Seems like a legitimate claim. Whether the product is cookies, cars, or carmels, it takes money. If the lawsuits were not filed some girl would miss out on a great experince.
The troops have to pay for the cookies that are ordered - if they're left with boxes of cookies after the drive is over, then they've also had to foot the bill. They can't always sell them at the local Wal-Mart entrances... so.... I can't say as though I blame them!
The thing is, I wanna know what someone was going to do with over $1,400 of cookies!
Milwaukee Journl-Sentinel (April 28) - A usually unseen side of the Girl Scouts' annual cookie sale surfaced Thursday when the Great Blue Heron Council of the organization filed small-claims lawsuits accusing two couples and three women of not ponying up for goodies they ordered.
"Please note that non-payment for Girl Scout cookies represents fraud," the council noted in form letters that preceded the legal action, according to the lawsuits. "We are willing to work with you to set up a repayment plan; however, you must call within the next two weeks to make these arrangements.
"After that time, we will take whatever steps are necessary, including submitting this information to a collection agency, to protect our interests."
Christine Slowinski, communications director for council, said the lawsuits, which this year concern amounts ranging from $301.42 to $1,485.68 for 2003 and 2004 orders, are an unfortunate annual undertaking.
"Thankfully, it's a very small part of the process," Slowinski said. "If we can't get the proceeds, then the programs that we have available are affected."
Slowinski said the delinquents each year are a mix of parents who owe money for their daughters' cookies and people who pay for cookies with rubber checks.
"We call many times before taking this step," Slowinski said. "We send them letters. When all else fails, this is our last resort. It's something we prefer not to do."
Named in the lawsuits filed in Waukesha County Circuit Court this year are: Kimberly and Saturino Ortega of Waukesha ($406.42); James and Vanessa Edwards of Brookfield ($1,485.68); Teri Milligan of West Bend ($310.42); Tricia Hallett of Waukesha ($473.42); and Gianna George of Oconomowoc ($301.42). None of the people named could be reached for comment Thursday.
"June 20, 2003 - Went to bank (credit union) to see if I could redeposit (the check), and they said she had a stop payment on it," a council representative noted on a call sheet for Vanessa Edwards, according to that lawsuit. "She told me to stop calling her at work.
"I told her the Girl Scout office will be taking care of this situation from now on."
In a letter the council received from Vanessa Edwards on Nov. 22, 2004, she wrote: "The desires of my heart are to serve God to the fullest and in this wise (sic), it is with great desire and much enthusiasm that I strive to clear my name. In an effort to pay my debt and clear my name, this is a letter of intent. Starting January 2005, you will receive a monthly payment until my debt has been repaid."
Before closing, Edwards noted, "Also, it would be greatly appreciated if you would please report to the credit reporting agencies that this account is being settled."
The council's suit against Edwards and her husband seeks $371.42 plus triple damages totaling $1,114.26 for a total of $1,485.68.
"I have called at least seven times and left numerous messages, but I have not gotten a return call," a council representative noted on a call sheet for Milligan, who is being sued for $310.42 for 104 boxes of cookies sold by her daughter in 2004, according to that lawsuit.
"From 3/5/04 to 3/10/04 - Every day contacted and spoke with mother," a representative noted on a call sheet for the Ortegas, who are being sued for $406.42 worth of cookies delivered to their daughter, according to that lawsuit. "Said on numerous occasions she would have a check."
At another point, the representative noted, "Told us that they never agreed to pay for any donated cookies - that they had no idea what I was talking about."
"The way it is set up, the girls are to receive a portion of the money from their sales, and that money goes to their troop," Slowinski explained. "But that money can't go to the troop until we get paid.
Bad me, when I first did this topic it was from the title of the article. I did not read all the way through. It just struck me funny about gs suing over cookies. Me bad.... :o-->
suing someone cause your fat, and ate at fast foods your whole life
or coffee's hot
or can't quit smoking....
those imho are stupid
You would be suprised though. The things you mentioned actually can have merit and be a good reason for a lawsuit.
McDonalds has more of a chance to push their propaganda to kids than parents have a chance to talk to them (McDonalds has hundreds more opportunities a year to influence kids than parents do.) So if you are suing because you grew up brainwashed by McDonalds (which most kids are) then I don't see a problem all that much. More kids know who Ronald McDonald is than they know who George W. Bush is. It shouldn't be legal to advertise something as unhealthy as fast food to anyone under 18, or possibly even sell it to them.
