Why do people love to sneer at McDonalds so much

[FinnyStory]

And blame them for obesity?

A Big Mac has 508 calories, a lot but not excessive if that's your lunch once in a while. A Costa Brie and Bacon panini has 517 calories, a no more satisfying or nutritionally valid choice surely?

In Prezzo, their hummus starter has over 600 calories! They have mains at over 1000 calories and their menu is similar to many other restaurants more acceptable to MNetters, which is why I looked them up, not because I have anything against Prezzo.

At least in McDonalds you can choose a salad or a lighter wrap if you want it, very many coffee shops and cafes don't even offer those things.

IMO McDonalds have made far more effort on these things than most and yet as soon as people talk about obesity, it won't be long before families who frequent McDonalds are vilified, although a gastropup or more upmarket restaurant chain seems to be considered OK?

I don't like McDonald's because they don't have any crockery or proper cutlery.

Sorme people (can you hear me Mum?) like to look down and sneer at the mainstream and the popular. It gives them a sense of superiority. McDonalds is definitely a target for that sort of snobbishness (as are Strictly, Ant and Dec, package holidays, Ed Sheeran and many others)

McDonald’s didn’t get to be the globally known brand it is by producing unpleasant food. For it to be a success it has to be consistently delicious. I wouldn’t waste my time trying to pretend it’s healthy, sometimes being inexpensive, convenient and tasting great is enough.

@BarbaraofSeville Probably ubiquity, tbh. Bears more responsibility for the fast food industry because it has a wider reach than most other companies.

Historically, I would say, its bad rep also was linked to their treatment of people (see European Court of Human Rights' ruling on the McLibel case).

I think it's because of its reputation from years ago when it DIDN'T have healthier choices. Also as a pp has pointed out the meat is not organic, it's intensively farmed and acres of rainforest were destroyed to make room for the beef cattle etc etc I thinks it's ethics, as well as snobbery, as to why people choose not to eat there and try to discourage their kids from eating there.
It stems from looking down on people who put cheap food before ethics. Although I don't necessarily think it's cheap to buy, for the cost of a meal deal I could cook something far healthier. Again another reason people who go there are eyed with suspicion, they're deemed too lazy to cook decent quality food for their kids.

It's come to something when you can't say you don't like McDonald's or similar food without being accused of being a snob. I hate the sugary taste of the buns, the little bit of limp lettuce, the smell in the place, the environmental impact of so much beef being grown for fast food, not to mention all the disposable tableware.

I love their coffee adverts .

I don't like oysters either. What does that make me?

TBF, shrunkenhead, the ingredients in UK McDonald's are v different to US McDonald's, with regard to meat provenance. Cattle fed on grass is the norm in the UK, and tastes far better than grain-fed cattle. Also doesn't contribute to loss of rainforest or even woodland in the UK. (Or Ireland, as most of the beef comes from there).
But no, it's not organic-designated produce.

The bread is still that horrible sugary American-style bread too.

@Chicchicchicchiclana

It's come to something when you can't say you don't like McDonald's or similar food without being accused of being a snob. I hate the sugary taste of the buns, the little bit of limp lettuce, the smell in the place, the environmental impact of so much beef being grown for fast food, not to mention all the disposable tableware.

I love their coffee adverts .

I don't like oysters either. What does that make me?

You know it's not about not liking it but about the way people sneer at those who do

Lots of negative language from OP and others. 'snobbery' 'snearing' etc.

It looks more to me like you've started this thread to snear at those who refuse to eat the low quality, low taste shite that is served at mcdonalds. Inverse snobbery if you will.

I haven't been to one for over a decade since I watched Supersize Me. I suggest you look it up and take note.

Also, as well as the awful food, they use the drug dealer method of get them young, keep them for life. Why do you think the kids meals come with plastic tat? It's to set up a pattern of reward and associated good feelings in the unformed minds, that translates into a lot of the opinions we are seeing here of how amazing the food is. It isn't, but your brain is telling you it should be as you remember the pleasure of the sugar kick and the plastic crap from your own childhood.

Intensive farming, loads of packaging / plastic etc, super sized portions seen as normal ( I find a happy meal a perfectly good size but everything is large) also all the urban myths about cysts in the chicken etc ...

A lot of people like McDonalds. I never felt “sneered at” when eating there. Who are these people that sneer? Where are they?

I also associate it as a teenager hangout. I remember sitting in one with my daughter as a baby. We was eating and she wasn't. Some teenage lad chucked a straw at me on purpose and my partner wouldn't let me say anything. I know people who work there who also have to deal with allsorts of gobby rude people. It's hardly a classy place.

hardlyworking the tobacco industry used to use a similar technique on children. Chewing gum that resembles cigarettes, normalising smoking and making a connection between cigarettes and pleasant childhood memories.

Coincidentally, they also call their customers “users”. “Heavy users” are their best customers. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Thirtyrock39

Intensive farming, loads of packaging / plastic etc, super sized portions seen as normal ( I find a happy meal a perfectly good size but everything is large) also all the urban myths about cysts in the chicken etc ...

