He may never have walked underneath its golden arches and sat at its plastic tables, and chomped at a burger or tucked into an apple pie. But that hasn’t deterred the Prince of Wales, Charles, from proposing a global ban on the global food giant .
During a recent visit to a diabetes centre in the United Arab Emirates, Prince Charles asked a nutritionist, “Have you got anywhere with McDonald’s? Have you tried getting it banned? That’s the key.”
The key to improving the health of children.
Expectedly, McDonald’s says Charles’ position is disappointing and showed that he was out of touch. But is the Prince of Wales, an organic farmer in his own right, right in making a connection between healthy eating and well-being, or is McDonald’s just an easy whipping boy for the health ills of the world?
More importantly, those of you in the US of A who have survived on it in tough times, do you think McDonald’s be stopped in India before it spreads further? Will it kill our local foods? Or is this too much ado over McAlooTikki (registered trade mark)?
Cross-posted on kosambari
To my knowledge, McDonald’s has not killed any local food even here in the US. I don’t know much about the bad effects of having it around (I don’t eat it as I am a vegetarian), but the one good thing is that it does drive people to become more aware of their own foods. As a result, local foods in most parts of this country are now celebrated and written about.
Whether the aam admi has access to it is another question.
Contributing a stub to this discussion. You all need to watch “Fast Food Nation” directed by Richard Linklater to understand the world behind those swanky McDonalds outlets
No question of banning..if people want to eat Mc that is their decision..however we must aggresively promote the ills of Mc and the food its sells..
How many more things do we want to ban?
Whatever happened to the concept of ‘responsibility’?
Why doesn’t banning of cigarettes and/or tobacco stop their consumption? Likewise ‘prohibition’ for alcohol.
‘Banning’ assumes that supply will create its own demand. Today you ban McDonalds, Great! Why not ban Wimpy’s, Wendy’s, KFC, while you are at
it? Since you are banning all these joints, maybe we should also ban the burger, the french fry, and the apple pie while we are at it.
Maybe to prevent everyone from being ‘poisoned’ by these foods, we should also install detectors in everyone’s kitchen that alerts authorities when anyone tries to cook this ‘hazardous’ items.
While we are on the health food issue, why not ban the Dosa, Vada, Poori, and any Indian food which, in one serving does not meet the strict, no oil, no fat criteria of health food junkies!!
If people are hell-bent on stuffing themselves unhealthily, let them face the consequences. If people prefer to nibble at carrots all day long in self-contented righteousness, let them not force their righteousness on us. For God’s sake, let’s not turn the Lord’s Prayer into ‘Give us this day our daily, low-fat, low carb, fibre rich, organic, animal-friendly, non-pesticide bread’!!