The coffee case was because the coffee wasn't just hot, it was boiling, and left third degree burns on the woman. You can't drink stuff that is still boiling in the cup, and it's not good for them to put something like that in a flimsy cup. There is a sane amount of "hot" that hot coffee should be. You can't drink something that would blister the inside of your mouth.
Cigarette companies make cigarettes to be extra addictive, and they advertise to children. They should be held as responsible as we held cocaine dealers...or change the drug laws to not hold any sellers or manufacturers of addictive drugs liable and end the sham "War On Drugs." Of course, the good thing about the lawsuits is that the cigarette companies can't directly advertise towards children anymore, although they still use a lot of sexual advertising and hidden phalluses in the advertising they do make.
McDonalds has more of a chance to push their propaganda to kids than parents have a chance to talk to them (McDonalds has hundreds more opportunities a year to influence kids than parents do.)
When my daughter was growing up she lived in the same house as my then wife and me. This fact alone gave use hundreds more opportunities a year to influence her more than McDonalds.
Do you have a study or authority that will backup your claim of McDonald's having hundreds more opportunites a year to influence my child more than me?
When my daughter was growing up she lived in the same house as my then wife and me. This fact alone gave use hundreds more opportunities a year to influence her more than McDonalds.
Do you have a study or authority that will backup your claim of McDonald's having hundreds more opportunites a year to influence my child more than me?
While you may be correct in your case, and I will have to search for the statistics I saw in reference to this, I'll give you the reasoning behind it.
Parents have at most 6 opportunities to provide their children with good eating habits per day (assuming three main meals and three snacks, which is still a huge amount), but they are advertised to by companies like McDonalds whenever they watch TV, as well as when they are at school or when you drive past it. I forget the amount of times per day on average that advertisements for McDonalds are seen by children, but it's higher on average than the parents. Granted, the vast majority of these occur on weekends, but in a week it still averages out with junk food advertisements holding a clear lead over parents, even ignoring peer pressure from friends.
Also, I may have been wrong in saying "McDonalds" specifically, because the study may have been fast food restaurants in general, but I forget. If I have time to look I'll try to find it on google. You can do the same if you wish.
It shouldn't be legal to advertise something as unhealthy as fast food to anyone under 18, or possibly even sell it to them.
You feel it is constitutionally right for NAMBLA to be able to teach adults how to entice young boys to have sex. And advertising a hamburger should be illegal?
You feel it is constitutionally right for NAMBLA to be able to teach adults how to entice young boys to have sex. And advertising a hamburger should be illegal?
You misrepresented what I think. I find NAMBLA disgusting, but as adults if they want to write stories about sex with kids, as long as no children are involved in any way, that is their right (no matter how morally opposed to them I am.) On the other hand, food companies are advertising to children, not just amongst themselves. Granted, there is a huge amount of difference in scale between molesting a kid and feeding them small amounts of drugs, feces, etc. but both are bad. If McDonalds executives want to write stories amongst themselves about selling food to kids, that's fine. I just don't think that they should be allowed to actually carry through with the act. We don't let cigarette manufacturers advertise to kids, why should we treat fast food any different? It's just as bad for you.
...but they are advertised to by companies like McDonalds whenever they watch TV, as well as when they are at school or when you drive past it.
So now there should be a law against adveritising?? I've yet to see an ad for fast food that targets kids. Matter of fact -- isn't the whole *super-sizing* meals thing geared towards adults??
So now there should be a law against adveritising?? I've yet to see an ad for fast food that targets kids. Matter of fact -- isn't the whole *super-sizing* meals thing geared towards adults??
Methinks so. What planet did you see your ads on?
-->
Ummm, so you've never heard of Ronald McDonald, or watched cartoons or kids TV shows that have commercials of him? You haven't seen the food advertisements in schools for junk foods? Have you ever heard the phrase, "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids?" Maybe I know all about these advertisements because I'm younger than you and remember growing up being constantly bombarded by these things. They're very real, and have resulted in a nation where more kids know the right words to say after "bad duh dah dah daaaah" than they do the first line of the national anthem.
Granted, there is a huge amount of difference in scale between molesting a kid and feeding them small amounts of drugs, feces, etc. but both are bad. If McDonalds executives want to write stories amongst themselves about selling food to kids, that's fine.
You make it sound like McDonalds executives purposely put drugs and feces in their meat. Then compare doing it with molesting children.
