I’m stealing Zuzu’s picture from an Indian ad campaign for McDonalds. Because it gets right to the point.
Zuzu has a post up about a study that made me all the sadder for how much it didn’t shock me.
Preschoolers preferred the taste of burgers and fries when they came in McDonald’s wrappers over the same food in plain wrapping, U.S. researchers said, suggesting fast-food marketing reaches the very young.
“Overwhelmingly, kids chose the one that they perceived was from McDonald’s,” said obesity prevention expert Dr. Thomas Robinson of the Stanford University School of Medicine, whose work appears in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
They gave the kids the same exact food in different wrappers, mind you, and the kids liked it better if the food came with the McDonald’s brand on it. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s had a preschooler, been around preschoolers, or remembers being a preschooler. I remember when my sister and I went through the phase of wanting to eat at McDonald’s all the time. My father, who likes good food to say the least, pretty much preferred driving needles into his arms rather than eating lunch at McDonald’s, so he went on a parenting rampage to break us of picky eating and junk food yearnings. I’ve told the story before of how he blindfolded us and made us eat different kinds of pizza to show that we liked mushrooms better than we though, which was part of a larger program of breaking us of picky eating. I recall that some people were quick to liken that to child abuse, which I find a little overdramatic, though not at the Dan “Women Who Won’t Worship My Cock Must Have Dark Secrets They Don’t Want Their Master To Discover” level. I found his methods to be an enjoyable challenge—he’s told me that his main issue was that he hates it when people who make their kids clean their plate before they’re excused from the table, which encourages overeating. Anyway, I digress. I just remember being a little kid and like bouncing around begging to be taken to McDonald’s and having my dad rock my worldview by describing the coveted junk food as disgusting. At the time, I took his opinions very seriously, which is good in this case, since McDonald’s is disgusting.
But as the researchers showed, disgust didn’t even register in the minds of those wowed by the unholy golden arches.
In about 60 percent of the tastings, the kids preferred food in the McDonald’s wrapper….
“It ranged from 48 percent who chose the hamburger up to over 70 percent who chose French fries as tasting better if they thought they were from McDonald’s,” he said.
“Even for baby carrots, kids said the carrots they thought were from McDonald’s tasted better,” Robinson said.
The same was true of milk.
Setting aside questions of whether or not these brand loyalties are setting kids up for a lifetime of eating food that’s stuffed with calories but low on non-caloric nutrition (paraphrasing David Cross: creating people who are both fat and malnourished—all the caveats apply about how the relationship between fat and high calorie foods is oversimplified in the media as part of a larger agenda of whipping up prejudice against fat people), eating McDonald’s swill even at a young age has got to be bad for you. Actually, especially for developing bodies and brains. Not that steady diet of French fries and cheeseburgers would be great for anyone, but they’re extra-bad coming from McDonald’s. A lot of restaurants, especially chain restaurants, simply double up the fat, sugar, and salt in their food to plug into your lizard brain desires for hyper-rich food, even if their foods otherwise don’t have much in the way of flavor. Even the air around McDonald’s differs significantly from that around a decent restaurant serving the same foods—at a hamburger stand with more old-fashioned practices, you can smells spices intermingled with the beef frying smell, but the air around McDonald’s smells like heavy, flavorless grease with salt as its main seasoning.
Of course, as the carrots-and-milk portion of the study shows, it’s not even so much an actual flavor thing as a branding thing at this point. McDonald’s doesn’t have to taste good to be popular.
Poor nutrition and rising rates of diabetes and heart disease that are linked to it is nothing to laugh at. As Zuzu notes, McDonald’s preys on lower income neighborhoods, as well, which means that harried parents in those neighborhoods don’t have a lot of choices for how to feed their kids on the go, and they generally can’t opt out of the “on the go” part. That it seems like a big, exciting treat for kids just makes the temptation much worse. In sum, it’s another example of how the people who can least afford to have major, chronic health problems are the ones who tend to be exposed to the causes of those health problems the most. And from childhood, no less. I suppose I’ll have some usual cheap libertarian types who want to avoid facing ugly realities quip that people need to take responsibility for their own choices. And it’s true—it’s not like children suffer from immaturity or ignorance that would cripple their decision-making skills. I usually consult a 5-year-old on every decision I made, from financial decisions to romantic ones. If a 5-year-old can assess your stock portfolio,* surely he can understand the nutritional information for McDonald’s products.
I suppose the rejoinder is that the parents are making the choice, but of course, that means you’re asking the child to take responsibility/consequences for the parent’s choices, and that’s implying that there’s some kind of interwoven system where people need to rely on each other and where collective solutions are often superior.
*I wish I had one, but you know, while I’m fantasizing here.
170 Responses to “Can you even cram a Quarter Pounder in an infant’s mouth?”
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All it took to put my daughter off McDonald’s was a viewing of Supersize Me. She hasn’t eaten there since, and this was…gosh, whenever it was that movie came out on DVD. Two years ago? Something like that. My son at 7 doesn’t really care about the food, he wants the toy. Once in a great blue moon I’ll drive through and get him a happy meal, of which he eats a few bites.
I don’t try to cut out fast food completely, but I DO stick to local Texas or Austin variants of such, rather than the big business alternatives. Not that I think a burger from Whataburger is a marvel of culinary expertise, but it’s at least not a gloppy mess of goop like what you get from McD’s or Burger King (ick). And you know, jalapenos. Yum.
Two things…everybody knows that visual cues make a big deal in our opinions on how things taste…look at proper plating in high-end (and even middle-end these days) resturaunts. This shouldn’t be shocking. Advertisements? I dunno. I havn’t seen a McDonald’s ad aimed at children in quite a while. They’re kid-friendly to be sure once you get there, that may be what’s doing it.
The second part, is that I think it’s a crime that we can’t get a good fresh salad, or a fruit-based desert for as cheap as we can get a hamburger.
I haven’t eaten McDonald’s in about 4 years- unfortunately, it was the only thing open at the Albuquerque airport the last time I was in NM. Gross. Before that, I had something like a 7- or 8- year thing going with avoiding their shit.
McDonald’s preys on lower income neighborhoods
I would really like to read about, or talk about, this some more, with lots of us who can share our experiences of this.
It’s something that became really obvious when I moved to New York City, where oftentimes wealthier areas won’t even have a McDonald’s, and when you go into one it’s glaringly obvious that everyone inside is working class and/or of color (this probably hits home the most in NYC, where working class and non-white are practically synonymous, the way race and class break down here).
I think it’s a sign of oncoming serious gentrification that my neighborhood’s McDonald’s closed down. On the whole, I’m happy it did, I hate McD’s and never eat there, and I’m much happier to see that particular storefront convert to a cafe or something (especially if that something is locally owned, which I’m far more concerned about than how healthy the food is). But then at the same time, there’s something so goddamn white, middle class, and smug about that attitude. It’s not like a frappucino or belgian frites are inherently better for you than fries and a coke.
I also think NYC’s ban on trans fats in restaurants has serious race/class undertones.
This reminds me of a test I saw once on perception and the age at which children gain discernment in their perception.
Take two cans of pop and ask children age 5-6 which has more and they’ll say they are the same. Then pour one of the cans into a tall thin glass and one into a broad flat bowl and ask which has more. The kids will go with the tall skinny glass most of the time, because it *looks* like it has more in it. Repeat this experiment on grade 1 kids (6-7 years old) and you get different results, in that year, the children have learned that if it comes from the same sized container, it is the same amount, no matter what it looks like in the new containers.
This is a long way of saying that young children don’t have the critical abilities to determine very basic logical conclusions, and they are dependant on those older (and presumably wiser) for guidance. Nothing annoys me more than a parent asking a 4 year old if they want a carrot or a cookie… it’s the parent’s duty to determine whether the child *needs* either carrot or cookie or neither. But then I was raised in a household where pop was verboten (except at birthdays and christmas), treats were really treats for rare occasions, and dessert was only served once a week (and, looking back on it, bannanas in milk with a sprinkling of brown sugar is much healthier than ice-cream… hey! my parents cheated!) so I might have a skewed perception.
A professor of mine adopted a girl from I think China, and he and his wife shielded her from television and fast food for the first four years of her life.
Then his wife dropped her off at preschool, and she came back very excited about something called McDonalds, though she’d never seen one and wasn’t quite sure what was going to happen when she finally got there. She just knew it was great.
I don’t keep track of advertising to kids, but clearly somehow the message is getting to them, and they’re quite capable of spreading it amongst themselves.
I like your dad!
My ex-SIL never cooked- their condo was always over-loaded with fast-food wrappers. The only “healthy” meals served were during holidays. She and both of her children are obese; she dangerously so. How they all became that way is not difficult to figure out.
My BIL was very surprised when visiting one evening that I had made fresh steamed veg, homemade mashers and a baked lemon crumb fish. He was actually touched that I made that “extra effort” for him. As my husband explained, no- this was just how we live on a daily basis (HE taught ME how to make the fish- we like cooking together). I also like to make homemade desserts.
Now we am lucky enough to have a little space to raise our own veg. Our kids both eat healthy, even with the occasional 30 mile round trip to McD’s- they prefer making their own food and raiding the garden.
I grew up in Belfast, which was weird, since Mosco had McD’s before Belfast did. I used to see their propaganda in UK and US magazines and films, though, so when I discovered that they were in Dublin, just a three-hour drive away, I couldn’t wait to try them. Luckily for me, nobody had primed me for the unspeakable vileness they perpetrate on their burgers - mayonnaise? lettuce? - and I was so disgusted I couldn’t be *dragged* back. Mind you, for years I felt that there was something wrong with me as a result…
And Ailei, I know what you mean- one of the best experiences this Yankee ever got to have was living in Austin for awhile. I have never heard of a breakfast burrito before and this year, we added jalepenos and habaneros to our garden.
BTW, does anyone need a few hundred really hot extra habaneros??? Please???
McDonald’s is evil. Pure evil.
I remember when I was in grade school we went to the town municipal building. Among other things there was the jail. The cops told us that when there were prisoners there, they were fed McDonalds (it was a temporary place, no one stayed more than a few hours).
The class became very excited and some even weirdly suggested that maybe they would like to go to jail.
You know, thank you for bringing this up. Picky eating isn’t merely a matter of preference, it’s about reducing the variety of your diet to the point where you’re simply never going to be able to truly get all the required nutrients in a well-balanced diet.
But more than that, eating a huge wide variety of foods exposes you to difference, as an entrance to cultures other than your own, to a diversity of ways to approach the same things, and mixing with people that otherwise you wouldn’t.
I’m not talking having dislikes and likes here (I personally don’t like almonds, carrots or cilantro), I’m talking about (and we all know people like this) that person that refuses to try anything new, that won’t touch anything that, say, has just a hint of spice, and has an insanely restricted diet. Sure, a person can do this if they want (it’s not my life), but don’t expect me to want to spend time with them, go out to dinner with them, to think it is a good thing, etc.
Yeah, some people have intolerances and allegies, so yeah, eating something that may kill you, not so much with the good idea. However, my rule of thumb is to try anything TWICE (though I am a tad hesitant with bugs, but I could be swayed when it comes to grubs), because at least then you’ve tried it, and left yourself open to experience something.
Junk food is called junk food for a reason … if you want a burger, go find a mom-&-pop place that will serve you a burger that you probably will be able to take half home of and enjoy later (trying new burger joints is a love of mine
On the efforts marketers go to in developing brand loyalty among children, read Juliet Schor’s Born to Buy.
Parents: you are their enemies, and they think of you that way.
And to think, our government is subsidizing this indulgence. It’s time for parents and any child care professional to try and counter these rather dark forces against these odds. Makes me sound funny when I say it like that, but it’s the truth.
I wonder what Morgan Spurlock is thinking …
opoponax hon, I definitely agree with this. I am into the fifth year of living in my nieghbourhood (which I love - longest I’ve lived any one place since I was about 13), and the increasing gentification has closed down a Burger-King and a KFC, and the only two left are a McDonalds and a Wendy’s, but they are actually on the far outskirts of the nieghbourhood, bordering on the lower-income neighbourhoods there that touch ours (though we are encroaching out into those areas as well).
