....... We’ve all heard the stories: workers fired for attempting to join unions, some McD’s worker fired in France this year for giving burgers to a homeless man, toilet cleaner used to clean the ice-cream machine…but there’s more to McDonald’s than just a money-grabbing multinational corporation out to exploit, mistreat and endanger the world’s human population. Animals and the environment get in on the action too. Don’t you just love those guys... Forests are cut down to make way for cattle ranches, the animals used in McDonalds food are raised inhumanely in disgraceful conditions to maximise profit, then slaughtered cruelly in the grotesque, bloody grand finale to a life of imprisonment and pain (what a great sentence... I’m wasted on this website...). All the cruelty, waste, and damage to the environment that goes with animal farming goes with McDonalds. Employees are overworked and underpaid, consisting mostly of students and teenagers. In America, the annual staff turnover rate is 300%. They seek out unskilled workers so that they can pay minimum wage, and having lots of staff on shift work means that they never have to pay overtime.
....... McDonald’s (and indeed most fast food outlets) give their burgers and fries their (almost) irresistible taste by loading them with chemicals and artificial flavouring. The food in McDonald’s is only a characterless vehicle for flavour: bland fodder basted in chemicals to make it taste like real food. In Ireland, 45% of all food poisoning incidences are due to food purchased from junk food outlets, according to the Food Safety Promotion Board. In an E-coli outbreak in America 8 years ago, 700 people got food poisoning, 200 were hospitalised, and 4 died. The cause of the outbreak? A fast-food chain. Recalls of contaminated food from food outlets are commonplace. There are 76 million cases of food poisoning in the US every year, and 5000 result in death. In 1996 the US Dept. of Agriculture discovered 7.5% of ground beef samples to be infected with salmonella, and 11.7% with Listeria monocytogenes. 78.6% of the beef tested contained microbes which came mostly from faecal matter. If you eat beef, you might want to read that sentence again - maybe it’s the animal faeces that give burgers that unique taste. McDonald’s use less than 10p worth of Coke syrup to make up a regular coke: it’s been a while since I got coke at McDonald’s, but don’t they charge in the region of £1-£1.50 for the privilege of drinking flavoured fizzy water? Drinking a large coke is the equivalent of eating 10 spoons of sugar. The Big Mac, at 820 kilocalories and 40g of fat, has nearly 3 times as much fat and calories as a serving of Haagen-Dazs ice cream. Fries contain 446 kcals a portion, a quarter pounder: 423 kcals, and a strawberry milkshake, 400 kcals. Chicken might be seen as a slightly less fattening option but at 375 kcals is only slightly less unhealthy than beef burgers. 44 million Americans are obese and 6 million ‘super-obese’. I don’t even know exactly what super-obesity is but I know I never want to see it. 39% of Irish people are overweight, and 18% of these are obese, thanks to McD’s and co. How can the same nation give us ‘super-obesity’ and Ally McBeal...well as long as it’s excess I suppose it’s the American way. But McD’s aren’t the worst as far as cruelty goes (the animals still end up dead though)…they’ve taken big steps towards more humane treatment of animals, but there are still many unacceptable practices on their slaughter lines. Burger King however...well you’ll have to go to MurderKing.com for info, I’m out of space...GoVeg.com also has eye-opening (& stomach-churning) pictures of conditions animals are kept in (go to ‘resources for activists,’ then photographs), and you can watch a 12-minute video about farming and slaughter at the site. Both sites are offshoots of the peta.org website, which has lots of other sites besides those and is definitely worth a visit. There’s more information on McD’s and lots of other things; if PETA don’t turn you vegan, nothing will...except maybe a heart attack due to sky-high cholesterol levels, and don't think I'll be fucking crying for you...eh I mean but of course, that's the individual's own choice and other diplomatic PC things like that.