Reprinted with permission from the July issue of the Ester Republic.

Remember when researchers told us that Big Mac sandwiches caused cancer? I was reminded of this recently when passing through the big-box retail district – I spied for the first time a sign in front of one of the many new construction sites bearing the familiar golden arches and the slogan “Here We Grow Again.” Now I don’t know about the rest of you, but let me tell you it is a relief to know that when I’m hungry and stuck on that side of town, so far away from the McDonalds’ on College (0.9 miles away), Airport (2.2 miles), or Geist (3.5 miles), that my choice will never again be limited to Carl’s Jr.

Now I don’t intend to rehash the fine points made by Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation or for that matter in Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, but it would be remiss for me to not comment on how fast food restaurants in the area are reproducing like the Tribbles in that episode of Star Trek. With four McDonald’s, three KFCs, three Burger Kings, three Taco Bells, an A&W, a Wendy’s and a Carl’s Jr., fast food restaurants quite clearly represent a significant proportion of where Interior peoples procure their food. Here our waistlines grow again. I tried to get some specific numbers for this article on how much money we really spend on Big Macs and Fish Fillets in comparison to purchases at local grocers, but the owners of the local McDonald’s franchise didn’t return my messages. I have no doubt, however, that the new McDonald’s location will remain as consistently busy as Fairbanks’s other three.

McDonald’s does not shy away from fancying themselves one of the world’s primary food providers. Catherine Adams, corporate Vice-President of “Worldwide Quality, Food Safety and Nutrition” said as much in a letter to the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics. Titled “Reframing the Obesity Debate: McDonald’s Role May Surprise You,” she spends three pages explaining to us how their global purchasing power and leadership within the industry gives them alone a unique advantage to provide the world with safe and nutritious food. Her argument is a common one based upon the premise that too many people continue to take by rote: that food is inherently unsafe and only a large-scale, corporate-industrial model of food production with heavy government regulation can save us.

Much to the contrary, industrial practices have been the source of many past and contemporary food safety issues. Frequency of illnesses from food-borne pathogens are ten times greater than they were 20 years ago, and the current king of the pathogen kingdom – E. coli O157 – actually evolved in the guts of industrial, corn-fed cows. The so-called food safety regulations that have been proposed in response, such as the much-debated National Animal Idenfitication System, are not designed to solve these problems but to edge out the smaller competitor through the imposition of costly new practices. In what other circumstances would large corporations actually favor greater government regulation?

There’s only one thing in the letter that Adams and I agree on: that McDonald’s track record speaks for itself. She says that “McDonald’s has always served safe and high quality food,” because ultimately the customers decide what stays on their menu and what goes. But I ask you, in what alternate reality is the tomato slice and leaf of iceberg lettuce on a “Big ‘n Tasty” considered to be a nutritious serving of vegetables (with <3 grams of dietary fiber, 6g of vitamin A and 8g of vitamin C) when served on top of nearly 1/2 of our daily recommended intake of fat? Regardless of whether or not they fancy themselves the custodians of our health, the fact is that McDonald’s, and frankly many other companies like them, is continuing to misrepresent the healthfulness of their food, continue to ignore the mountain of new scientific data regarding the long-term health outcomes associated with the consistent consumption of saturated fats, trans fats and simple carbohydrates, and they continue to go out of their way to replace the dinner table and family meal with the dashboard and paper bag.

A real leader and innovator in social responsibility would not keep feeding the public what was making them sick but would dare to innovate, and make change that aren’t necessarily guided by market economics. Green Mountain Coffee, for instance, one of the largest buyers, roasters and international distributors of coffee out of Vermont, transitioned their entire business model to Fair Trade practices, not because their customers demanded it (though that market segment is growing) but because they recognized injustice in the international coffee trade and wouldn’t continue to be a part of it. Fair Trade is their definition of sustainable, and each year the company now reports on its website their progress towards 100% Fair trade and farm-identified products. This is the kind of responsible innovation that influences everyone involved, from producer to consumer and competitor, for the better.

Whether or not the Big Mac can be directly linked to cancer, or for that matter obesity, diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol or coronary heart disease, perhaps the Status Quo business models of restaurants like McDonald’s should be likened to a cancer. They spread malignantly through our local food systems, taking over the public debate about health and nutrition. When Wal-Mart proposed a new Fairbanks location, there was a great grass-roots outcry. I say a new McDonald’s warrants the same response: the threats to our community are just more esoteric. Choosing not to eat at these restaurants is no longer enough, for the more we allow such companies to entrench themselves, the more we give them the power to control the terms and language of what is truly a food and nutrition crisis.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 1st, 2007 at 1:11 pm by Philip Loring and is filed under Current Events, Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.