McDonald's Ditches Soda In Happy Meal Menus

fbmandy55

I am now craving a McDonalds fountain Coke!!

Why does McDonalds have the best diet coke ever? I know I am not the only person who has noticed this...On the other hand, Subway's pop always tastes super watered down. :sick:

Kanuenue

I think this is great. A company as large as McD's making small changes becomes a huge impact. I don't see any reason why a child should have caffeine and concentrated sugar as an expected part of a meal. It's not like it becomes unavailable, but a separate item from the boxed lunch. For many people, McD's is NOT a treat, but part of their daily food sources (or a similar establishment). And nutrition is still a confusing topic for many people, including parents. Giving people better options to begin with is better than nothing.

fbmandy55

I don't let my son eat the apples they serve in happy meals, anyone here who has tried them knows what I mean. To make yourself, slice up an apple and evenly coat your apple slices with firm hold hairspray.

spookiefox

http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/mcdonald-s-ditches-soda-happy-meal-menus/244431/?ttl=1380840330#prclt-zdhF1JiJ

McDonald's Ditches Soda In Happy Meal Menus
Company Will Only List Water, Milk and Juice as Beverage Options

McDonald's will offer side salads and fruit as an option in its value meals in its bigger markets, and will also begin pushing healthier drinks for its Happy Meals.

The moves are part of a number of health-centric global initiatives the chain announced today with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a non-profit founded by the Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association to reduce childhood obesity.

"This commitment reflects McDonald's progress regarding nutrition and well-being," said McDonald's CEO Don Thompson. He noted that it's "another important step in our journey. And we know there's more to do. We will continue to use our size and scale around the world to help educate, empower and encourage our customers to make informed choices so they can live a balanced and healthy lifestyle."

As part of its commitment, McDonald's will only list water, milk and juice as beverage options for Happy Meals on menu boards, in-store and external advertising. It will also utilize Happy Meal and "other packaging innovations and designs to generate excitement for fruit, vegetable, low/reduced-fat dairy, or water options for kids." The company promised to "ensure 100% of all advertising directed to children to include a fun nutrition or children's well-being message."

That McDonald's will be offering a side salad or fruit as an option in its value meals is significant in that to date it has only offered fries. How the salad and fruit options will affect the price of the value meals is unknown at this point, and how many consumers will choose the fruit or salad remains to be seen.

'Historic progress'
McDonald's has been historically slammed by consumer-advocacy groups for its food, especially for marketing Happy Meals to kids. And though some activists commend the moves, they believe there is more for the industry to do. "Getting soda out of Happy Meals is historic progress that should immediately be adopted by Burger King, Wendy's, and other chains," said Margo Wootan, nutrition policy director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "Soda and other sugar drinks are leading promoters of obesity and diabetes and one day it will seem crazy that restaurants ever made this junk the default beverage for kids."

Corporate Accountability International, another watchdog group, in May at the annual McDonald's shareholders meeting submitted a proposal asking the chain to assess the impact of its nutritional efforts. The proposal was voted down by shareholders.

Coca-Cola is the exclusive soft-drink supplier to McDonald's, which Beverage Digest said is Coke's largest fountain account by far. In a statement, Coca-Cola said, "We applaud McDonald's efforts to partner with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation. Obesity is a serious and complex global health problem which will take everyone's collective efforts. Earlier this year, we announced four global well-being commitments, including one to not advertise any of our beverages to children under 12. We have proudly partnered with McDonald's since 1955 and supply them with a wide variety of beverages, including low and no-calorie choices."

Marketing unclear
McDonald's in 2011 overhauled its Happy Meals to begin containing apple slices and fewer fries. It also offered low-fat dairy option, thought it was not the default. The result was a 20% reduction in calories in what the chain calls its most popular Happy Meals.

How McDonald's will market its Happy Meals moving forward remains to be seen, but the chain in early 2012 launched a Happy Meal campaign highlighting nutrition. Subsequent Happy Meal ads have highlighted lowfat milk and apple slices as opposed to the fries.

