Thursday, February 24, 2011

Nuts & oats

A columnist for the NY Times takes McDonald’s version of oatmeal to task for being, well, the McDonald’s version. Which is to say, without any redeeming social or nutritional value.

Okay, fair enough—who would really expect anything under the golden arches to be anything except high-fat/high-calorie? I mean, even the salads chalk up high totals of both—even before you pile on the dressing.

But what I’m wondering is how long will it take before some self-absorbed be-labeled Yuppie with more credulity than grey-matter decides to sue the chain for deceptive advertising.

& lest you wonder what I’m talking about, I refer you to the San Diego “concerned mother” who has sued the company that makes Nutella for exactly that.

Seems that she was shocked—shocked—when her friends informed her that the chocolate-hazelnut spread she’d been feeding her four-year-old daughter daily was “in fact not a 'healthy' 'nutritious' food but instead was the next best thing to a candy bar." (Quote from her complaint.)

Evidently Athena Hohenburg didn’t notice the jar’s nutrition label (mandated on all food products) where it said that each two-tablespoonful serving contains 21 grams of sugar & 200 calories (with 100 calories from fat).

Like many of her class she seems to be literate enough to file suit, but not enough to read a label.

& that’s why I expect to at some point see news of the suit (possibly class-action) against McDonald’s when someone becomes shocked to discover that their oatmeal has more calories than a hamburger.

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