Posted on 02/28/2007 7:51:39 AM PST by BenLurkin
LONDON - Prince Charles suggested Tuesday on a visit to the United Arab Emirates that banning McDonald’s fast food was crucial for improving people’s diets, a British news agency reported.
Charles’s comments came while visiting the Imperial College London Diabetes Center in Abu Dhabi for the launch of a public health campaign, Britain’s Press Association news agency reported.
”Have you got anywhere with McDonald’s? Have you tried getting it banned? That’s the key,” Charles asked one of the center’s nutritionists, according to the news agency.
A McDonald’s spokeswoman called the remark disappointing. ”This appears to be an off-the-cuff remark, in our opinion,” she said on condition of anonymity, in line with company practice in Britain.
The Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald’s Corp. took steps last year to display nutrition facts on its packaging and vary its menu to counter charges that its food is unhealthy and contributes to obesity. There are 25 McDonald’s franchises in the United Arab Emirates.
Charles, who is first in line to the British throne, is an active advocate of organic food. He set up a farm on his Highgrove Estate that does not use artificial pesticides or fertilizers in 1986.
The prince was in the United Arab Emirates with his wife, Camilla, as part of a tour of Gulf countries.
The United Arab Emirates has the world’s second highest number of diabetes cases per capita. One out of five people aged 20 to 79 already suffers from the illness, while 40 percent of the population is at risk for developing it.
Well, that's what the free market is for. IIRC, the royals never even carry money, so they have no concept of it.
It is amazing to me that people are so down on McDonald's food. Or ANY fast food of ANY ethnicity. It is MUCH LESS crappy and greasy than fish and chips (which will give you instant pancreatitis it is so greasy.)
What people need to do is just get lumberjack-type jobs that force them to burn 8000 calories a day. Then McDonald's would be perfect and cost-effective.
That is what is wrong with the world today: these candy-ass desk jobs.
Why don't we just start by banning monarchies instead?
My husband is too and we rarely eat fast food. In his case, it's hereditary. I find the incidence in UAE interesting, though. I do genealogy and all the records say hubby is English and German. But he looks Middle Eastern. He was once asked if he was lebanese by a waiter in a ME restaurant. Ii STILL think there's more about him than we know from the legal records.
This from a nation whose favorite snack food is deep-fried Mars bars
He set up a farm on his Highgrove Estate that does not use artificial pesticides or fertilizers in 1986...Big deal. One year the farm doesn't use pesticides or fertilizers.
Are you kidding? McDonalds makes the only edible food in the entire United Kingdom!
I must, for a brief moment, stand in defence of our British cousins.
1) Breakfast. When I was over there, breakfast consisted of fried eggs, toast, fried toast, fried potatoes, BBQ beans, bacon, and some sort of white thing that looked like a sausage but had absolutely NO flavour. Aside from the fried toast, which seemed pointless, and the sausage-like thing, which was nasty, it was all excellent. And English tea is a reasonable substitute for coffee.
2) Fish and Chips. I've has some truly hideous objects labeled "fish and chips" ... in the USA. I've also had good fish and chips in the USA. And good fish and chips in UK. It doesn't have to taste like 10W-40.
3) Beyond that, my only real complaint is that they (even in the 'ethnic' restaurants) have no idea what "spicy" means. None whatsoever.
Other high calorie foods His Royal Chuckness needs to get banned:
1. Shepherd's pie
2. Scones
3. Shortbread
4. Beef Wellington
5. Trifle
6. Ale and beer
7. Pasties
8. Cottage pie
9. Bangers and mash
10. Steak and kidney pie
11. Fish and chips
12. Treacle and toffee
Get to work, Chuck. You will no doubt lose your throne in the process, so there will be an upside for the rest of us.
I'm not saying that we should ban fast food. I'm saying that we should ban *just* McDonalds - at least until they start serving food and not their current "food substitutes."
And figure out how to dispense a Hot Apple Pie that is not served at the temperature of atomic fusion.
I have no problems with Burger King, Taco Bell, Jack In The Box, Krystal, or any other chain.
I would be nice and skinny if I lived in England!
Prince Charles is a fascist a-hole.
The deep fried Mars bar is not a widely eaten snack.
British food can be fairly dubious at times but it's not like it's the only country in the world with a lot of people who don't eat healthily *cough cough*
Except that what McDonalds serves as "food" isn't. It's something cooked up in the McChemistry Lab.
They taste great. Wouldn't have one every day though.
That breakfast has to be a bigger calorie/cholesterol blowout than an Egg McMuffin and some hash browns from McD's.
LOL!
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