Thanks all for the healthy criticism 🙂
Sometimes McD's is the only option that presents itself.
If I buy some triangle sandwiches, we might have to sit in the rain to eat them.
Very often we've found a cafe only to discover it is on the point of closing (2.45pm!)
Pizza hut is expensive and no healthier.
Pubs and all restaurants that have a kids menu consisting of nuggets and chips, again, that is no healthier.
We recently discovered Bill's, but when we tried to go there again it was full, and it's about twice the price of McD.
A chip shop: no healthier.
We don't have a large budget. The other option is to go home to eat, but occasionally we're out and can't do that.
At least at McDonald's the burger is plain beef, cooked on a hot plate and that's it. And I still have the budget afterwards for a banana or an apple from the tesco express. My kids only like milk and water, so they don't have the fizzy drinks or even fruit shoot.
Aside from that, when at home we don't have nuggets, or chips (I do have some in the freezer for emergencies). I can't pretend that they eat cucumbers, but things like home made lasagne, cottage pie, home made pizza with vegetable sauce. Toasties with tomatoes. That sort of thing.
On the toys, yes I remember the wind up fries! And the transformer milk shake!
But a lot of the stuff is tat to be honest. At least the paper dinosaur, I can recycle him easily. And again, they very often give a toy instead of the book my ds requests, even if the book is dreadful. I once again refer to the books given out in france, which are hardback, 20cm squared, and lovely stories. You can also have a beer and macarons in mcdonalds in france, so I think they're ahead on several fronts!