Even our local basic supermarket (Jewel) has just done a rather huge reorganisation of their shelves to add in a large new organic section.
A discussion of class and food is an ongoing and needed thing.
Ah bloody hell, the comments are seriously fucking up, big time … I just realised that my 1st post got it’s end chopped off …
********
So, if avoiding pretty much anything with a uniform nationalised chain makes me a food snob, then as a foodie I’ll take up that mantle (there isn’t enough time in the world to eat bland cheese)
Life is too short to be restricting your diet and not stepping out of your comfort zone to experience other cultures and lives through food. It’s not a coincidence that people that are intolerant of other cultures and peoples tend to also be the people that won’t try any food but the most familiar to them.
Find out where your food comes from, who grows it, the different people that may make it for you, and you’ll never regret opening yourself up.
eating a huge wide variety of foods exposes you to difference, as an entrance to cultures other than your own
Totally.
The thing that really killed my childhood pickiness, once and for all, was a trip to Italy. It seemed really rude and lame and immature to whine about the food, and so I developed a literal “when in Rome” attitude. I would just eat what there was and not whine and enjoy being in Italy, eating what people in Italy eat.
I know exactly what you mean. My 9 year-old granddaughter, who lives far away, visited recently and only eats chicken nuggets and fries, poptarts and pancakes and boxed mac and cheese. Not one green vegetable crossed her lips while at my house. I mentioned this at class the other day, and several other grandparents noted the same thing. The parents are not inclined to make children eat anything else, it’s easier than putting up with arguments. Then some wonder why as a whole the country is getting fatter and obesity is an epidemic.
To follow up slightly with the opoponax above, I came to a harsh realization in university that it was much, much cheaper to get a burger/fries combo at BK or McD’s than it was to stock up on healthier meats/meals at the grocery store. When you’ve got maybe $25 bucks, max, to spend on food for the week? You’d be surprised on how much you rely on the $3 burger/fries/pop combo as a respite from Kraft Dinner - which, also, not the most nutritious of foods. It’s pretty sad that - aside from veggies - healthy food is a luxury item.
Kyso K — that’s something that I think a lot of parents underestimate when they try to shield their kids from consumerist culture: they’ll make friends!
Amanda’s dad rocks. I think the only way to combat children’s obsession with bad food is to challenge them to understand that there is plenty of good food out there. And if you have to put a blindfold on them to make them see the difference, great! It ain’t child abuse to play a game with your kid where they’re blindfolded and trying out different foods to see what they *really* like better.
Also, I agree that the “clean plate club” is a horrible thing, particularly when kids aren’t in charge of their serving size. I still struggle to push the plate away when I’m done eating because I have a voice in the back of my head saying “finish it off.” When you couple that with the fact that portion size (particularly when eating out) has ballooned in this country — you have a real problem.
RKMK — the “Value Meal” is a lot closer to $6/7 per meal than $3 these days… it’s a lot less exensive to go to the grocery store and buy a boxed dinner (or, heaven forfend, a pound of ground meat and some buns) than it is to eat at McNasty’s every day.
Since both my parents worked outside the home, all the kids had to learn rudimentary cooking skills or not “pass” freedom milestones, like being able to stay out (past a certain time) or venture unsupervised (beyond a certain perimeter). By middle school we had to know this stuff cold:
Classic omelet (with or without filling)
Pasta
Sauce
Preparing a salad (no dressing)
Trimming vegetables
Setting the table
… or no movie and records money. It pretty much took fast food out of the equation entirely.
Okay, Sarah in Chicago, I’ll eat your carrots, almonds, cilantro and do something intersting with the cheese if you’ll take my curry, peas, salmon and cauliflower.
Deal? Just like swapping school lunches!
I’m curious about whether there would be any difference in reaction if the food was in a McDonald’s wrapper vs. a Burger King wrapper vs. a Wendy’s wrapper.
I do love McDonald’s fries, though. There’s something indulgent about being on vacation in a foreign country and deciding you have to step into a local McDonald’s franchise and order a large fries.
Surprisingly, McDonalds coffee is pretty good. Consumer Reports rated it higher than Starbucks: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/food/coffee-taste-test-3-07/overview/0307_coffee_ov_1.htm
Otherwise McDonalds is hideous.
Growing up, my grandparents lived on a farm. So, I grew up helping butcher chickens, can vegetables and fruits, and giving pigs baths (yeah, my sister and I were dirtier than the pigs with that attempt). My parents have also always had a garden, and though I still hate peas (and cauliflower and broccoli are inedible) I miss that garden living in the city (the local farmers’ market just happens to take place during the class I’m currently teaching.)
One thing I miss most about the garden is canning. Spending a day in the kitchen making pasta sauce, or just canning tomatoes, or pickles or whatever. But even today, I can my own soups (down to one jar of tomato-fennel, but more will have to wait until I move in a couple weeks), and it generally comes out to about $2.50 or so per meal (more if I buy some fresh bread, but i can make that).
Part of the problem, and I’m sure all of us experience this, is time. I’ve I’m canning soup, well, that’s a several hour affair (much of it waiting, admittedly).
Living in cities, especially, it’s so easy to loose sight of where food comes from. And it’s important, because these issues are also tied to the corporatization of farming and the destruction of rural life in this country.
I’m probably older than many, but not all, of the people here, so McDonald’s, when I was little, wasn’t the advertising behemoth that it is today. I never liked McDonald’s as a child, but I’ve grown up to be pretty brand resistant. And a foody.
I still haven’t found a fast food outlet that makes anything digestible, let alone palatable. I haven’t had one of their offerings in about fifteen to twenty years because, invariably, I found it indigestible. It would just lay in my stomach and make me feel ill. They may call it “fast”, but it passes through your digestive tract at about the same speed at which the Olympics come around. Every four years you get to poop out a burger. And don’t get me started on trans fatty acids.
As for the opinion that it is cheaper to eat fast food crap than healthy food, that is the opposite of the conclusion I reached. When I was in school I had much much less money than $25 per week to spend. I worked as well as went to school full time and I was making about $3 an hour. I had rent to cover out of that, too. But a pound of lentils and a pound of brown rice went for $0.69 each at the time, and that makes six pounds of food right there, once it’s cooked. Add in fresh vegetables and you have a very nutritious meal. Cook the lentils and rice to a thick paste and then, at mealtime, take them from the fridge, grab about eight ounces of it, mix in one egg, then heat the skillet and make lentil burgers. You’ve got an exceptionally nutritious meal (everything including the B12, and the fiber value is super) and it takes no time to prepare. Remember, you cook up the lentils and rice, with veg additions, at one time, say on Sunday afternoon, and you can eat it all week long. I think I spent about $5 per week on food for my entire college career. Lentils and rice (or other beans and rice) haven’t become so terribly more expensive over the years and I could eat like a king on $25 a week if I had to. Mind you, I can cook, so making the cheapest cuts of meat taste delicious is easy. I’ll give you a for instance. Take the cheapest cut of meat you can think of and braise it for about three hours. You don’t have to do much more than check on it every now and again. Go study if you like and come back to the pot every twenty minutes to check on the liquid. Add liquid as needed. After three hours at a slow simmer, you have a tender, delicious piece of meat and the liquid will make a great gravy. Potatoes are cheap. Make yourself a mash with butter or, I prefer, use a whip to incorporate olive oil and some of the juices from the pan into the potatoes. That should take you five to ten minutes, tops. It will be far better for you than a burger and fries and far more delicious even without any vegetables, and the amount of actual time spent cooking will come to little more than maybe twenty minutes more than it took you to drive to the crap shop and buy crap “food”. And you’re home, so you wash the dishes and you don’t have to throw still more garbage into the landfill. Seriously, cooking isn’t very hard or time consuming if you know what to do and the value for your dollar is way higher. Add some broccoli, green beans, cauliflower, carrots, or what have you to that meal and you are in great shape nutritionally.
I can never understand people eating that garbage. Especially if you have children. Why feed crap to your children? Don’t you think better of them than that?
There’s something indulgent about being on vacation in a foreign country and deciding you have to step into a local McDonald’s franchise
I have to say I have never understood this. Why go all the way to another country just to not only eat the same thing you could have at home, but also ensure that what you’re getting is going to be the shit of the shit?
I remember on that Italy trip watching my stepmother (who I love and get along well with) clamoring for McDonald’s ice cream, and I was like OMG We Are In The World Capital Of Amazing Gelato, WTF Is With Wanting Shitty McDonald’s Softserve?
Though I do understand the culture shock and homesickness aspect of it — McDonald’s is comfort food for a lot of people, and it’s something you can rely on in a strange place. But otherwise? No thanks.
I want a hangerburger! No…McDonald’s is bad. I want a hangerburger!!! No….McDonald’s is bad. I want a hangerburger!! It is called a hamburger, McDonald’s is bad. I want a hangerburger….and fries!!!!!
The nag factor–one of the marketers best tools.
Though I’ve made an exception to the above for my upcoming trip to India, where McDonald’s menu is completely different. Though I’m not sure I will actually eat there , and if I do, it’ll be only once. The idea of McDonald’s in India, preying on all kinds of crazy shit (anybody notice the baby in the above ad is painted white?) to get Indians just as obese yet malnourished as we are is repulsive.
The parents are not inclined to make children eat anything else, it’s easier than putting up with arguments.
Here’s something I’ve observed solely by watching other people’s kids (nieces/nephews and my friends’ kids). It seems to me that every kid goes through a phase at around the age of 3 where s/he suddenly refuses to eat anything but a very narrow range of foods. My nephew just went through this phase and refused to eat anything other than cottage cheese and Cheetos. After a LOT of argument, they could sometimes get him to take a couple bites of hot dog, but it was a huge production number and sometimes it would turn into a full-on tantrum on his part.
The problem, I think, is that parents take this phase too seriously and decide that their kid is a naturally picky eater. So instead of continuing to offer a range of foods, even if the kid won’t eat them, they only offer the foods that match the kid’s current obsession.
Why do I say it’s only a phase? Because my 7-year-old niece, who had her Chicken Nuggets Only phase around age 3 or 4, is now asking for bites of other people’s food if they have something different than she does. She’ll eat Thanksgiving dinner when she wouldn’t only a year or two ago.
Why go all the way to another country just to not only eat the same thing you could have at home, but also ensure that what you’re getting is going to be the shit of the shit?
For precisely all those reasons. Because it makes absolutely no sense. And the fact that it amuses me. And, as I said, I like McDonald’s fries.
Have you been watching children’s programming? (I haven’t.) I don’t expect to see Ronald McDonald and Mayor McCheese during CSI, but I bet they’re on during Spongebob.
So funny I should read this today. I jsut made a large post on one of my blogs complaining about how I have to change my diet around to lose some weight. The thing is, my diet isn’t all that bad, I just tend to endulge in cheese and pasta. So I can’t imagine how fat I’d be if I were a fast food person! I haven’t touched the stuff since I was a kid. (my parents were always ready to take us to McD’s whenever they had a burger sale) thinking back to when I was a kid, I had NO idea how bad those burgers where! It wasn’t until I wasn’t till I was in my teens that I found out.
They are. I try to limit my kids to only PBS in the mornings before school, but even then, while it isn’t exactly regular commercials, they have the breaks between shows to say that Curious George or Arthur or Sesame Street have been sponsored by McDonalds–”I’m Lovin’ It.”
And the other channels are much, much worse. Especially the Saturday morning cartoons. Plus, they do all the tie ins with movies, etc. So the recent Shrek movie had all the product promotions done through McDonalds, all of which is heavily advertised on channels like Nickelodian, Disney, and Cartoon Network.
And it’s pervasive. Even if you try to get away from it, it’s nearly impossible to do so when you have young kids. If you limit or cut out the exposure at home, they get it from their friends, at daycare, school, etc.
louise -
Salmon
That is without a doubt one of the most disturbing images I have ever seen online. Even on usenet. Even in the alt.binaries.* groups.