On the 'Obesity Threatens Military Readiness' thread you posted the following:
quote:
I'm a big fan of organic foods now, but even that is not tightly regulated. It's just better on average. I also prefer to buy meat that is range fed and not slaughtered by the big companies because they work more slowly and are less likely to drop my food in a pool of blood and feces, and they are less likely to decapitate their coworkers and leave their blood and guts in the food.
According to this post meat gets feces on it because big companies do not work slowly resulting in the meat getting dropped in feces.
So it must not be a McDonalds only plan to introduce feces in their meat. It happens at the slaughter and butcher plants in the course of preparing meat for market. And this meat could end up anywhere in the world not just at McDonalds, where a supposed conspiracy has been hatched to make our children obese.
Conceivable this meat could end up in the White House, Your kitchen, my Saturday bar-b-que, Vincente Fox's box lunches given to illegal's preparing to cross our border, or a school lunch program.
You make it sound like McDonalds executives purposely put drugs and feces in their meat. Then compare doing it with molesting children.
I'm not the one that brought up the molestation comparison in the first place. YOU did, and I tried to show how my opinion is different than the strawman opinion you attributed to me in order to explain my point of view which it is clear you still do not understand.
quote:
Originally posted by Stayed Too Long:
According to this post meat gets feces on it because big companies do not work slowly resulting in the meat getting dropped in feces.
This is part of the problem, and the speed that they operate is due to their management demanding more cattle slaughtered each day, which result in a dangerous work environment for people that work at the meat processing plants as well as a less clean environment. I forget where I read this, but certain categories of workers in modern meat processing jobs (mainly those that do the cutting and cleaning) have a greater chance of death at work than police do. Losing limbs, decapitation, and other very dramatic things are unnecessarily common, while other related injuries like carpal tunnel and other things are epidemic. Since a really huge amount of the people working in these meat processing plants are illegal immigrants and other extremely poor people, they are not aware of their rights as employees and are usually discouraged from reporting any failure by their employers to comply to OSHA standards. If you've ever seen the inside of a meat processing plant, it's like a nightmarish scene from a video game. You have to wear waterproof boots and wade through up to about a foot deep pool of blood and feces on the floor where the cattle are slaughtered and if a hunk of meat falls off of the hooks down into the blood and fecal mixture, they pick it up and put it back on the hook and keep going. If someone's hand gets cut off while they're cutting the meat, their coworkers usually keep going. Nevermind cleaning up any possible blood from that person that would have sprayed all over the meat.
You also left off the drugs being given to cattle, because that's another important thing, and perhaps rather than saying drugs I should just say chemicals. Cows are often given hormones to make them grow larger. When people eat this, the hormones are passed on, providing problems. Cattle are also given steroids for muscle growth, which also cause many problems in people. Both of these are especially problematic in milk, because they're passed directly into the milk with little digestion occurring. That's why kids are going throubh puberty at 5 years old now rather than 14. Then there's the problem with what the cattle are fed in general.
Also don't forget the man-made problem of mad cow (BSE), which is the result of feeding parts of dead cattle to other cows in an attempt to provide more protein to them. This is not a naturally occuring problem.
Even with that, eating raw meat would not be as problematic naturally as it is for us. You have e. coli inside of you right now, but it's a "good" kind. If the cattle were slaughtered in a more old fashioned environment like farmers who slaughter their own cattle tend to do, you don't get the "bad" e. coli on the meat because they take care not to have feces all over the meat. Sure, it can still happen, but it's a lot cleaner on average. Smaller farms also tend to range feed their cattle, too, so the quality of the beef is vastly improved over those that just keep them boxed up until slaughter time.
quote:
Originally posted by Stayed Too Long:
So it must not be a McDonalds only plan to introduce feces in their meat. It happens at the slaughter and butcher plants in the course of preparing meat for market. And this meat could end up anywhere in the world not just at McDonalds, where a supposed conspiracy has been hatched to make our children obese.
You're right. It's not a McDonalds only thing, but they are a very easy and visible target. Excel and many of the other factories that provide McDonalds beef provide it to other restaurants as well as to grocery stores. The beef you buy at Walmart comes from the same place McDonalds gets it from.
Of course, McDonalds and other restaurants do share blame for other things that they do. They put chemicals in their french fries that could be addictive (plus make them "taste" better by putting cologne in the oil that tricks people into thinking that it was cooked in oil from beef rather than vegetables), make their salads less healthy than a Big Mac, and engage in deceptive advertising to make their salads appear to be healthy, and quite a few other things.
