Wednesday, November 3, 2010

San Fran Happy Meal Ban

San Francisco has made it so that fast food meals must meet nutritional guidelines in order to include a toy, meaning that kids are going to have to accept healthier food in order to get their pvc Barbie or Matchbox car.

I definitely think this sucks major balls.  If you don't want your kids eating McDonald's and drinking soda, don't take them to McDonalds!  Take them to Subway, where you know they'll order a turkey sub on white bread with nothing but mayonaise and cheese.  Don't make it so that Augustus Gloop can't get his burger, greasy fries, and Shreck toy (even though Shreck sucks balls too).  This is one of those few times where I'll justify something simply because "this is the way it's always been."  That being said, an apple, some water, some vegetables and a bag of nuts wouldn't have kept me from the awesomeness of skateboarding baby Kermit or big-wheeling Gonzo. 



The news may be sad, but all of this Happy Meal talk is making me reminisce.  Remember the Berenstain Bears Happy Meal?  Or the Ghost Busters school supplies Happy Meal?  I loved that one because it felt like a sneaky way to get a toy into class with me.  What are your favorite Happy Meals from your youth?  C'mon people, if you can't contribute to this conversation, you have no soul!  Or your parents fed you too much granola.

3 comments:

  1. We would occasionally go through the drive thru to buy just the toys sometimes back in the day. We always had the schedule of the next toy memorized!

    My favorite Happy Meal toys were the "Changeables"-the robots that you could transform...err, change into McD's foods! The Halloween buckets were also pretty cool-especially when they had the cookie cutter in the lid.

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  2. I think the ban is a great idea based on the punishment-reward system. If you reward a young child for eating so poorly at a young age it's pretty likely that he will continue to eat that way, I think.

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  3. Anonymous, you're definitely right about establishing good eating habits. I agree with that. But the bottom line is, it's McD's. If you want healthy food for your kid, go someplace else. It's almost like telling Dunkin Donuts that they can only sell a donut after they've sold an apple.

    Couldn't it also be dangerous to condition your kids to think that McDonald's is a healthy place to eat?

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