Valid concerns but McDonald's isn't worse than elsewhere. The portions, aren't bigger than anywhere else and they've taken more steps than most re packaging. A supermarket sandwich has a lot more packaging than a paper wrapped burger, for example.

I'm not by any means saying it's perfect, I actually don't remember the last time I went, it was well before lockdown, it's the way that people are determined it is inferior, when the fact is most eateries are pretty poor and on many counts McDonald's better than many.

I wouldn't eat anything from Macdonalds, Prezzo or Costa TBH. All the bread is vile, there's next to nothing fresh available (i.e. fruit & veg), it's all prepared & cooked ahead of time, & it's mostly full of highly refined carbs & fat, & low value protein. Very little fibre, little nutritional value (by which I mean vitamins & minerals).

I wouldn't call any of them a "treat", but I'm not forced to go in there & I don't judge people that do go in there, it's their choice.
I do silently judge people that feed their kids on that kind of food every day basically from toddler age without any other kinds of food, especially fresh food - not necessarily home cooked but at least sandwiches or something from a supermarket salad bar, or somewhere you can sit down & choose off a menu & get vegetables on the side as standard. But even then, I wouldn't say anything. It's not my business. It must be so difficult to have such a restricted diet that you can't cope with any food that isn't heavily processed. (I have a seriously restricted diet myself but I'll be damned before I'll pass any of that on to DD.)

I find McDonalds burgers tend to give me indigestion, but then so do burgers from other places. I don't think there is anything intrinsically worse about fast food from McDonalds than fast food from other outlets. We don't go often, and I don't really view it as a treat, but if we are travelling or late back from a day out etc and need something quick to eat then we do sometimes go to McDonalds because it is convenient.
Obviously it isn't a great idea to eat a lot of processed food, wherever you buy it from, and as a general rule when I do get a takeaway I prefer to support small local businesses rather than big chains if possible. But I don't believe that the occasional fast food meal is terribly harmful and McDonalds does offer more variety and healthier options than it used to. I think most people's objections are based on outdated knowledge about the menu or snobbery. No doubt there are healthier and more ethical options but there are also worse.

@Hardlyworking

Lots of negative language from OP and others. 'snobbery' 'snearing' etc.

It looks more to me like you've started this thread to snear at those who refuse to eat the low quality, low taste shite that is served at mcdonalds. Inverse snobbery if you will.

I haven't been to one for over a decade since I watched Supersize Me. I suggest you look it up and take note.

Also, as well as the awful food, they use the drug dealer method of get them young, keep them for life. Why do you think the kids meals come with plastic tat? It's to set up a pattern of reward and associated good feelings in the unformed minds, that translates into a lot of the opinions we are seeing here of how amazing the food is. It isn't, but your brain is telling you it should be as you remember the pleasure of the sugar kick and the plastic crap from your own childhood.

I don't have any feelings at all about people who refuse to eat there, it's the people who feel they must put down those who do that I object to.

It's not always fast food that makes people obese. It's quite clear from the fact that a lot of famous chefs/foodie are quite big themselves, even though they must be eating fresh food cooked from scratch every day.

"I do silently judge people that feed their kids on that kind of food every day basically from toddler age without any other kinds of food"

I honestly don't think those people exist. I work with children in one of the most deprived areas of the country, that's not a lifestyle they recognise. They know what it is to be hungry and when there is food it won't always be good quality but they aren't in McDonalds every week, let alone evey day.

In any case, their families live under the kind of stress that means mere survival is success, I'm not going to judge them for that either.

It is pure snobbery and virtue signalling, as demonstrated on this thread by the posts about the ‘sorts of people’ that frequent McDonald’s.

The occasional happy meal is not going to render a child obese.

Valid concerns but McDonald's isn't worse than elsewhere
I think, as I said to Barbara, that it's the sheer ubiquity of McDonald's. They shoulder more blame for rainforest destruction, packaging etc because they basically revolutionised fast food in the fifties, and made it global. The sheer number of McDonald's sold each day has an enormous environmental impact due to the volume, whereas somewhere like Byron only make a tiny impact in comparison, and minimal packaging issue because most is eat-in.

This is why I don't eat there:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-50262547

Obviously cos it’s not all about the calories!!!

Eat five Big Macs a day for a year and run 800m. Then eat 2500 healthy calories a day for and run the same race. One you’ll be running the Big Mac you’ll be crawling.

500 calories of healthy food and 500 calories of junk are very different. Healthy food has calories plus loads of good stuff. McDonalds is the same without any good stuff.

Lots of people like to sneer.

I am old enough to remember the McLibel case (there is a Ken Loach film if anyone is interested) and McDonald's using its corporate power and wealth to silence and ruin legitamate critics of its ethics, including cruelty to animals, destruction of valuable rainforest habitats and wasteful packaging.

So for me it is not snobbery but ethics that makes McDonalds a company that will never profit from me. I have never been and never took my children - the 1980s don't feel like ancient history to me