As far as the conspiracy to make kids obese goes, almost every food company is out to do that. What honestly healthy snacks do you see advertised to children? Every time they watch TV, they are bombarded with ads for sugary cerials, happy meals (complete with a toy that they NEED), candies, snacks, and all sorts of other crap that they shouldn't need. It gets especially worse in little kids because they are not old enough to know that adults are out to get them. Why would McDonalds have a play place, Ronald McDonald characters, toys in happy meals, and all this other kid-related advertising? Imagine if they were just average looking buildings with nothing for kids there, and imagine if they had no special kids meals, and imagine if they did not advertise on TV. Do you think kids would still want to go there for the food?
Branding is most effective when started on consumers as children. All of the companies that advertise to us want to be able to hook us before we are old enough to know better (toddler age), and keep us hooked until we die. They don't care about us as individuals or even really as people. The quality of their product is not as important as the quality of their advertising. McDonalds ad campaign that they've been running with successfully requires their marketers to present a point of view to adults where you feel like McDonalds is a "trusted friend" (I believe those are the exact words, if not, something close) and present a slice of life that you would share with a friend in an attempt to inject false feelings of good memories and comfort with McDonalds. They also have been very successful with that very short jingle at the beginning of their commercials, to a point where it's ingrained in the psyche of the average American now just like a honking horn or police siren is.
You would also be suprised by just how much consolidation has gone on in these companies and how much working together the ones that are supposed to be competing do. The food industry is an extremely incestuous business.
quote:
Originally posted by Stayed Too Long:
Conceivable this meat could end up in the White House, Your kitchen, my Saturday bar-b-que, Vincente Fox's box lunches given to illegal's preparing to cross our border, or a school lunch program.
In general, the U.S. meat is some of the worst because we have factoritized (I probably made this word up, sorry) the process to a point where it actually has a larger margin of error than doing business the old fashioned way.
I'm sure you still don't believe me, and I really encourage you to read a book called Fast Food Nation if you'd like to get a different view of what I am saying as well as a history of all sorts of aspects of the food business. At the very least, you could go rent the movie "Supersize Me" which is a light-hearted documentary that touches on a few of the things I've brought up, at least some of the marketing and quality of food issues, just not to the depths of what I've read about since I saw it. There's also the classic book "The Jungle" that brought about many reforms, many of which have been abandoned since then.
As someone who is a teacher in herbs, health and nutrition, but also does litigation, I was attracted to what I thought was one topic and turned out to be my favorite.
Though it will fall on deaf ears ("a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still" & "there's two things that a man fights the hardest over-his wallet and his fork.") I submit the following;
Whether you believe that fast food advertising is not geared to get you to buy their product, or not, consider this: they employ laboratories to develop "tastes" for their "food". (Gawd, I hate to call it food). These are specific chemicals accomplishing two things: uniformity in products no matter where the purchase is made, and ensuring that the chemical taste leaves a memory attracting a "fix" over and over again. "tastes good. boy do I want a _____". Sizes too are tested and approved for the average American.
Nutritionally deficient of course, but we are trained by our taste buds, not our brains and common sense to nourish the vehicle of our beings.
As someone who is a teacher in herbs, health and nutrition, but also does litigation, I was attracted to what I thought was one topic and turned out to be my favorite.
I'm glad you appreciated it. I didn't intend to turn the "politically correct lawsuits" topic into a debate on food, but here it is.
quote:
Originally posted by masterherbalist:
Though it will fall on deaf ears ("a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still" & "there's two things that a man fights the hardest over-his wallet and his fork.")
Well, I guess I deserve it to some degree. I used to pick on people who ate organic food and were against fast food, and I dismissed what they said as a bunch of "hippie B.S." until I learned more about it myself. The reality of the food industry seems a lot like The Matrix. You can't believe that it's real until you learn about it for yourself. Combine the poor quality of food along with the research I've been doing into marketing (in an attempt to start my own business) and it's quite a bad world we live in today. I forget where, but I seem to recall somewhere in the old testament of the bible saying that knowledge increases sorrow, and it's true in this regard. I grew up on a farm for part of my life, I helped my grandparents take care of cattle, so I assumed that it all worked like that. I didn't know that there are people so heartless that they tamper with our food to make themselves richer.
quote:
Originally posted by masterherbalist:
I submit the following;
Whether you believe that fast food advertising is not geared to get you to buy their product, or not, consider this: they employ laboratories to develop "tastes" for their "food". (Gawd, I hate to call it food). These are specific chemicals accomplishing two things: uniformity in products no matter where the purchase is made, and ensuring that the chemical taste leaves a memory attracting a "fix" over and over again. "tastes good. boy do I want a _____". Sizes too are tested and approved for the average American.
