by Jonathan Benson
The world’s most well-known fast food corporation is in damage control mode after an internal resource that the company created for its employees embarrassingly advised them to stop eating its own food offerings. CNN reports that the McDonald’s corporation officially shut down its so-called “McResource Line” after an official nutrition guide posted on the site warned McDonald’s employees that eating a burger, fries and a Coke — the staple meal at McDonald’s — is an “unhealthy choice” when it comes to food.
Originally developed for the purpose of helping McDonald’s employees take ownership of their own health through communication and education, the McResource Line, which draws its content from various third-party sources, was apparently a little bit too honest when it came to providing McDonald’s employees with nutrition advice. A photo feature displaying a cheeseburger meal like the kind sold at McDonald’s, labeled the “unhealthy choice,” was contrasted with a submarine sandwich, salad and water, labeled the “healthier choice,” an image that was later pulled by the company.
“We are temporarily performing some maintenance in order to provide you with the best experience possible,” read a new landing page posted not longer after McDonald’s officials caught wind of the inconvenient photo. “Please excuse us while these upgrades are being made,” it added humorously.
McResource Line offers disastrously inappropriate advice about how to tip your pool cleaner
Earlier in the year, the McResource Line was publicly ridiculed for several other major gaffes, including a budget-planning guide that was completely inappropriate for the average McDonald’s employee.
Besides failing to account for major living costs like food and gasoline, the guide contained references advising McDonald’s employees about how to properly tip a pool cleaner, a housekeeper and even an au pair, all extravagant services that most hourlywage McDonald’s employees would likely not have.
“A combination of factors has led us to reevaluate and we’ve directed the vendor to take down the website,” explained an official statement released by McDonald’s not long after the most recent faux pas. “Between links to irrelevant or outdated information, along with outside groups taking elements out of context, this created unwarranted scrutiny and inappropriate commentary. None of this helps our Mc- Donald’s team members.”
Virtually nothing in a typical McDonald’s value meal is a ‘healthy choice’
Nice try, McDonald’s, but the McResource Line was right about this one. A processed beef patty derived from feedlot cows topped with cheese-like substance and brominated white bread is hardly a healthy choice, no matter how you want to spin it after the fact. The same holds true for acrylamide-laden fries dripping in genetically modified (GM) soybean oil and a high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)-sweetened soft drink to wash it all down. There is nothing “outdated” or “irrelevant” about the fact that each of these food offerings is detrimental to health.
“In general, people with high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease must be very careful about choosing fast food because of its high fat, salt, and sugar levels,” reads the now-deleted warning to McDonald’s employees about the dangers of eating most of what McDonald’s sells at its restaurants.
These same foods, it stated, “may put people at risk for becoming overweight.”