I’ve had McDonald’s in my sights for a while, but alas, the guerilla marketing counter-insurgency doesn’t seem to have caught fire.
And good on your dad for saying McDonald’s is disgusting. Le mot juste.
i think that is a coincidence, just like the fact preschoolers prefer cigs with the joe camel on them
Man, that takes me back to my first lunch at work in Chicago. I walked into a McDonald’s, and EVERYONE at the counters was black. There was one white man managing the crew.
It blew my mind, as I grew up in Indianapolis, where the MickeyDs were staffed by white teenagers, like in the commercials.
My favorite story about my son is from when he was 2.5.
I’d brought him to work with me, and I asked him what he wanted for lunch.
“Do you want sushi or McDonald’s?”
“Sushi.” replied the boy.
A co-worker remarked to my son “Nate, you’re the man I want to be when I grow up.”
Our home rule isn’t to clear the plate, but you have to try everything. I recently read it takes about 50 exposures to a new food to ‘train’ your palate, so eventually my fruit-loving boy and veggie-loving girl will willingly swap lunches.
Gah! Okay, comments are seriously pissing me off …
louise, I had a wonderful comment in place, if I do say so myself, with humour and delicious food suggestions, and it got chopped off.
This is getting fucking ridiculous.
MAJeff, the other eye opening book on this subject is “Buy Buy Baby” by Susan Gregory Thomas. Yes, parents are definitely marketers’ enemies. They used to fear un (in the 50’s 60’s), now they know they can “talk” directly to kids via more commercials, internet, product placement, and our incessant consumer culture. I was at my daughter’s preschool Monday and when I picked her up another mother was commenting on a child (not her own’s) shoes - “Oh, Keens, you have Keens. Wow.” It really disgusts me that we shove brands down their throats so early. I don’t know if the child had any idea he was wearing “Keens” before the mom commented, but he probably does now - as does most of the class who heard the remark and saw the admiration.
MAJeff, the other eye opening book on this subject is “Buy Buy Baby” by Susan Gregory Thomas. Yes, parents are definitely marketers’ enemies. They used to fear un (in the 50’s 60’s), now they know they can “talk” directly to kids via more commercials, internet, product placement, and our incessant consumer culture. I was at my daughter’s preschool Monday and when I picked her up another mother was commenting on a child (not her own’s) shoes - “Oh, Keens, you have Keens. Wow.” It really disgusts me that we shove brands down their throats so early. I don’t know if the child had any idea he was wearing “Keens” before the mom commented, but he probably does now - as does most of the class who heard the remark and saw the admiration.
I do love McDonald’s fries, though. There’s something indulgent about being on vacation in a foreign country and deciding you have to step into a local McDonald’s franchise and order a large fries. - Constantine
I love McDonald’s fries (and their sweet & sour sauce, and their hot mustard).
But their hamburgers always make me sick.
MAJeff, the other eye opening book on this subject is “Buy Buy Baby” by Susan Gregory Thomas. Yes, parents are definitely marketers’ enemies. They used to fear un (in the 50’s 60’s), now they know they can “talk” directly to kids via more commercials, internet, product placement, and our incessant consumer culture. I was at my daughter’s preschool Monday and when I picked her up another mother was commenting on a child (not her own’s) shoes - “Oh, Keens, you have Keens. Wow.” It really disgusts me that we shove brands down their throats so early. I don’t know if the child had any idea he was wearing “Keens” before the mom commented, but he probably does now - as does most of the class who heard the remark and saw the admiration.
My nephew used to bug me to take him to McD’s and then he would order a salad. He was a weird kid. Now he’s a 6′5″, 250lb.s football player.
When i was a kid McD’s was an occasional treat, now i think families rely on fast food to feed their kids.
@ Sarah — I was hoping your cut-off post was meant to say that you, too, dislike salmon and thus it would have to be left out of the trade. At which point I’d decided to say that I would gladly take the salmon as long as I could fob off my tomatoes. By which I mean whole or sliced raw tomatoes, sauce and puree are fine. Cause I’m weird like that.
The funny thing is, that when I’ve had kiwi friends here from back home, we’ve actually gone out to McD’s in order that they can say they ate McD’s in America. And these are people that wouldn’t otherwise ever eat at McDonalds. I will admit to a enjoyment of their fries dipped in their soft-serve ice-cream. But I wouldn’t consider that food.
I’ve loved learning about traditional American cuisine; have loved Chicago-style Hotdogs, Philly Cheesesteaks, Buffalo Wings (though found to my surprise that I don’t tend to like US pizza - not NY, not Chicago … maybe California).
Course, I am still searching for good dim-sum (Toronto was the best place I have found so far for that).
opopo…sorry, sarah likes anything that comes out of the ocean (yeah, we’ve had this conversation). I can do without octopus though, and I’ll def take the fresh tomatoes.
Your family is the opposite of mine. I’ve thought McDonald’s is disgusting for a long time, but my dad loves it and is always trying to talk me into going. (Lucky for him my sister is a McD fanatic.)
Nope, sorry hon … I adore salmon … it’s like one of my top seafood, along with flash seared scallops with the tongues left on, and raw oysters (swooned one time when a woman I know made me japanese crispy skinned salmon the first time I was over at her place).
But I’ll take the tomatoes definitely … hell, I actually cook with them (and I mean whole or sliced). I grew up eating whole tomatoes that were in my school lunch-box (course, this was also back when supermarket tomatoes actually used to have flavour).
lol, yes, I’d say a good 1/3 of our convos involve food … I love that you’re a foodie too hon
I’m still pissed at USPS for the fact you didn’t get the soup.
Me too … a plastic bag covered destroyed package with a sorry note just really didn’t cut it. I was pissed.
We’re SERIOUSLY cooking together when I am out with you this coming semester
now i just need to find a place to live so we have a place to cook…working on it.
Thank the disco mouse that other people feel this way!
Jeff hon -
yes?
AH FUCK ME!!!!
I was just saying I am going to have to ensure I am out there when the farmers markets are still running (love wandering around them with a friend)
AH FUCK ME!!!!
Sorry, but no.
Oh sure, poke fun at my swearing at the bloody comments engine
Admittedly, I don’t eat at fast food places a lot - I have about 100 other places I need to spend the money. When I do, I usually get a “kid’s meal”, which usually runs $2-3 and ask for milk rather than pop (I hate carbonated drinks of all kinds). And I get a toy to play with. (heheh)
Seriously, though - as I’ve gotten older, my taste range has expanded. My mother actually asked me who the heck I was when I was explaining the asparagus omelet recipe I had just tried (I was 40). But there are things that I absolutely refuse to eat and always have. It’s only been recently that I’ve figured out why.
I refuse to eat beans, other than green and wax beans, not because they taste bad but because they *feel* bad in my mouth. It’s purely a texture thing. As far as I am concerned, eating beans has all the pleasure of eating tiny little balloons filled with baby powder. I would literally have to be starving to death to be able to gag down beans. I have the same texture problem with Brussel sprouts. As a child, I always said “it tastes bad”, but really what I meant was “it feels bad”.
As far as spices go, I absolutely CANNOT tolerate strong spices such as chilis, hot peppers, cilantro, etc., in the amounts that most people use them. I can’t eat Taco Bell, King of Plastic Mexican Food. It’s too spicy. All I get is the burning sensation with a complete lack of flavor. Remember the little packets of Schilling Taco flavoring mix? You’re supposed to mix 1 packet of flavoring with 1 pound of ground beef. Well, I screwed up once and put 1 packet in *3* pounds of ground beef. Everyone else was asking for the hot sauce, and I suddenly realized that I could actually taste the flavor of the spice without being overwhelmed by the heat of it. Hell, I was 16 years old before I would eat spaghetti with marinara sauce!
My point? Perhaps a lot of the foods that parents offer children are simply *too strongly flavored*. After all, you can hardly accuse the average McDonald’s menu item of having too much flavor. For years, my family would get Taco Bell, but give me $2 to go to McDonald’s (oo, gave away my age). I simply couldn’t eat the food at Taco Bell. There may be a texture thing involved for the kid, as well - the texture of Kraft Mac’n'Cheese is pretty similar to a lot of the foods at McDonald’s.
There may even be a cooking technique problem, involved. Maybe Mom and Dad like their broccoli cooked to the point of sliding through the fork, but to the kid it’s like a big forkful of pond slime. I hated scrambled eggs, but discovered at 15 that you could have scrambled eggs that weren’t suitable for playing raquetball with! Mom believed in cooking eggs done, done, done, and trust me, the only thing worse than overcooked eggs is burnt eggs. Bleah!
So I understand the kids’ attraction to McDonald’s, and would like to suggest that parents introduce foods that are plainer in flavor than they themselves would eat and practice different methods of cooking said food. Maybe Mom and Dad love that 3-alarm vegetarian chili Mom makes, but it’s just too overwhelming for a child’s tastebuds. It is, after all, pretty easy to set aside a small portion of dinner prior to the heavy seasoning. My mom did for me, and I have a pretty varied diet now.
Eh, sorry for the rambling …
There is only one thing I can’t eat: iceberg lettuce. I have a severe food aversion to it. This aversion was caused by… working at McDonalds. I won’t go into details, but basically it makes me think of dirty mop water. I gag when I see them at the grocery store. I get made fun of frequently for this.
While I generally don’t eat fast food, I do occasionally get a craving for McD’s egg mcmuffins, surely due to eating them hungover during the years I worked there. It’s hard to screw up an egg, back bacon and cheese on an English muffin, though.
I grew up in rural northern Alberta, where McDonald’s did not exist at all (we went to A&W on family trips) and I never ate in a normal restaurant until I moved to Ontario in my teens. Though I did go through the phase of eating junk, I outgrew that, and now generally eat the way my family did when I was a kid; small portions of meat, lots of vegetables, rarely dessert other than fruit. (Pasta and potatoes are rare though.) I think it’s ingrained; my friends whose parents let them eat crap as kids have a really hard time eating a balanced diet, even though they know they should.
Yeah, in Fast Food Nation, you find out that marketers have identified different types of child nags, which ones get the best response from parents, and which kind of advertising elicits that particular nag.
Honestly? I think that sometimes when you’ve been traveling for a while, you get the urge for something familiar. That probably wouldn’t be McDonalds for me, but I’ve definitely sought out familiar food while traveling, because at some point the sheer novelty of the experience gets overwhelming.
Incidentally, the children in this study were all from low-income families. The people who conducted the study speculated that the results would have been the same with any kid, but I’d be interested to see whether that was true.
(Hoped my quote works there.)
I noticed this, too. I used to watch PBS during the daytime to catch the craft shows, then leave it on. The sponsors for Between the Lions changed from several non-profits and foundations to just Chick-Fil-A and The Civil Society Institute. I’m thinking that might be a consequence of foundation and non-profit money being redirected to cover new shortcomings in the public broadcasting budget. I wasn’t horrified until I saw that ADM had started sponsoring The News Hour, which put my mind to dark thoughts about stories critical of ethanol and GMOs being whacked so they don’t offend the sponsor.
I’d like to say that shows like Arthur have plenty of cool episodes about eating well and not being a consumerist drone, but I think the commercials probably push way more consumerist buttons than shows can ever hope to address.
If you like it, eat it. If you dislike it, don’t eat it.
“A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age”
So long as you don’t try to force me to eat as you eat, I won’t try to force you to eat as I eat.
There was some Dateline or 20/20 or one of those shows that did taste tests with vodka. They poured different vodkas into plain glasses and, as expected, the top brand the group claimed to love so much was the one it ended up liking least. Unfortunately this sort of branding effect doesn’t end after preschool.
I have to say I have never understood this. Why go all the way to another country just to not only eat the same thing you could have at home, but also ensure that what you’re getting is going to be the shit of the shit?
1. It’s not exactly the same thing. It’s kind of interesting to see how McDs and the other multinational crapfood chains adjust their menu and recipe to local palates.