Nutritionally deficient of course, but we are trained by our taste buds, not our brains and common sense to nourish the vehicle of our beings.
The Masterherbalist hath spoken........
It's very sad. I read that the same factory that makes Estee Lauder and some other perfumes is the one that makes the perfumes that McDonalds, KFC, and other fast food restaurants use to make the tastes of their foods. Their "grilling hamburgers" smell is so chemically perfected that humans are unable to tell the difference between that and actual grilled burgers.
Oh, and the portions are the other thing. If I go to the Cheesecake Factory, they serve as much food as my mother would serve to myself and my multiple siblings to share. It's amazing how huge portions have gotten. My wife and I split food on the days we go out to eat, and even then usually end up taking stuff home.
There's also the fact that the original adult sized portions at McDonalds are the "happy meal" sizes of today. Supposedly you can still order the "All American Meal" and get the original sized portions, but I doubt most people would want to.
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Stayed Too Long
Seems like a legitimate claim. Whether the product is cookies, cars, or carmels, it takes money. If the lawsuits were not filed some girl would miss out on a great experince.
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ChasUFarley
The troops have to pay for the cookies that are ordered - if they're left with boxes of cookies after the drive is over, then they've also had to foot the bill. They can't always sell them at the local Wal-Mart entrances... so.... I can't say as though I blame them!
The thing is, I wanna know what someone was going to do with over $1,400 of cookies!
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wyteduv58
ME TOO, CHAS
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Pirate1974
Here's a little more detail on this story:
Milwaukee Journl-Sentinel (April 28) - A usually unseen side of the Girl Scouts' annual cookie sale surfaced Thursday when the Great Blue Heron Council of the organization filed small-claims lawsuits accusing two couples and three women of not ponying up for goodies they ordered.
"Please note that non-payment for Girl Scout cookies represents fraud," the council noted in form letters that preceded the legal action, according to the lawsuits. "We are willing to work with you to set up a repayment plan; however, you must call within the next two weeks to make these arrangements.
"After that time, we will take whatever steps are necessary, including submitting this information to a collection agency, to protect our interests."
Christine Slowinski, communications director for council, said the lawsuits, which this year concern amounts ranging from $301.42 to $1,485.68 for 2003 and 2004 orders, are an unfortunate annual undertaking.
"Thankfully, it's a very small part of the process," Slowinski said. "If we can't get the proceeds, then the programs that we have available are affected."
Slowinski said the delinquents each year are a mix of parents who owe money for their daughters' cookies and people who pay for cookies with rubber checks.
"We call many times before taking this step," Slowinski said. "We send them letters. When all else fails, this is our last resort. It's something we prefer not to do."
Named in the lawsuits filed in Waukesha County Circuit Court this year are: Kimberly and Saturino Ortega of Waukesha ($406.42); James and Vanessa Edwards of Brookfield ($1,485.68); Teri Milligan of West Bend ($310.42); Tricia Hallett of Waukesha ($473.42); and Gianna George of Oconomowoc ($301.42). None of the people named could be reached for comment Thursday.
"June 20, 2003 - Went to bank (credit union) to see if I could redeposit (the check), and they said she had a stop payment on it," a council representative noted on a call sheet for Vanessa Edwards, according to that lawsuit. "She told me to stop calling her at work.
"I told her the Girl Scout office will be taking care of this situation from now on."
In a letter the council received from Vanessa Edwards on Nov. 22, 2004, she wrote: "The desires of my heart are to serve God to the fullest and in this wise (sic), it is with great desire and much enthusiasm that I strive to clear my name. In an effort to pay my debt and clear my name, this is a letter of intent. Starting January 2005, you will receive a monthly payment until my debt has been repaid."
Before closing, Edwards noted, "Also, it would be greatly appreciated if you would please report to the credit reporting agencies that this account is being settled."
The council's suit against Edwards and her husband seeks $371.42 plus triple damages totaling $1,114.26 for a total of $1,485.68.
