{"id":5349,"date":"2010-12-13T16:09:51","date_gmt":"2010-12-13T15:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ethicalquote.com\/?p=5349"},"modified":"2010-12-14T16:15:17","modified_gmt":"2010-12-14T15:15:17","slug":"mcdonalds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/2010\/12\/13\/mcdonalds\/","title":{"rendered":"McDonald&#8217;s chief attacks children&#8217;s meal &#8216;food police&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/0\/77523de6-06f7-11e0-8c29-00144feabdc0.html#axzz186DDRI5F\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-5352\" title=\"101214_happymeal\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ethicalquote.com\/newTemplate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/101214_happymeal.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"130\" \/><\/a>The chief executive of McDonald&#8217;s has described critics of the  company who have tried to curtail the sale of Happy Meals aimed at  children as &#8220;food police&#8221; and accused them of undermining parents in  making decisions for their families. In an interview with the  Financial Times, Jim Skinner responded to last month&#8217;s vote by the San  Francisco board of supervisors to forbid restaurants from offering toys  with meals unless the food complied with limits on calories, sodium,  sugar and fat. &#8220;We&#8217;ll continue to sell Happy Meals,&#8221; said Mr  Skinner, in the face of a ban that does not become effective until  December 2011. The new rule &#8220;really takes personal choice away from  families who are more than capable of making their own decisions&#8221;. Mr  Skinner&#8217;s message was aimed beyond San Francisco, at the growing legion  of what he describes as&#8221;food police&#8221; who blame McDonald&#8217;s for  contributing to an epidemic of obesity in the US and other developed  nations. &#8220;We&#8217;ve seen many years of someone trying to dictate  behaviour through legislation,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Our Happy Meals have been  supported by parents since the 1970s. The nutrition of Happy Meals,  which include apples, meets FDA guidelines. We sell choices on the menu  that make our customers feel better about their lifestyle.&#8221; In the  past 20 years, McDonald&#8217;s has moved beyond hamburgers and Chicken  McNuggets to offer healthier options ranging from salads and wraps to  fruit-based smoothies. However, as the world&#8217;s largest fast-food  restaurant chain with 32,000 stores in 118 countries, McDonald&#8217;s remains  synonymous with junk food in the eyes of many, in the way that Altria  became a proxy for the tobacco industry. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/0\/77523de6-06f7-11e0-8c29-00144feabdc0.html#axzz186DDRI5F\" target=\"_blank\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>News selected by Covalence | Country: Global |  Company: McDonald&#8217;s | Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/0\/77523de6-06f7-11e0-8c29-00144feabdc0.html#axzz186DDRI5F\" target=\"_blank\">Financial Times<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The chief executive of McDonald&#8217;s has described critics of the company who have tried to curtail the sale of Happy Meals aimed at children as &#8220;food police&#8221; and accused them of undermining parents in making decisions for their families. In an interview with the Financial Times, Jim Skinner responded to last month&#8217;s vote by the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":665,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_post_series":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"post_series":[],"class_list":["post-5349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","entry","no-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/665"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5349"},{"taxonomy":"post_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.covalence.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_series?post=5349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}