2. Sometimes it’s just the thing when you’re feeling a little culture-shocky.
I, myself, was deeply amused by the disco-dance floor of the Burger King on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, enough that I went in there several times to buy a choco and watch the lights flash.
I have cousins that were very picky eaters - chicken nuggets, fries, and for some reason, miso soup.
My dad used to take them for the weekend to give their parents a break and he finally had to lay down the law, much as he is loath to impose his parenting on other people’s kids. But he was annoyed that they were so picky (having little fits when he tried to serve them real food) and ate such a limited diet.
One of the differences between how they grew up and how my parents raised my brothers and I was in how much control the parents had:
My mom cooked dinner almost every night. You ate what she cooked or went hungry.
But if you go out to a restaurant, a kid can just as easily choose something on a menu that’s “good” as not something you’d like them to eat.
If I were a parent, I’d avoid going out to eat because it seems like you’d have constant fights about what your kids want to choose - food that’s right there in front of them! - and what you want to choose for them.
I’m 29 years old, a fabulous cook who grows her own vegetables and buys organic, raised to eat healthy by parents who only gave in to fast food on road trips, and I still want McDonalds fries whenever I see a picture of them.
I also have a six month old, which means I read a lot of articles about kids and food right now. I just read one that suggested I start adding spice to his baby food to help combat future pickiness. Another said that by the age of two, 90% of kids get a dessert or pastry every day. And of course, the old one that most toddlers eat french fries more than any other vegetable.
By the way, I’m a little color blind and I’m having a terrible time with your anti-spam typing. It’s taking me 6 or 7 tries.
It’s not exactly the same thing.
It may not be exactly exactly the same thing, but seriously, a Quarter Pounder and a Royale are 99.999% identical. It’s still a hamburger, after all. And even if something on the menu is congruent with some aspect of the local cuisine, it’s always going to be an inferior facsimile of the real thing. Why go to Montreal to eat poutine at McDonald’s, when you could go to a locally owned restaurant where they serve the real deal?
That said, I get the culture shock/comfort food aspects. I just don’t buy the “McDonalds in France is totally different!” garbage. It’s brand whoring to a ridiculous level. Yeah, sure, they do their fries in olive oil, and the soda doesn’t have high fructose corn syrup in it, which means things taste ever so slightly different. But if you’re a McD’s connoisseur to that level, that it matters to you that your burger has slightly more faux smoke flavoring added, or whatever, seriously, you probably need to find a real restaurant that serves real food, and remember what that tastes like.
Which isn’t an attack on individuals who enjoy McDonald’s, so much as a criticism of the mind set wherein people believe that “slightly yeastier bun” = “totally different flavor experience!”, because they are so inured to eating only American fast food.
I refuse to eat beans, other than green and wax beans, not because they taste bad but because they *feel* bad in my mouth. It’s purely a texture thing. As far as I am concerned, eating beans has all the pleasure of eating tiny little balloons filled with baby powder.
I can’t stand large beans, but I’ve discovered that I like black beans and white (cannellini) beans, because they’re small and are less likely to be undercooked and have that weird powdery texture. I still don’t like kidney beans, though.
I eat no seafood whatsoever. I will have tuna occasionally because it was forced on me by my aunt when I was a child, so I can handle canned tuna. Can’t stand any other seafood — it just freaks me out for some reason to be eating something that lived in the ocean. It seems unnatural.
I was born in 1955, so was part of that generation first targeted by advertisers. One of the most vivid memories of my childhood is accompanying my mother to the grocery store (independent, small, on Main Street, between butcher’s and candy store) and clamoring for Wonder Bread because, I parroted as the commercials had taught me, it has twelve vitamins.
Popping a loaf of locally produced superior quality bread into the shopping cart, my mother said, “This one has thirteen!”
I wonder: do children in India, or Thailand, or Szechuan feel this way? This isn’t rhetorical or snarky — I honestly would like to know if the “picky eater” is a universal human phenomenon, even in cultures known for spicy, flavorful, and often hot foods.
When Kentucky Fried Chicken first came to Botswana (~1988) they used local chicken raised on fishmeal, which resulted in a distinct fishy taste. Even by fast food standards it was indescribably nasty. They’ve since switched to grain fed chicken, meaning that it tastes pretty much exactly the same as what you’d get in the US. The one adaptation to local culture is Kentucky Fried Chicken feet.
@ Chris and Mhorag — I’ve heard that one hypothesis for childhood picky eating (especially when it extends beyond the “no!” obsession of 2/3 year olds) is that children have far more tastebuds than adults do, and their tastebuds are more sensitive, and thus taste things much more intensely.
I’m not sure this translates only to “spicy” foods, though, which probably is a cultural thing. I grew up in a part of the US where spicy food is the norm, and none of us kids were picky about that sort of thing. I was in my late teens, however, before I started liking anything with a strong bitter or sour taste.
That’s our rule as well. That and ‘whatever I cook is dinner’, so if they don’t want to eat dinner, then they can wait until breakfast to have something. It usually works, but sometimes the husband isn’t quite as strict about it as I am, so the kids will occasionally be seen eating cereal after bedtime because someone was hungry from not eating dinner.
With mine, I think it is just a phase. We eat a lot of curry and various other spicy things (the husband is Sri Lankan) and our 2 year old loves it. His older brother used to love it as well, but he’s 5 now and has entered the ‘picky eater phase’ that kids of that age tend to go through. Hopefully it will pass. But, we also introduced them to that sort of food (less spiced than we eat, although now it’s all the same) as soon as they were old enough for solid food, so they’re used to it.
However, I completely understand the problem with textures. I have a couple of food aversions that have everything to do with texture. I also have a really strong sense of smell, and so some foods with strong smells turn my stomach. I’m usually game to try new things, but some things I just cannot eat, no matter how much I try to make myself.
I’m so trying that out. It’s about a 50/50 rice-and-lentil mix in the paste, just add canned corn and peas? How do you mix in the egg? Any other hints on cooking this?
I’ve recently fallen prey to an unexpected turn of events, and I’m very interested in cutting my expenses as much as humanly possible–this sounds like a fantastic idea. We’ve been eating turkey burgers (about forty cents a piece if you get them frozen in bulk), but this sounds even cheaper.
Thanks for the cooking advice; all my recipes sound grossly lavish next to this sort of thing.
I too don’t understand the “too strongly flavoured” or “too spicy” for kids thing. Because in other countries the food is like that … and both my sister and I were exposed to a wide variety of spices, herbs, etc by our chef mother growing up.
Admittedly, I’m not a parent, but my parents were basically that if I didn’t eat what was cooked, I went hungry. Nothing like hunger to make you eat what’s in front of you. Pandering to kids will just let them know they can get away with whatever.
Cris, I’ve read that in India parents start introducing small amounts of curry pretty young, and build up the amount as the kid gets older. I think bland baby food is pretty much a cultural thing. Of course a baby won’t like pepper the first time he tastes it, but it has taken me at least six tries to get my baby to like anything. Also, I knew a four year old who was less of a spice wimp than me. She adored spicy food. Her parents had started her on it as a toddler, building her taste up.
I’m not sure I’m going to start the baby on habaneros any time soon, but I don’t see why I can’t add pepper to his sweet potatoes and cinnamon to his apples now.
Suggestion; shop in asian neighbourhoods, because often their shops are set up for different shopping practices. Namely, a lot of more traditional families don’t do the once-a-week or once-a-fortnight shops, they pick up fruit and veges every day, or every other day.
So, what you will find is that the fruit and veges that their supermarkets will have will be a lot closer to ripe, and so is much cheaper than the general american supermarkets, who won’t buy that stuff.
Not to mention you’ll find herbs and spices WAY cheaper. And rice by the sack-load at insanely cheap prices.
I’ll often purchase a thai chicken broth in a can for less than a buck, say, cheap egg noodles, a a few veges, and you’ve got a TON of noodle soup for a few days. Or a pre-made can of thai curry, throw in vegetables (and/or chopped dark-meat chicken), and long with some basic rice, or rice that I’ve thrown herbs in with in the rice cooker, and freeze the leftovers, and you’ve got a huge meal that’ll last for ages.
It’s cheap, fast, and really good for you.
I don’t know about the too spicy bit, but I remember hearing that vegetables are quite bitter to children. It has something to do with developing tastebuds. But it’s good to encourage them to keep trying. I used to have to eat a “no, thank you portion,” which could even be a bite.
I get the whole comfort food thing about McD’s as well, but for me it wasn’t McD’s that I wanted.
I was in Switzerland for 3 weeks training about 5 years ago, and although I love trying new foods, by the middle of the third week, I was really, really craving a PB&J sandwich. (They don’t have PB there, as far as I could tell.) My friend met me at the airport with a PB&J sandwich and a thermos of COLD milk. (I also couldn’t find anyone who had cold, cold milk. It was all that boxed, irriadiated Parmalat stuff, served at room temperature. ugh.)
This was after 2 and a half weeks of eating things like crocodile and emu at the Australian place. Also the company cafeteria served excellent, but unusual (by American standards) things like horse. It was good, but sometimes I just gotta have a PB&J.
parents start introducing small amounts of curry pretty young
Not sure what you’re referring to, here — curry doesn’t exist, as such, in India. And in my experience, the idea of wildly spicy Indian dishes is a western restaurant thing, anyway. Traditionally prepared Indian cuisine is more “spiced” than “spicy”. I think what Indian parents are introducing is the complexity of flavors, not “hot” dishes.
Of course, people who grew up with Anglo cuisine think even black pepper and cinnamon are outlandishly spicy, so I guess this is all relative.
pre-made can of thai curry
One of my favorite cheap and cheerful weeknight dinners is vegetables sauteed in a can of thai curry paste, a can of cocount milk, and maybe a handful of cilantro or basil if I’m feeling flush, poured over rice (or even ramen noodles).
kodiak - Just being nit-picky: It’s also not so much that they have learned it, but that they’re brains have changed, so now they are capable of learning it.
ohsohappy - I would have killed for some decent Mexican food the year I lived in England. Just some decent chips and salsa is all I ask.
As for the opinion that it is cheaper to eat fast food crap than healthy food, that is the opposite of the conclusion I reached. When I was in school I had much much less money than $25 per week to spend.
Well that depends on how easy your access to healthy food is, isn’t it? There are all kinds of hidden costs, such as higher prices for groceries in urban areas (especially fresh fruit and vegetables) and transportation costs and problems. And, you know, cooking the meal and cleaning up. (Plus the idea that kids who live near a McDonald’s would eat lentils and rice and (fozen) vegetables on a regular basis without causing insane amounts of drama. Which takes up more time. And energy.) Eating healthy is not as easy as it sounds if you aren’t the typical suburban family. And fast food is not as expensive as you seem to think it is - as long as you stick to the deals and avoid the McRibs and the like.
Although the bigger issue is that eating unhealthy food from grocery stores is much, much cheaper than eating healthy food from grocery stores. That’s more often the bigger obstacle to struggling families. Cuz lentils and rice and (frozen) veggies will get you by as a starving student, but it’s not necessarily considered a healthy meal for a pre-schooler. Well, as a meal, it works. But they also should have the more expensive stuff like nuts and avocados for the fat content if you are going to go vegan. If you aren’t, meat isn’t cheap either.
HABANEROS:
I don’t know if the habanero grower will read down this far:
but this happened to me TOO, and I put them raw into a freezer bag, and I have been using them for SEVEN YEARS and they are still good.
magda: We had to be members of the Tasty Club, and try taste of everything. I think I like the no, thank you portion better, though, and will use it on my kids when I have them.
I used to be an incredibly picky eater, could not deal with “hot” spiciness at all, wouldn’t touch anything that lived in the water except for canned tuna, hated most veggies…but my tastes are widening, largely because of peer pressure. Most of my friends have always been a bit older than me, and the fear of appearing immature when I refuse to try something or am living on pasta and popcorn turns out to be a very strong motivator. I still don’t eat shellfish, as the allergy I developed as a toddler is still active, but I’ve started eating fish, and I’m still a spice wimp, but things I couldn’t have eaten two years ago I now happily eat. The flipside is, of course, that I eat foods I loved as a kid and wonder how I could possibly have liked them–Chef Boyardee ravioli or packaged Rice Krispie Treats taste awful. As the kinds of food I’ll eat increase, the minimum quality I’ll put up with also increases. (I bought regular apples from Star Market instead of organic apples from Whole Foods the other day, and they simply did not compare.)