"I have called at least seven times and left numerous messages, but I have not gotten a return call," a council representative noted on a call sheet for Milligan, who is being sued for $310.42 for 104 boxes of cookies sold by her daughter in 2004, according to that lawsuit.
"From 3/5/04 to 3/10/04 - Every day contacted and spoke with mother," a representative noted on a call sheet for the Ortegas, who are being sued for $406.42 worth of cookies delivered to their daughter, according to that lawsuit. "Said on numerous occasions she would have a check."
At another point, the representative noted, "Told us that they never agreed to pay for any donated cookies - that they had no idea what I was talking about."
"The way it is set up, the girls are to receive a portion of the money from their sales, and that money goes to their troop," Slowinski explained. "But that money can't go to the troop until we get paid.
"That's why we do this."
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outofdafog
Bad me, when I first did this topic it was from the title of the article. I did not read all the way through. It just struck me funny about gs suing over cookies. Me bad....
:o-->
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Mister P-Mosh
You would be suprised though. The things you mentioned actually can have merit and be a good reason for a lawsuit.
McDonalds has more of a chance to push their propaganda to kids than parents have a chance to talk to them (McDonalds has hundreds more opportunities a year to influence kids than parents do.) So if you are suing because you grew up brainwashed by McDonalds (which most kids are) then I don't see a problem all that much. More kids know who Ronald McDonald is than they know who George W. Bush is. It shouldn't be legal to advertise something as unhealthy as fast food to anyone under 18, or possibly even sell it to them.
The coffee case was because the coffee wasn't just hot, it was boiling, and left third degree burns on the woman. You can't drink stuff that is still boiling in the cup, and it's not good for them to put something like that in a flimsy cup. There is a sane amount of "hot" that hot coffee should be. You can't drink something that would blister the inside of your mouth.
Cigarette companies make cigarettes to be extra addictive, and they advertise to children. They should be held as responsible as we held cocaine dealers...or change the drug laws to not hold any sellers or manufacturers of addictive drugs liable and end the sham "War On Drugs." Of course, the good thing about the lawsuits is that the cigarette companies can't directly advertise towards children anymore, although they still use a lot of sexual advertising and hidden phalluses in the advertising they do make.
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Stayed Too Long
When my daughter was growing up she lived in the same house as my then wife and me. This fact alone gave use hundreds more opportunities a year to influence her more than McDonalds.
Do you have a study or authority that will backup your claim of McDonald's having hundreds more opportunites a year to influence my child more than me?
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Mister P-Mosh
While you may be correct in your case, and I will have to search for the statistics I saw in reference to this, I'll give you the reasoning behind it.
Parents have at most 6 opportunities to provide their children with good eating habits per day (assuming three main meals and three snacks, which is still a huge amount), but they are advertised to by companies like McDonalds whenever they watch TV, as well as when they are at school or when you drive past it. I forget the amount of times per day on average that advertisements for McDonalds are seen by children, but it's higher on average than the parents. Granted, the vast majority of these occur on weekends, but in a week it still averages out with junk food advertisements holding a clear lead over parents, even ignoring peer pressure from friends.
Also, I may have been wrong in saying "McDonalds" specifically, because the study may have been fast food restaurants in general, but I forget. If I have time to look I'll try to find it on google. You can do the same if you wish.
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Stayed Too Long
You feel it is constitutionally right for NAMBLA to be able to teach adults how to entice young boys to have sex. And advertising a hamburger should be illegal?
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Mister P-Mosh
You misrepresented what I think. I find NAMBLA disgusting, but as adults if they want to write stories about sex with kids, as long as no children are involved in any way, that is their right (no matter how morally opposed to them I am.) On the other hand, food companies are advertising to children, not just amongst themselves. Granted, there is a huge amount of difference in scale between molesting a kid and feeding them small amounts of drugs, feces, etc. but both are bad. If McDonalds executives want to write stories amongst themselves about selling food to kids, that's fine. I just don't think that they should be allowed to actually carry through with the act. We don't let cigarette manufacturers advertise to kids, why should we treat fast food any different? It's just as bad for you.
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dmiller
So now there should be a law against adveritising?? I've yet to see an ad for fast food that targets kids. Matter of fact -- isn't the whole *super-sizing* meals thing geared towards adults??
Methinks so. What planet did you see your ads on?
