Fast-food experts analyze 5,427 kids' meals -- only 33 are healthful

[proverbialwisdom]

Source: Los Angeles Times

By Karen Kaplan
November 5, 2013, 1:23 p.m.

It’s not often that the so-called food cops have kind words for the fast-food industry, but there are a few of them in a new report on the offerings from restaurants such as McDonald’s, KFC and Taco Bell -- and how they are marketed to kids.

Analysts from the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity – a leading proponent of efforts to remove sugary drinks from schools and impose a sin tax on sodas, among other initiatives – analyzed the menu offerings from 18 fast-food chains. They considered all the possible combinations of main dishes, sides and drinks – for a total of 5,427 possible meals.

Eleven out of 12 of the restaurants with kids' meals had at least one option for a side dish that the Rudd Center considered “healthy,” such as sliced apples, bananas, fruit cups, applesauce, green beans, corn or salads (yes, there are three types of salads for kids at Panera Bread). In addition, more than three-quarters of the restaurants offered a healthy drink choice, usually unflavored milk, 100% juice or bottled water.

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That’s about where the praise ended. Among the 5,427 possible meals that could be served to children, only 33 met the recommended nutrition guidelines set by the Institute of Medicine. We’ll save you the trouble of doing the math – that works out to less than 1% of offerings.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-fast-food-kids-meals-20131105,0,2460434.story#axzz2joDa4Nv9

[DeSwiss]

1. If it's GMO, it's all poison.

- No matter how many vitamins and mineral is has.....

K&R

MONSANTO GMO's NEVER MET MINIMUM SCIENTIFIC TESTING PROTOCOL STANDARDS

"Our study contradicts Monsanto conclusions because Monsanto systematically neglects significant health effects in mammals that are different in males and females eating GMO's, or not proportional to the dose. This is a very serious mistake, dramatic for public health. This is the major conclusion revealed by our work, the only careful reanalysis of Monsanto crude statistical data."

Other Problems With Monsanto's Conclusions

When testing for drug or pesticide safety, the standard protocol is to use three mammalian species. The subject studies only used rats, yet won GMO approval in more than a dozen nations.

Chronic problems are rarely discovered in 90 days; most often such tests run for up to two years. Tests "lasting longer than three months give more chances to reveal metabolic, nervous, immune, hormonal or cancer diseases," wrote Seralini, et al, in their Doull rebuttal. [See "How Subchronic and Chronic Health Effects Can Be Neglected for GMO's, Pesticides or Chemicals." IJBS; 2009; 5(5):438-443.]

Further, Monsanto's analysis compared unrelated feeding groups, muddying the results. The June 2009 rebuttal explains, "In order to isolate the effect of the GM transformation process from other variables, it is only valid to compare the GMO … with its isogenic non-GM equivalent."

The researchers conclude that the raw data from all three GMO studies reveal novel pesticide residues will be present in food and feed and may pose grave health risks to those consuming them.

[JI7]

2. fast food should be seen as a rare treat

[KurtNYC]

3. And are the numbers any better for adult meals?

CW says that people go to restaurants to eat food they don't make at home. KFC doesn't claim to be a spa and their core customer doesn't expect it to be.

It sounds like grandstanding when they make it "all about the kids" and pretend that fast food outlets have been hiding something healthy just for them. Might be better to focus on what the healthy options are rather than play math games and come up with a 'less than 1%' stat.

[Dopers_Greed]

4. It's a business model

They are selling kids the disease now, so eventually they'll have to buy the treatment

[jsr]

5. +1.

[blkmusclmachine]

6. One half of one percent. That sounds about right, for the fat old USofA, unfortunately.