Every three to six months or so, I end up near a McDonald’s with it being my only option for hot food because I’m on a road trip or whatever. I do love their fries, but I always feel ill after eating there. Unfortunately, I never manage to remember swearing them off until afterward–and then it’s six months til the next time, and surely a burger and fries is better for me than a soda and a candy bar…
It’s funny that you mention this hon, because that’s on the agenda for me for dinner … though I will add in chicken, and cheat and use a pre-combined can of thai green curry paste and coconut milk.
Can’t sleep… baby clown will eat me. Can’t sleep… baby clown will eat me…
My nephew digs the strong flavors. He’s 5 now, and has since he was about 10 months old. His favorite flavors? Chives, which he’ll pull out of the garden and eat, Cilantro, which he will eat out of the bunch when we’re grocery shopping, and garlic.
I think it’s pretty much just that my sis said if it’s something she was going to make him eat, it had to be something she would eat. She tried some of his pre-made baby food, and said no way. She started pureeing the stuff they ate, and since they’re pretty healthy eaters, so is here.
If you give him a choice of a cookie or a cherry tomato, he’ll pick the cherry tomato.
Dammit, what a time to take the kids out for soccer/playground fun, then rupture a brake line/ lose the brakes on the car, then get the car to fave mechanic 2 miles away (safely, thank goodness), then have nice mechanic get us home. I could have been playing with all of you, but NOOOOOO…..
Caryn- I pray your son never meets my daughter- the fishing industry would be ruined. In 3rd grade, she was the only kid in her class who when asked, said her favorite foods were sushi and brussel sprouts. Imagine that, huh? Teacher said you could have heard a pin drop- he and my kid spent 20 minutes discussing their favorites with the others just watching them with dropped jaws.
MA Jeff, you are the only man I’ve ever heard of who knows how to can- I know there are more, but haven’t met ‘em yet. I spent more hours every summer helping raise then can or freeze all of our veg and fruit for the winter. Never ate “store bought” relishes, pickles, jellies or jam until I was an adult! (same with store bought cookies)
And then thought mint jelly tasted odd on buttered toast- didn’t realize it was for lamb! My mother hates lamb and blue cheese, so we never had them in the house. Now I like both and the stronger the cheese, the better.
Homemade soups and stews are 1000% better than anything one can buy commercially. In flavor, cost effectiveness, health benefits- and if anything sings to the soul better than the smell of soup simmering on a cold day. (although cold soups on a hot day are pretty terrific, too)
Sarah in C, maybe the spamulator is just all clogged up with all this talk of McD’s??? heehee! We can try telling veggie jokes or bad puns and maybe that will lower its cholesterol.
To that effect, Cheerio!!
Okay, Sarah in Chicago, I’ll eat your carrots, almonds, cilantro and do something intersting with the cheese if you’ll take my curry, peas, salmon and cauliflower.
Dammit, Sarah, keep recruiting!
ohsohappy -
That reminds me of my younger brother, who despite being an annoyingly picky eater, particularly when we were both younger - top ramen noodles and chicken, and annoying habits like eating “chips and salsa” consisting of a chip with the very tip dipped to just-slightly-moist in the salsa - would constantly eat garlic greens from our garden, despite the whole family’s horror at what it did to his breath.
As for McD’s, with my metabolism I outgrew Happy Meals around age 7 and would eat two double cheeseburgers and fries when we went there, a fact which now vaguely horrifies me. So, it can be outgrown, at least.
Opponax, when I say curry, I’m thinking of the family spice mix, which as an American, I think of as curry. I can’t find the source, but it was just a throwaway line in a Time article about how kids are eating junkfood before they’re two.
My dad does, too. He plants 12 tomato plants for he and my mother, and he’ll spend days in the summer making pickles, salsa, or tomato sauce. Last year he did 52 pints of salsa, and that only lasted until March or April (my parents eat a lot of salsa).
I think my favorite canning experience/experiment was spiced plums in merlot. Yummy over vanilla ice cream.
I’d much rather can than freeze. I’m more likely to eat my soup if I see the jars sitting on the shelf than I am digging through the freezer. hmm…maybe when I get home I’ll have that last jar of pho.
Chives, which he’ll pull out of the garden and eat, Cilantro, which he will eat out of the bunch when we’re grocery shopping, and garlic.
Holy shit. I’m probably devoted enough to eat garlic-flavored ice cream, but if you’re saying he eats raw garlic, that’s just sick.
MAJeff, I know you wouldn’t marry me, but would you consider marrying my husband? I freeze a ton, but I’m still intimidated by canning.
Ooh, I’ve made garlic ice cream! It was awesome with a warm ratatouille.
Oops. He won’t eat it raw, as far as I know. That would be some stinky, stinky baby breath. No, he likes garlic in things. I think he’s even had my own stinky appetizer favorite, roasted garlic on crackers.
Cut the top off a bulb of garlic so the tops of the cloves are exposed. Drizzle olive oil, sprinkle of salt and pepper, maybe some italian spices, put aluminum foil over the top, and roast it in the oven for 5-10 minutes. Take it out, squeeze the cloves out of the bulb, and spread it on crackers. yum, yum.
Mhorag,
Try red lentils. They pretty much dissolve in the cooking process, so there’s nothing to feel in the mouth, they have about 15 grams of fiber to one cooked cup, and they have a milder flavor than the green lentils.
Sorry. If I did that, it would ruin my plans for my 40th birthday registry.
It’s really not that difficult. Just get a good canning book (Better Homes and Gardens has a decent one that you can probably find at a used bookstore for a buck) and the right equipment and go to town. I don’t have a full on pressure canner, but bought a pressure cooker/canner that I use. Only does 5 pint jars at a time, but it works well enough for me.
the opoponax: “@ Chris and Mhorag — I’ve heard that one hypothesis for childhood picky eating (especially when it extends beyond the “no!” obsession of 2/3 year olds) is that children have far more tastebuds than adults do, and their tastebuds are more sensitive, and thus taste things much more intensely.”
I remember reading an article in one of the ubiquitous womens magazines (sorry, don’t remember which one) where a woman talked about how even the mildest spicy foods were physically painful for her to eat, because her tongue would burn for hours afterwards, but eating something like a butter cookie was damn near orgasmic. She participated in a study, and according to the results of the tests, she had 2-3 times the number of “spicy hot” receptors but hardly any of the “spicy flavor” receptors on her tongue. So she was registering the capsicum oil (the heat in peppers) far more than other people. When they tasted for the “sweet” receptors, she had almost 3-4 times the number of receptors as other people, so she *really* registered the “sweet” part of butter cookies. And yes, she had trouble with weight. After all, which would you eat - the low-calorie healthy salsa which makes your eyes water and your tongue burn for hours, or the high-calorie, not-so-healthy butter cookies that’s as pleasurable as multiple orgasm? (And anybody who says “salsa” is just trying to yank my chain.)
“I’m not sure this translates only to “spicy” foods, though, which probably is a cultural thing. I grew up in a part of the US where spicy food is the norm, and none of us kids were picky about that sort of thing. I was in my late teens, however, before I started liking anything with a strong bitter or sour taste. ”
I still can’t eat anything that’s bitter. I will never be able to gag down coffee, tea, or dark chocolate, all of which were popular in my home growing up, so I know where you’re coming from. Hell, I love chocolate in the form of Hershey bars and cake, but I can’t drink chocolate milk (bitter) or eat chocolate pudding (bitter).
Actually, I wasn’t referred specifically to “spicy” foods, which is why I chose the term “strongly flavored.” As a small child, herbs like oregano, basil and rosemary were simply too strong in the amounts that are normally used in cooking. They overwhelmed what other flavors may have been in the food, rather than supporting and bringing out those flavors, and I doubt anyone would really enjoy the equivalent of oregano soup. For myself, chilis and peppers were painfully intense, so naturally those dishes and foods weren’t ones I enjoyed. Toss in overcooked eggs, and a Denver/Western-style omelet (eggs, green bell peppers, onions, chilis, etc.), and it was a dish that was literally inedible to me. (I swear - you could show the dish a *picture* of a green bell pepper and I can taste it. So intense!)
Often when I’m cooking a new dish, I will cut down the amount of strong flavorings such as oregano or the amount of strongly flavored incredients like broccoli. (I’m sorry - broccoli makes everything it’s cooked with taste like broccoli. I like broccoli - steamed until tender and served with a little cheese sauce or lemon juice - but cooked in a casserole? It could be a salmon/Limberger cheese casserole, but if there’s broccoli cooked in it - broccoli.) If it’s too bland, I then carefully add additional small amounts of whatever until I like the taste.
It’s possible that, at least for some children, something similar would need to be done to encourage them to eat a variety of foods.
DBK: “Try red lentils.”
I don’t know if I’ve seen red lentils in the store. Of course, I don’t exactly hang out in the bean aisle.
I’m betting if they’re cooked with bacon, they’d be pretty edible, too. (hehehe)
Well, I might give it a try, someday when I’m feeling adventurous. Thanks for the tip.
MAJeff, my mother used to cook and can everything, and had the full pressure cooker and everything. We had some really great good growing up.
My questions is, do you have to pressure cook things like soup? I have done jams and jellies, which seal on their own, and don’t have to be cooked in the pressure cooker. How about soups? I make a killer butternut squash and apple soup, which freezes well, but I’d love to can it too.
the family spice mix
That’s called masala, BTW.
Personal anecdote time: I have one friend who still eats like a picky child. Chicken nuggets, plain hamburgers, Kraft mac and cheese, pizza. He’s actually sick of being like this — he’s in his late 20s and hates seeming immature. But different food has become a real phobia for him. He’s actually afraid of it, as irrational as he knows that is. He’s thought of seeking hypnosis therapy for it.
I haven’t been able to stand fast food since late college. My tastes and digestion just changed, and now fast food makes me reliably ill. And now I associate it with being ill, so now I don’t ever crave it or even like the flavor. Just smelling McDonald’s makes me nauseated. Thank god my boyfriend feels exactly the same way, or there would be trouble. (After we went to see Super Size Me, neither of us wanted to eat anything except fruit and vegetables for days.)
But as a child? Loved the stuff. Fliet O Fish sandwich, limp lettuce, tartar sauce and all, was my favorite (I have no clue what was wrong with me, because that stuff is GROSS). McDonald’s meant excitement and special times and fun. I’m not at all surprised that preschoolers think things taste better in their wrapper.
I think sushi is a great antidote for this, actually. Here’s why: I once heard a little kid say, in tones of great excitement, “Do they make the Dragon Roll with REAL DRAGONS?” I think creature-themed sushi would be great for the kid market. Dragon roll, basilisk roll, dinosaur roll….who wants to start a restaurant?
MAJeff, but you could register for marrying my husband, and my family gives kickass kitchen gear.
I even bought a pressure canner at a garage sale, but I have some sort of block. I think someday (when I don’t have a six month old) I’ll take a class with the extension service. That way I can get my pressure gage checked too.
My six month old eats hummus. I make it all time, and it has garlic and lemon juice, but he seems to like it.
Opoponax - Not sure what you’re referring to, here — curry doesn’t exist, as such, in India.
I assume you’re talking about curry powder, as opposed to the various dishes, right?
As far as spiced vs. spicy, have you tried the food in Orissa? It’ll have the typical westerner praying for a nice quick death by drinking lye. I can eat it if it’s accompanied by large quantities of water and a nice bland starch to take the edge off, but damn, that shit’s hot.
Habeneros FREEZE that long? Oh thank you thank you… I’ve already chopped up a few bags of those and jalepenos but had no idea how long they would last. As a kid, I used to use chives for straws, then eat them. Yum.