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Mister P-Mosh
Ummm, so you've never heard of Ronald McDonald, or watched cartoons or kids TV shows that have commercials of him? You haven't seen the food advertisements in schools for junk foods? Have you ever heard the phrase, "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids?" Maybe I know all about these advertisements because I'm younger than you and remember growing up being constantly bombarded by these things. They're very real, and have resulted in a nation where more kids know the right words to say after "bad duh dah dah daaaah" than they do the first line of the national anthem.
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Stayed Too Long
You make it sound like McDonalds executives purposely put drugs and feces in their meat. Then compare doing it with molesting children.
On the 'Obesity Threatens Military Readiness' thread you posted the following:
According to this post meat gets feces on it because big companies do not work slowly resulting in the meat getting dropped in feces.
So it must not be a McDonalds only plan to introduce feces in their meat. It happens at the slaughter and butcher plants in the course of preparing meat for market. And this meat could end up anywhere in the world not just at McDonalds, where a supposed conspiracy has been hatched to make our children obese.
Conceivable this meat could end up in the White House, Your kitchen, my Saturday bar-b-que, Vincente Fox's box lunches given to illegal's preparing to cross our border, or a school lunch program.
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Mister P-Mosh
I'm not the one that brought up the molestation comparison in the first place. YOU did, and I tried to show how my opinion is different than the strawman opinion you attributed to me in order to explain my point of view which it is clear you still do not understand.
This is part of the problem, and the speed that they operate is due to their management demanding more cattle slaughtered each day, which result in a dangerous work environment for people that work at the meat processing plants as well as a less clean environment. I forget where I read this, but certain categories of workers in modern meat processing jobs (mainly those that do the cutting and cleaning) have a greater chance of death at work than police do. Losing limbs, decapitation, and other very dramatic things are unnecessarily common, while other related injuries like carpal tunnel and other things are epidemic. Since a really huge amount of the people working in these meat processing plants are illegal immigrants and other extremely poor people, they are not aware of their rights as employees and are usually discouraged from reporting any failure by their employers to comply to OSHA standards. If you've ever seen the inside of a meat processing plant, it's like a nightmarish scene from a video game. You have to wear waterproof boots and wade through up to about a foot deep pool of blood and feces on the floor where the cattle are slaughtered and if a hunk of meat falls off of the hooks down into the blood and fecal mixture, they pick it up and put it back on the hook and keep going. If someone's hand gets cut off while they're cutting the meat, their coworkers usually keep going. Nevermind cleaning up any possible blood from that person that would have sprayed all over the meat.
You also left off the drugs being given to cattle, because that's another important thing, and perhaps rather than saying drugs I should just say chemicals. Cows are often given hormones to make them grow larger. When people eat this, the hormones are passed on, providing problems. Cattle are also given steroids for muscle growth, which also cause many problems in people. Both of these are especially problematic in milk, because they're passed directly into the milk with little digestion occurring. That's why kids are going throubh puberty at 5 years old now rather than 14. Then there's the problem with what the cattle are fed in general.
Also don't forget the man-made problem of mad cow (BSE), which is the result of feeding parts of dead cattle to other cows in an attempt to provide more protein to them. This is not a naturally occuring problem.
Even with that, eating raw meat would not be as problematic naturally as it is for us. You have e. coli inside of you right now, but it's a "good" kind. If the cattle were slaughtered in a more old fashioned environment like farmers who slaughter their own cattle tend to do, you don't get the "bad" e. coli on the meat because they take care not to have feces all over the meat. Sure, it can still happen, but it's a lot cleaner on average. Smaller farms also tend to range feed their cattle, too, so the quality of the beef is vastly improved over those that just keep them boxed up until slaughter time.
You're right. It's not a McDonalds only thing, but they are a very easy and visible target. Excel and many of the other factories that provide McDonalds beef provide it to other restaurants as well as to grocery stores. The beef you buy at Walmart comes from the same place McDonalds gets it from.
Of course, McDonalds and other restaurants do share blame for other things that they do. They put chemicals in their french fries that could be addictive (plus make them "taste" better by putting cologne in the oil that tricks people into thinking that it was cooked in oil from beef rather than vegetables), make their salads less healthy than a Big Mac, and engage in deceptive advertising to make their salads appear to be healthy, and quite a few other things.
