at a Clearwater, Fla. McDonald’s drive-thru after refusing a police officer’s order to move her car while she waited for her special no-salt order of fries.
An anomaly? Not for McDonald’s, and not for Florida, either. Just days earlier, across the state, police say a “31-year-old man in Jacksonville was arrested after he rammed his car into a McDonald’s after not receiving two bags of french fries he ordered earlier”.
Just to be safe — bad things happen in threes, you know — Floridians might want to limit their fast food side dishes to some fried plantains at Pollo Tropical until this fry craziness dies down.
McFlurry of Activity Shows Amy Winehouse Can’t Get off the Sauce
Super-troubled, super-ugly British singer Amy Winehouse (of “Rehab” fame) “ran around [a] parking lot clutching packets of McNugget sauce” after a recent trip to a McDonalds near the location of her super-troubled, super-ugly husband’s trial, according to The Superficial. Winehouse, who should be Exhibit A in the argument against Morgan Spurlock and others who like to bash McDonald’s for causing obesity, ordered “a couple of burgers, 6 chicken nuggets and a caramel McFlurry”, according to ShowbizSpy.
Caramel McFlurry? Those lucky Brits. All we get are Oreos or M&Ms or the occasional squirt of Dulce de Leche in our McFlurry. Though if I was really jonesing like Amy Winehouse, I suppose I could just buy my own McFlurry maker.