We go through tons of fresh garlic here, as well as grow own herbs- husband’s years in Taipei definitely influenced his love of real flavors. Kids balk at garlic, though.
Remind me, what started this thread? McWho again??
talking about curry powder, as opposed to the various dishes
I was talking about the powder mostly, but while curry dishes exist in Indian cuisine (obvs), I’ve never met an Indian who called that sort of thing “curry” or “a curry”. That’s English parlance. Indians just call each individual dish by its name. Daal is daal, aloo gobi is aloo gobi, etc.
I’ve never tried Orissan food, actually. I’ve had Punjabi and Goan roommates in the past, so mainly I’ve had those particular regional variations, in addition to whatever’s available in the local Indian restaurants. I’ve never tried any homecooked Indian food that seemed terribly spicy to me, but again, I’m Cajun, so I have a high tolerance.
oh, and btw, water is the absolute last thing you should wash spicy things down with. the chemicals that make food spicy are not water soluble, so all you’re doing is spreading it around, which will probably make it worse.
you want beer or milk, in terms of beverages. a liberal application of yogurt also helps, though I don’t know if that’s what Orissans do — no idea what the cuisine is like (or whether Orissa has the typical North Indian dairy obsession). In traditional Northern style, anything even vaguely spicy is served with a nice dollop of yogurt to cut the spice.
The funny thing is that I got brought up with a number of indonesian dishes because my family is dutch, so I’ve developed a pretty good tolerance, and I ADORE spicy food. I have four or five types of chill-based sauces/pastes/etc in my fridge. And a ton of mustards.
However, in my late teens, when I was living in the Netherlands finishing high school, I was out with friends and we found an indonesian restaurant that was filled with indonesian people down a back-street. Thinking I was all tough and used to it, I got a taste of what indonesian people consider hot and spicy. And my spices, which
I lost contact with my nostrils, lips, and the interior front of my mouth for a chunk of time. Seriously, I am not waxing hyperbolic here, my mouth (thankfully) actually went numb for a while. AFTER feeling like fire-ants were attacking my face.
Don’t get me wrong, I finished the whole damn thing. But I sucked enough liquid down to do a bit of damage to the Three Gorges Dam.
The funny thing is that I got brought up with a number of indonesian dishes because my family is dutch, so I’ve developed a pretty good tolerance, and I ADORE spicy food. I have four or five types of chill-based sauces/pastes/etc in my fridge. And a ton of mustards. And my spices, which I am slowly working on developing (graduate student here).
However, in my late teens, when I was living in the Netherlands finishing high school, I was out with friends and we found an indonesian restaurant that was filled with indonesian people down a back-street. Thinking I was all tough and used to it, I got a taste of what indonesian people consider hot and spicy.
I lost contact with my nostrils, lips, and the interior front of my mouth for a chunk of time. Seriously, I am not waxing hyperbolic here, my mouth (thankfully) actually went numb for a while. AFTER feeling like fire-ants were attacking my face.
Don’t get me wrong, I finished the whole damn thing. But I sucked enough liquid down to do a bit of damage to the Three Gorges Dam.
Here’s an URL regarding the bit about sensitivity to taste. Ask and you shall receive, I guess.
http://www.slate.com/id/2168768/
Sorry about the lack of code - I kinda suck at that stuff.
As a note to sushi/sashimi lovers - I would rather die than eat raw fish. Maybe it’s just my Midwest upbringing, but the thought of eating raw meat (beef is the only meat I’ll eat that isn’t cooked completely through, and even then it has to be *hot* all the way through) gives me the heebie-jeebies. Jeez, hasn’t anybody heard of something called parasites?! Or salmonella?! That’s why fish, poultry, and pork must be done white to the bone for me to eat it. So far, it’s a prejudice I have been unwilling to try and overcome. (shiver)
Mhorag, sashimi grade fish is held to much higher standards, in terms of suppliers and food handling, than regular meat is. Which is why it’s safe to eat raw.
Mhorag -
Sashimi grade fish is insanely high quality fish … like the quality of beef used for steak tartar, it has to be certified as safe before it is used.
I adore sushi (and I’m old school, I don’t even like some of the cooked maki that are showing on the scene … my maki honestly isn’t all that different from sashimi or sushi) … and the thing is, because it has to be really damn incredibly high quality, the taste is amazing. I would just shudder at the thought of subjecting fish as excellent as that to being cooked.
But then I also tend to enjoy my red meats rare to medium-rare, and that includes burgers. Poultry a bit more, but I still like moisture in that (I’m actually not a fan of white-meat chicken) … when I said above I like flash seared scallops, it basically means the outside is just cooked, the rest just heated through.
It’s all about quality.
It’s a sign of how bad the meat market is in this country that people think that disease is inherently something you must cook out of your food.
“It’s a sign of how bad the meat market is in this country that people think that disease is inherently something you must cook out of your food.”
Agreed. And if you’ve ever read about the history of pasteurized milk…. eek.
It’s a sign of how bad the meat market is in this country that people think that disease is inherently something you must cook out of your food.
Actually, I’d say that it’s our Puritan streak coming out again (If it tastes good, it might be POISONOUS!) That, and people not paying attention in school.
My friend told me a story of trying to cook a tuna casserole for a guy and he accused her of trying to kill him. Because, you see, we all learned in grade school that if you leave tuna salad sitting out (say in a hot car), botulism* will start to grow. He, however, had somehow gotten the idea that it was the heat that somehow affected the tuna and turned it into poison, not that a warm environment would encourage bacterial growth. So he was absolutely convinced that she was taking her life in her hands by eating cooked tuna.
* It may have been salmonella. I can’t remember. But, still, leaving mayonnaise-based salads in a hot car can give you food poisoning.
Are you referring to that place on Spadina with the plastic table coverings? Kinda not real impressive to look at, but it was fucking mobbed at noon on Sunday — and the food was outstanding.
OMG … it’s long and thin with the ‘kitchen’ (and I use that word losely) at the entrance to the place, so you can look through from the street to where they are cooking? Is that the place you’re talking about?
Because, if yes, then HELL YES that’s the place I am talking about … I still drool thinking of that stuff.
You’ll find red lentils in the same aisle as the other dried beans and split peas and so on.
I like split peas and lentils and can take or leave other legumes.
For great info on healthy foods, go to whfoods.com. It is a non-profit, unaffiliated web site and it isn’t a vegetarian site, either. It contains extensive information on food and what is healthy and it backs up what is says with references to all of the relevant studies from which it draws its information. I came across it while researching Milk Thistle and it was recommended by a doctor because of the sites reliance on scientific studies for its information.
Further to opoponax’s comments about the prevalence of McDonald’s in poor neighbourhoods, I found the same thing backpacking through Eastern Europe a few years back. You can’t turn a corner in Bucharest without finding a golden arches (the Metro stations all have one, it’s disturbing).
On the question of cultural tolerance of fast foods, I actually found KFC in Thailand quite spicy and interesting. And every fast food place I went to in Bangkok had a complimentary bottle of sweet chili sauce on the table too - yum.
Here in Australia (the healthiest franchise outside the US for many years, why Gods why?) we’ve seen a lot of “restaurants” go out of business, but the mall/movie theatre strips seem incurable.
Opoponax - the water is a placebo so you can still enjoy the heat while at least feeling a little cooled. Also having something in your mouth prevents screaming
If you’ve had Vindaloo cooked in true Goan style, you’ve experienced Orissa levels of hotness. I strongly second the beer suggestion.
I’ve read that very spicy foods tend to go with hot climates because the oils that create the hotness in the food also kill bacteria. I’d be interested to see a study of tooth decay among eaters of very spicy foods. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the hotness also kills tooth decay bacteria, which would of course lead to things like Vindaloo flavor toothpase
Our two year old handles spice pretty well. We started with very small amounts of spice as soon as he started solid food. By the time he was about 15 months, he was mostly eating whatever we ate. For us the motivations wasn’t to avoid pickiness so much as it was to foster family time around dinner. Even when only one parent is present, we eat at the table, with the TV off, ignore the phone and talk with each other. Even so, it pleases me that he loves tahini salad dressing (annie’s Goddess, yum!) BBQ sauce, roasted red peppers, spicy chicken sausage and other adult foods.
Growing up Spouse & I had similar rules that we had to try the food on our plate and if we still couldn’t eat, we were allowed to make ourselves a PB&J. That is the strategy we will take as well. Neither of us is willing to make something else for the picky child, but if they want to make themelves a boring old PB&J, well they’ll just be more of the tasty stuff for the rest of us.
As a note to sushi/sashimi lovers - I would rather die than eat raw fish.
I don’t get the sashimi thing. I don’t mind it; I’ve had salmon and tuna and liked them well enough, but fish just tastes better to me when it’s cooked. Most of the flavor in the sashimi seemed to come from the soy sauce.
Sorry I took so long–office mate had the computer.
honestly, it depends on the acid content of the food you’re canning.
Butternut squash and apple, I’m guessing would need to be pressure canned. Tomato, no real need for pressure canning. It’s all about killing any potential bacteria. High acid foods work fine to kill them at regular boiling temperatures, but low acid foods need to be heated to higher temps (thus the pressure) in order to kill them.
As for the spicy food thing, the theory that some people’s tongues are so sensitive that they genuinely can’t enjoy it makes sense to me. I like spicy food, but it annoys me when people see not being able to eat it as some kind of moral failing.
I agree with Mhorag’s comment waaaay up.
I don’t like veggies because my mother overcooked them when I was a kid. They tasted horrible and mushy. And if they weren’t finished they went in the fridge and were re-nuked the next day (at least till my sister ate furry peas - apparently that dish was a week or two old). And we had to finish them all whether we liked them or not.
My mom has since learned to cook, but for me the remembrance makes me still gag when trying to eat cooked peas/carrots/green beans/etc - even the smell can make me sick. But I will eat all sorts of vegetables raw.
And I don’t ask/investigate what’s in a dish - if I can’t tell, I will generally enjoy it.
A friend of mine–studying to be a pharmacist and generally interested in this kind of stuff–linked to this in his LJ the other day. The article he’d read was on medpagetoday.com.
@ junk science — the only thing that bothers me about the “I don’t like spicy food” thing is that I’ve noticed with some people who grew up with an intensely bland Anglo diet that it seems weirdly tied in with race/ethnicity/xenophobia issues. I’ve noticed, for instance, that people who absolutely abhor spicy things that come from Latin America or India seem to be just fine eating Sichuan dishes from a Chinese restaurant, pasta al’arabiata, etc. I hold said people in the same lack of regard as people who don’t like X brown people’s cuisine because “It makes me sick after I eat it.”
that people who absolutely abhor spicy things that come from Latin America or India…
There should be a “some” between “that” and “people”, there, sorry. Didn’t want to imply that all people who claim to dislike spicy foods have this particular issue. If you plain and simple don’t like spice, then I guess that’s the way it is.
I can’t believe nobody’s thought of this yet.
If this study does indeed prove that little kids think absolutely anything tastes better with a McDonald’s logo on it…why doesn’t McD’s sell empty food wrappers for parents to use, to get their tatelas to consume whatever the parents plunk down in front of them? “Here, Billy, here’s some McDonald’s red lentils and broccoli with brown rice! And it comes with a Shrek toy!”
Think of the profit margin to be had from selling mere paper and cardboard to people who won’t buy their food anyway! Once McD’s figures it out, they’ll be all over it, I’m sure.
Yeah, the kids will grow up and catch on as soon as they’re old enough to read a menu. But by then, there will be all kinds of antioxidants in their systems and brand-new receptors on their taste buds, yes?
P.S. The person I have known in my life who was the biggest McD’s consumer — a guy who used to brag that he could literally “find a McDonald’s blindfolded” — was and still is rail-thin. I’m not sure, frankly, where the fatty=McDonald’s=fatty meme comes from, since I’ve never, on the rare occasions my fat ass has gone in there, seen only (or even mostly) fat people eating there.