As far as the conspiracy to make kids obese goes, almost every food company is out to do that. What honestly healthy snacks do you see advertised to children? Every time they watch TV, they are bombarded with ads for sugary cerials, happy meals (complete with a toy that they NEED), candies, snacks, and all sorts of other crap that they shouldn't need. It gets especially worse in little kids because they are not old enough to know that adults are out to get them. Why would McDonalds have a play place, Ronald McDonald characters, toys in happy meals, and all this other kid-related advertising? Imagine if they were just average looking buildings with nothing for kids there, and imagine if they had no special kids meals, and imagine if they did not advertise on TV. Do you think kids would still want to go there for the food?
Branding is most effective when started on consumers as children. All of the companies that advertise to us want to be able to hook us before we are old enough to know better (toddler age), and keep us hooked until we die. They don't care about us as individuals or even really as people. The quality of their product is not as important as the quality of their advertising. McDonalds ad campaign that they've been running with successfully requires their marketers to present a point of view to adults where you feel like McDonalds is a "trusted friend" (I believe those are the exact words, if not, something close) and present a slice of life that you would share with a friend in an attempt to inject false feelings of good memories and comfort with McDonalds. They also have been very successful with that very short jingle at the beginning of their commercials, to a point where it's ingrained in the psyche of the average American now just like a honking horn or police siren is.
You would also be suprised by just how much consolidation has gone on in these companies and how much working together the ones that are supposed to be competing do. The food industry is an extremely incestuous business.
In general, the U.S. meat is some of the worst because we have factoritized (I probably made this word up, sorry) the process to a point where it actually has a larger margin of error than doing business the old fashioned way.
I'm sure you still don't believe me, and I really encourage you to read a book called Fast Food Nation if you'd like to get a different view of what I am saying as well as a history of all sorts of aspects of the food business. At the very least, you could go rent the movie "Supersize Me" which is a light-hearted documentary that touches on a few of the things I've brought up, at least some of the marketing and quality of food issues, just not to the depths of what I've read about since I saw it. There's also the classic book "The Jungle" that brought about many reforms, many of which have been abandoned since then.
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masterherbalist
Mr. P Mosh;
You make the Masterherbalist smile............
As someone who is a teacher in herbs, health and nutrition, but also does litigation, I was attracted to what I thought was one topic and turned out to be my favorite.
Though it will fall on deaf ears ("a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still" & "there's two things that a man fights the hardest over-his wallet and his fork.") I submit the following;
Whether you believe that fast food advertising is not geared to get you to buy their product, or not, consider this: they employ laboratories to develop "tastes" for their "food". (Gawd, I hate to call it food). These are specific chemicals accomplishing two things: uniformity in products no matter where the purchase is made, and ensuring that the chemical taste leaves a memory attracting a "fix" over and over again. "tastes good. boy do I want a _____". Sizes too are tested and approved for the average American.
Nutritionally deficient of course, but we are trained by our taste buds, not our brains and common sense to nourish the vehicle of our beings.
The Masterherbalist hath spoken........
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Mister P-Mosh
I'm glad you appreciated it. I didn't intend to turn the "politically correct lawsuits" topic into a debate on food, but here it is.
Well, I guess I deserve it to some degree. I used to pick on people who ate organic food and were against fast food, and I dismissed what they said as a bunch of "hippie B.S." until I learned more about it myself. The reality of the food industry seems a lot like The Matrix. You can't believe that it's real until you learn about it for yourself. Combine the poor quality of food along with the research I've been doing into marketing (in an attempt to start my own business) and it's quite a bad world we live in today. I forget where, but I seem to recall somewhere in the old testament of the bible saying that knowledge increases sorrow, and it's true in this regard. I grew up on a farm for part of my life, I helped my grandparents take care of cattle, so I assumed that it all worked like that. I didn't know that there are people so heartless that they tamper with our food to make themselves richer.
It's very sad. I read that the same factory that makes Estee Lauder and some other perfumes is the one that makes the perfumes that McDonalds, KFC, and other fast food restaurants use to make the tastes of their foods. Their "grilling hamburgers" smell is so chemically perfected that humans are unable to tell the difference between that and actual grilled burgers.
Oh, and the portions are the other thing. If I go to the Cheesecake Factory, they serve as much food as my mother would serve to myself and my multiple siblings to share. It's amazing how huge portions have gotten. My wife and I split food on the days we go out to eat, and even then usually end up taking stuff home.
There's also the fact that the original adult sized portions at McDonalds are the "happy meal" sizes of today. Supposedly you can still order the "All American Meal" and get the original sized portions, but I doubt most people would want to.
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