I’m not sure, frankly, where the fatty=McDonald’s=fatty meme comes from, since I’ve never, on the rare occasions my fat ass has gone in there, seen only (or even mostly) fat people eating there.
There are people who can eat lots of fatty food and not gain weight. That’s a function of their metabolism, not of the food itself. Eating a steady fast food diet was a huge factor in my gaining weight. Once I more or less stopped eating it, I started to drop the excess weight pretty much automatically.
Okay, not that I didn’t fall into this trap — and not that I don’t find talking about food experiences really fun — but reading the comments it seems we’ve gotten way away from the original post. (Which is how things go in conversation.) So what do we do to combat cheap bad food, and the class issues involved with that?
When I moved to SF, my local neighborhood group was trying to get some abandoned lots reserved for community gardens — by the *whole* community, from yuppie homeowners to Mexican dishwashers. But that failed. And it still doesn’t address the issue of not having the time to garden.
Once McD’s figures it out, they’ll be all over it, I’m sure.
No doubt. McDonald’s doesn’t mind serving you a salad with one hand and a slab of 100% pure Angus shit on a bun with the other. They’re not out to ruin our health any more than they care about preserving it. Not to sound like a libertarian, but it seems to me they’ll sell whatever they think there’s a market for.
Zorya, from waaaaayy up there at #25:
well, honestly, that’s not saying much. i suspect you could stick ground-up roasted pencils in a coffee pot and get something better than Starbucks coffee out. or at least something hard to tell apart from it…
and anony, from #68 — seriously? taste tests with vodka, the one liquor whose very reason for being is to have no taste of its own?! marketeers are insane, and they’re making their madness contagious…
(argh. commenting on the wrong thread… i’ll go away now, kthx.)
Just some observations–I only ready about halfway through the comments, so I hope I don’t turn redundant.
(1) We don’t take our four year old to McDonald’s, and I would say in our gentrified urban neighborhood many people behave as though eating a McD’s hamburger is akin to, I don’t know, the janjaweed committing genocide in Darfur. On the one hand, I don’t want my children to grow up thinking their food choices are morally neutral, but I’m concerned that the ethics of what we eat reaches an equivalency with true human atrocity.
(2) We only watch cartoons on PBS, which has no commercials. It’s programs, however, are sponsored, and the sponsors get recognition at the end of each program. So, after Sesame Street, PBS runs a 15 second plug for McDonalds. Sure, it’s not the same hyped up food and beverage advertising you’ll see on Nickelodeon or Fox Kids, but certainly the time when public television was free from advertising is over. McD’s will reach you one way or the other.
(3) Everyone seems to agree that “big corporations” are evil. In fact, it’s easier to hold big corporations accountable for animal welfare, labor practices and other important ethical responsibilities. Is the coffee or chocolate fair trade? Are the meats humanely raised and butchered? Are the milk cows who make the dairy separated from their calves immediately, so all the milk they produce can be diverted to humans? Again, I don’t eat at McDonalds, but those are answers that McDonald’s can give in places where they’re required to do so–the UK and some EU countries–and that Mom n’ Pop often cannot. Local isn’t always more ethical.
Those are answers that McDonald’s can give in places where they’re required to do so–the UK and some EU countries–and that Mom n’ Pop often cannot.
Yeah, but the nice thing about local is that if you have a question, all you have to do is ask. Both of my favorite neighborhood joints are not only locally owned, but neighborhood owned. I can pop in there anytime I want and strike up a conversation with the owners of these places. Because of this, not only are they likely to be more forthcoming with information about how they run their business, but they take suggestions. If me and a few other neighborhood regulars pop in and ask about fair trade coffee or recycled paper napkins or whatever, the owners can and usually will act on that. It would take thousands of consumer activists years of waging a pitched media battle to force McDonald’s to do anything like that, because they can look at the numbers and decide “oh, nobody’s really going to pay for that…” They don’t see their customers as individuals who can make or break their business.
And because McDonald’s is huge and faceless, there’s nobody to really hold them to any of it, anyway. They can announce that there will be changes without ever implementing them, or make a change for a couple of years and then go right back when the issue is out of the news. If my neighborhood bistro talks a big game about organic beef, and never comes through, I will know, and I can take my business elsewhere, and spread the word about them.
When I first came to Australia, and was used to a Briitsh colonial aesthetic of pale, foreboding buildings, I found the garish look of the primary-colour painted fast-food outlets to be hideously ugly. I just couldn’t understand how people could tolerate having these dotted around their landscape. Since then, I have overcome my visceral dislike of these buildings — although the relative sense of the ugliness of the suburban landscape never seems to leave me.
Unless you watch children’s television, you wouldn’t.
I showed this ad to my students tonight, as Tuesday night’s class focused on issues of consumption and advertising. They were a bit taken aback, but then were all like “eww, yeah” when I noted that the baby, esp the mouth, looked like a blow-up sex doll. That image is just way to fucking wrong.
1. Vodka does have taste. You have to get a bunch of them lined up that are manufactured from different stocks (wheat, potatoes, kasha, honey) but you can indeed taste the difference.
2. To give you an idea of how bad McDonald’s is–once while driving I got a set of Chicken McNuggets to share between myself and my dog. Neither of us could stomach them. (And this is a dog who loves Arby’s.)
3. Amanda, how about a recipe thread at some point? I’m sure there are enough of us here who would like to swap tips on how to eat well but cheaply.
It’s not just that but general ignorance about the relationship between meat and bacteria. Ground beef is problematic because the bacteria (at least the nasty ones) live on the surface of the meat, and when you grind it, you’re both increasing the surface area, but also mixing what was surface area with what wasn’t. That’s why my steak needs to be rare-to-medium rare, but my hamburgers need a bit more cooking.
I remember several years ago when friends and i went out to a Cuban restaurant which was featuring high quality salmon. My friend ordered it medium-well, at which I was appalled. (This was my goodbye evening from Minnesota–good Cuban food, and the Theatre de la Jeune Lune’s production of Figaro.) I gave him shit for years. The next time we went to that restaurant (when I was in town for a conference) he ordered it rare (I ordered mine seared), and just grinned at me from the end of the table. Yup. Makes all the difference.
YES
OK, for post 145, it was tuna, not salmon.
somethingyummy, you wrote:
Turn the TV off between shows. Really. W/remotes it’s not a big deal. We tell our daughter that that’s the time when the TV station has to do cleaning between shows. Granted she’s only 3, but she believes it. As soon as she sees the credits, she says “oh, it’s clean-up time.” We wait the requisite 6 mins and then turn it back on.
Here’s an idea. (Sorry if I’m repeating what other people have said.)
Amend trademark laws so that any company can use the McDonalds golden arches logo and name, provided they have a little note on or underneath explaining that they’re not actually affiliated with McDonalds. Since this would allow any company to promote their products with a symbol that looks (to a little kid) like it’s associated with McDonalds, there would no longer be any advantage to targetting advertisements at young children, since anyone would be able to profit from the publicity McDonalds causes.
Of course, it wouldn’t necessarily be McDonalds-specific; amend trademark laws in that manner for all companies, so as to make it impossible to cultivate a “brand awareness” in little kids.
the McD wrapping is an interesting idea, but given that you’re dealing with the company that sued the owner of a small cafe with the last name of McDonald for copyright infringement and brand dilution, it ain’t gonna happen. even if it did, i’d think it a bad idea in the long run. it might prevent squabbles with toddlers, but you’d still be building and maintaining brand loyalty — even if the kids weren’t actually eating mcdonalds, they’d be associating the brand with everything that passed their lips.
i’m not really sure it’s possible at this point to break anyone of their brand loyalties. i don’t even think legislation would do it; even if it were possible to prevent a specific logo from being cleanly associated with a particular establishment, kids would still clamour for happy meals.
opop: that’s an interesting line of thought, though i haven’t seen it in operation myself. of the two people i know who can’t hang with teh spicy, the aversion is across the board: everything from salsa to sichuan.
Subject A was raised by brits, so i can’t really fault him for the lack of exposure to spices more exotic than salt. through sustained effort, and inspired by curiosity, though, he was able to break out of the ‘i can’t eat that!’ mindset. i am proud to say that he now even likes thai food, provided there is plenty of liquid on hand.
Subject B, alas, seems just not to be interested in any food not readily obtainable in a drive-through setting. he will eat, say, green chile, if you happen to order it on a pizza, but he’s totally unwilling to break out of the bland american cuisine in which he was raised.
also: while i do find that image disturbing as hell, i don’t really think the fact that the skintone is arsenic white has a larger bearing on the message; the ad team was just trying to make the thing look like a baby Ronald. granted, it makes for weird juxtaposition, given that the facial features — except for the lips — don’t sync well at all.
My British MIL says my spaghetti sauce is too “hot”, and I’d made a special version for her with no pepper. To her, rosemary tasted hot.
And speaking of spaghetti sauce, here’s a nice cheapy, if you have a big pot, and hopefully access to a Costco (the company that made Wall Street Journal annoyed by treating its employees and customers too well!). Costco has HUGE cans of tomato puree or chopped tomatoes (6 pound cans).
Take one can of pureed or chopped tomatoes, according to your preference. Add, if available, about a half cup of red wine– Charles Shaw (2 buck Chuck) is as good a brand as any for this. Spice to taste. I have a garlic allergy so add cumin instead, which helps give a depth of taste. Worchester sauce is nice but not necessary. Chopped dried or fresh onion is a must, and other good spices are oregano, thyme, sage, red pepper, basil and rosemary.
To add protein, cooked ground beef OR textured vegetable protein + water can be added. I use textured vegetable protein.
Dried shiitake mushrooms (also available at Costco) are a very nice addition, once broken into small pieces. They add complexity of flavor, extra texture, and help fill you up.
Cook on low heat for about an hour. Prepare pasta of your choice.
The leftovers will serve 2 for at least four more meals. Put in plastic containers and freeze to alternate with your lentil-rice mix.
Costco is, though, another case of the hidden costs of being poor. Costco is a member’s only shopping club, and the lowest-cost membership costs $50. You can probably save that pretty quickly, but you have to have the money for the initial capital outlay. Then, you need to have a way to get those huge, heavy containers of food home. That’s almost always a car: Costco isn’t a good option for people who are dependent on public transit. Similarly, 2 Buck Chuck is cheap, but they don’t locate Trader Joes in low-income neighborhoods. Many poor people would have to spend hours on the bus in order to get that cheap wine, which somewhat cuts into its real cheapness.
(Plus, there’s the air-conditioning thing, this time of year. It’s not fun to simmer sauce or boil water for pasta when it’s sweltering and you don’t have air-conditioning. I speak from experience on this one.)
I think that it’s very hard for middle-class people to understand that it is considerably easier for them to cook cheap meals than it is for poor people.
I’m having trouble with your anti-spam thing, too, Amanda. I don’t know why!
*nods* I want to second this … I can’t tell you how many times I have heard from people “just shop at Costco!”
I’m a carless phd student, so I can’t afford the membership cost, I don’t have a car to carry the products, so large they need their own zipcode, home, and even if I could, where in my apartment would I put all of it? Not to mention, I don’t have a family, and a small freezer … what am I supposed to do with a barrel of any kind of sauce before it goes off?
People don’t realise that their shopping techniques are not only a matter of income, but also their homes, and the fact that they use their cars for everything.
I do make one concession though, I do pay a bit more in rent to live in a neighbourhood where things like Trader Joes are accessible on my daily commute each day on public trans, so it’s not out of my way, and doesn’t cost me too much in time. I just hop off the subway, grab groceries, and hop back on.
I will say I do have a way to make cheap meals through the summer … salads. As I said above, I tend to shop in asian neighbourhoods where the fruit and veges are cheaper, so making a salad out of whatever is on sale there (and Trader Joes helps with cheap base bags of nice - NOT iceberg! - lettuces and greens).
Sprinkle just enough cheese on top for a hint of a taste (by only using a small amount each time, you can actually afford GOOD cheese, and avoid the crap mass-produced orange blocks of flavourless shite).
The thing is with salads is to purchase things with lots of flavour to go on top of your greens. Bell peppers, sour pickles, 80 cent bunches of spring onions, red onion, cans of artichoke pieces, cans of black olives, etc, etc. Throw on some dried herbs and fresh black pepper, and get some small bottles of good vinegar (I like Balsamic and Rice myself) and just put on some sprinkles ….
Doing this will allow you to have an amazing amount of taste, without pouring on the heavy creamy dressing and drown your salad to make up for the blandness, AND keep prices down.
If you really want meat on your salad, do what I do from time to time … purchase some cheap packaged ham and salami, chop it up into small pieces and scatter that on top.
(ditto on problems with the antispam btw)
I’m not really sure it’s possible at this point to break anyone of their brand loyalties.
I so hear this.
Before the entire country was completely saturated in 100% multinational pan-regional corporatism, the New Orleans metro area (where I grew up) had a lot of regionally branded institutions. This started to really change in the mid to late 90’s, when the regional drug store chain K&B was bought by Rite Aid. More than a decade later, there are still people who wax nostalgic about K&B’s branding.
They used this particular shade of dark purple that will always be, for several generations of locals, the “platonic ideal” shade of purple. For some reason, they had their own branded pencils, which they sold at ridiculously low prices and gave away free at back-to-school time — people still reminisce about “K&B Pencils”. They had their own generic-brand ice cream, which everyone of a certain era insist was The Best Ice Cream Ever Known On The Planet Earth (even though, seriously, it probably came from the same factory as every other store’s off-brand).
Imagine if, for some reason, McDonald’s went under, or was dismantled by the government — 50 years from now, you’d probably have people still mythologizing the Golden Arches, still talking about how McDonald’s Used To Have The Best Fries Ever.
The other thing about CostCo is that, while the prices may be cheap for the quantity you get, they’re not necessarily cheap in absolute terms. Even if you limit yourself to non-perishables, paying $20 up front for 3 dozen rolls of toilet paper makes less sense than buying a 6-pack for $2. It only works out for people who have the kind of money where you can spend $200 in one biannual trip to CostCo.
Here in Australia, McDonalds (or Maccas) is part of the established fast food scene, along with the chains like Burger Kings (Hungry Jack’s in some states), Subway, KFC, Pizza Hut, Dominos, and soforth. I prefer the Hungry Jack’s burgers to the McDonalds ones, and I prefer the burgers I can get at the average sandwich shop to either of them (mainly because *those* burgers tend to have things like bacon, egg, pineapple, beetroot, cheese, fried onion and similar, as well as a meat pattie which isn’t anorexic and tasting of cardboard). But then, I don’t eat hamburgers regularly - they’re a sometimes thing. If I’m going to have one, given I’m fat and look it, and have long since become accustomed to the rude stares of people who think they can generalise what I eat every day from one lunch, I’m going to have a damn good one.
I’m not one for fast food most of the time. The main flavours are either sugar or salt, the food is inevitably either overcooked or undercooked (or occasionally both) and it’s never much of a variety. So I’m much more likely to spend a bit of time heading down to an Asian goods store and picking up some of the more obscure ingredients for various curries or spicy dishes and then cook something up myself at home. That way I get a better variety, I can make it as spicy as *I* like (as opposed to the rather anaemic versions which are sold by most shops; I’ll cheerfully eat a curry which is melting the spoon I’m stirring it with) and if I don’t like a particular component (eg when it comes to nachos, I don’t want either guacamole *or* sour cream) I can leave it out. Of course, I reached this conclusion after several years of living on a diet which was comprised largely of either take-away meals, or reheated zappables from the supermarket freezer section, purely because after a week of full-time work, I’d be too damn tired to cook. These days, I have the time and energy to cook, so I *do*.
I grew up learning to cook. We had take-away food very rarely, and when we did, it was usually Chinese. Most of the time, food was home cooked. By the time I was nine, I was preparing Sunday lunches for my Dad, my brother, and myself. Once my younger brother could see over the sink, we were both on dishwashing duty, but the house rule was the person who cooked didn’t have to deal with the dishes. It was a pretty good incentive to learn to cook. My mother and I can still remember me coming home from my first cooking class at high school. We’d not done anything - just sat and watched while the teacher explained how to boil water, how to boil eggs, how to butter toast, and how to make a club sandwich. I told my mother about this while preparing a roast chicken dinner for four.
I can prepare a pretty good meal for about four people without too much forethought or even planning, providing I keep a few staples in the pantry. My number one “oh shit, I’m hungry and I haven’t been shopping for ages” meal is Pasta Putanesca, which is a tomato, garlic, basil, anchovy and olive sauce which gets cooked up while the pasta is boiling. Beef Satay and a Beef Diane casserole are another couple in my mental recipe book, along with any number of variations on the theme of “steak and three veg”. I can also make marmalade without having to look at a recipe. It’s been a while since I made any jam, marmalade or other preserves (no fruit growing in the garden, which to my mind is necessary for this sort of thing). I’ve any number of recipes, though, and I tend to keep records of which ones need tweaking (oddly enough, these days most tomato sauce recipes appear to be tweaked for store-bought fruit, which means they’re entirely too sweet).
Samantha: “Take one can of pureed or chopped tomatoes, according to your preference. Add, if available, about a half cup of red wine– Charles Shaw (2 buck Chuck) is as good a brand as any for this. Spice to taste. I have a garlic allergy so add cumin instead, which helps give a depth of taste. Worchester sauce is nice but not necessary. Chopped dried or fresh onion is a must, and other good spices are oregano, thyme, sage, red pepper, basil and rosemary.”
For me, I would absolutely have to leave out the cumin and the red pepper. That’s all I would taste. Yes, I’m really that sensitive to it.
I had a friend make a big pot (like 4 quart size) of chicken noodle soup from scratch. Her recipe included 1 tsp of curry powder. Now 1 tsp of anything diluted in 4 quarts of liquid, plus items like meat, vegetables (carrots and turnips) and thick egg noodles, shouldn’t be *that* noticeable. It should just support the other flavors. I took one spoonful, and my tongue started burning just a little bit - like the feeling you get if you drink something hot a little too quick. *That’s* how sensitive I am to hot spices. And it’s across the board - Thai, Szechuan, Mexican, Latin American - heck, there are even Greek and Japanese dishes I can’t eat because of the hot spices. Just me and my poor over-sensitive tongue. :p
Needless to say, there are a lot of convenience foods I simply don’t buy because they spice the hell out of them with sweet red peppers (for color), curry, or chilis. Considering the sodium content of most convenience foods, I don’t really consider this a problem, but they are called “convenience” foods for a reason. Sometimes I miss being able to just nuke a frozen dinner when I’m really rushed for time between work and whatever activity I’m involved in. Sigh.
Oh, and in response to the “high quality” of the fish, etc. used in sushi/sashimi - my gag factor doesn’t care. Fish I’m more than willing to eat cooked (and cooked properly, I don’t like overcooked fish anymore than anyone else) is revolting to me if served raw. Guess it just means more for you guys, right?
Naturally, I don’t eat organ meats, either. I’m sure my revulsion at liver started with being served liver that could have been used as the soles of hiking boots (nasty, nasty!), but once I understood how organs like livers and kidneys work, I couldn’t bring myself to eat what are basically poison filters. My husband adores liver and onions, but he only gets it at restaurants.
We all have our food hangups, don’t we?
“McDonald’s preys on lower income neighborhoods”
Ok, I won’t dispute that, they do. HOWEVER, Starbucks is what you find in the wealthier neighborhoods. Expensive and fattening! Yippie!!!
Now to my real comment. Our father never blind folded us to have a pizza taste test. That didn’t happen. My sister refused to eat black olives so she got her own pizza of just pepperoni.
The disliking McDonalds thing….very true. We rarely got to eat out, much less at a fast food resturant when we were younger.
I took one spoonful, and my tongue started burning just a little bit - like the feeling you get if you drink something hot a little too quick. *That’s* how sensitive I am to hot spices.
It sounds like the problem isn’t that you’re oversensitive to spice, but that you simply don’t like the way it tastes. Spicy foods are meant to “burn” a little; that’s how humans perceive “spiciness”. Of course, if you don’t like that, you don’t like it.
Grendelkahn:
Missed your comment earlier. Um, I just winged it, to tell you the truth, because the recipe is pretty much fly by the seat of your pants stuff. You make what tastes good to you, and yes, fifty-fifty lentil and rice is fine. Drop in all the vegetables you please. You have to cook the stuff until it is a bit thick and then, once you’ve mixed it all together, let it sit overnight in the refrigerator. It gets thicker that way. Also, be careful turning the lentil burgers because they do break apart even with an egg mixed in. As for how you mix it in, I did it with my fingers. I would grab a pile of lentil/rice mix, put it in a bowl, and mix the egg in with my fingers.
I can offer no more refinements that that. When it seems done to you, it is.
No one can doubt McDonalds has a marketing machine going on, but in reality they are NOT in the food business, they are in the real estate business. Just so happens they have food.
Couldn’t pass this one up…
“1. Vodka does have taste. You have to get a bunch of them lined up that are manufactured from different stocks (wheat, potatoes, kasha, honey) but you can indeed taste the difference.”
I imagine several different vodkas lined up for a “taste test”. I take the first one, goes doesn’t quickly, kind of smooth and then it happens. Suddenly my mouth feels as if it were taken hostage by a fire breathing dragon. So then I take the second one, to compare to the first. I can taste nothing though, because my mouth is still numb from the first one. So I take the third, thinking this one will be different. Again I taste nothing as I still have no feeling in my mouth. By the fourth one, I can barely stand, much less taste it. Conclusion, vodka taste taste can’t be proven.
Has anyone else notice the amazon.com ad near the bottom of the page? BIG ad for a McDonalds book.
Sally, sarah, and opoponax - thanks.
That’s what I was trying to get at earlier. Not that the recipe ideas aren’t great - I think that part of the problem is that lack of experience with cooking makes it harder for a lot of people to see where corners can be cut. However, like a lot of things, the problem is the system, not just bad parents who are too lazy/stupid/busy to cook - or even bad companies who don’t care who they hurt in their quest for profit
It’s not as if McDonald’s targets the areas they do because they have to fill a quota for Satan, or becuase the people who live there are too stupid to know any better, they target them because it’s profitable to do so and it’s profitable to do so because most people who live in such areas have limited options.
By the fourth one, I can barely stand, much less taste it.
Couldn’t you just taste each one, instead of taking the entire shot? Or wait a little bit, or drink something else to clear your palate, like with most taste tests?
Not that I’m putting thought into this, or anything.
You all are making me hungreeeee. . . .
MAJeff, you have pho? IN YOUR PANTRY? I’m coming over for dinnah!
Sure do. I’m down to my last jar, and not making any more until I’m in the new apartment…when i do, I’ll invite ya over.
I can the broth, and freeze individual containers of raw beef, herbs, onions and scallions. When I want some, all I have to do is get the noodles ready, empty the frozen container on them, and open/heat a jar of broth and pour it over. Add some chili sauce and lime juice and I’m a happy girl.
When fall arrives, my cubbards are full of tons of soups and stuff. I’m down to about 6 jars of everything right now.
Probably a bit too late to catch anyone here, but did you see the study that showed that if a wine bottle has a label that says it came from CA (as opposed to ND) then the people like the wine more, like the food they’re eating with it more, eat more food, and are more likely to return to the restaurant?
Here are a couple points from the study to keep us savvy eaters humble:
To confirm this, a similar study was conducted with 49 MBA students at a wine and cheese reception. Again, those given wine labeled from California rated the wine as 85% higher and the cheese as 50% higher.
“Small cues such as origin or a wine or whether the label or name catches your eye often trick even serious Foodies,” said co-author Dr. Collin Payne. “He (Wansink) has even conducted demonstrations of this at at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and Apicious Culinery Institute in Florence.”
I hate clowns, and I’m going to throw up now, because that picture is so scary!
On the brighter side of things, my fear of clowns did help me avoid McDonalds.