McDonald's will start the initiatives in 20 major markets representing more than 85% of global sales, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Taiwan, the U.K. and the U.S. An independent third party will assess its progress. McDonald's said that 30 to 50% of the 20 major markets will be implemented within three years and 100% of the 20 markets by 2020.

Fruit juice is no healthier than soda, and they charge extra for milk with a kids meal. They don't list soda, but it's a no added cost option. They do list milk, but you must pay extra to get it. This is a meaningless change, and the lede for this thread is misleading--they haven't "ditched" anything, just changed how the menu reads. The options are the same.

spookiefox

I don't let my son eat the apples they serve in happy meals, anyone here who has tried them knows what I mean. To make yourself, slice up an apple and evenly coat your apple slices with firm hold hairspray.

Actually, they are coated with citric acid which is what you do if you use the old trick of coating a sliced apple or banana with lemon juice to prevent browning.

JewelsinBigD

I think it is funny everyone here has negative comments about the menu change, mcdonalds would never have had to make these changes had people not complained and used fast good as the excuse for obesity in the US.

THIS!
Come on - you beat them down when its not healthy, you beat them down when they change to make it more healthy. Now we are even beating down fruit juice? At least fruit juice and milk have some redeemable nutritional value albeit sugar but you are not going to get your kids to drink water for every meal forever.

spookiefox

I think this is great. A company as large as McD's making small changes becomes a huge impact. I don't see any reason why a child should have caffeine and concentrated sugar as an expected part of a meal. It's not like it becomes unavailable, but a separate item from the boxed lunch. For many people, McD's is NOT a treat, but part of their daily food sources (or a similar establishment). And nutrition is still a confusing topic for many people, including parents. Giving people better options to begin with is better than nothing.

But it really doesn't lead to better food choices. There is more sugar per ounce (It's "more concentrated"), and a bigger percentage is fructose, in apple juice than in Sprite. Fruit juice is fruit with all the healthy nutrients removed. (It's heavily processed food.) IOW, Sprite is a healthier choice than apple juice. Milk is available with kids meals at McDonalds only as an upcharge. This does not make it more likely kids will get more nutrition at McDonalds.

spookiefox

Part of turning back the dial on the way this country's state of health is gone is making sure that access to unhealthy food is reduced, forcing parents to ask for a soda with their Happy Meal is a small, but actually effective, step in that direction. The fact that a Happy Meal de facto came with a soda was moronic, no meal fed to a child should ever "come" with a soda.

In fact, I'm in general all for forcing parents to feed their children healthy.

But you're assuming that someone who thinks exactly like you would be the one deciding what is "healthy" and what isn't. What if the hypothetical regulatory body put in charge of arbitrating such matters DIDN'T agree with you? You'd be a lot less hot to trot with government interlopers making your decisions for you, right?

Yeah, the people who are all for forcing people to do things are always only all for forcing people to do what they think is best. They never want to let people with other views to be the deciders of what is right and wrong.

spookiefox

Well this will not work and will not last. As a parent we treat McDonalds and Happy meals as a treat or reward and part of the treat is having a soda. I'll give it a few weeks and people will be screaming or going somewhere else.

I did wonder this. How many parents/children are going to complain about not being able to order a soda with their Happy Meal? Quite a lot of people won't be happy with not being able to have a choice in my opinion.

As juice frequently has similar calories as soda this as guessed is just a PR exercise to appease the Soda is the work of the devil crowd.

The occasional Soda as part of a balanced diet is no problem

I used to think this too, I don't think there's anything wrong with having a bit of sugar in your diet but the other crap and chemicals that soda is full of does makes me wonder about how safe it is to consume. It only takes one search of 'chemicals in soda' on Google to bring up the word 'cancer' multiple times.

I think these ingredients should be banned until proven whether or not they're safe for human consumption.

Well, soda is full of chemicals, but only because everything that exists is made of chemicals. Water is a chemical, FFS. Can you be more specific as to which "crap and chemicals" in soda you think should be "banned" and why each one is harmful?

To help you out, here are the ingredients in Coca Cola:

Carbonated water
Sugar (sucrose or high-fructose corn syrup depending on country of origin)
Caffeine
Phosphoric acid
Caramel color
Natural flavor

Can you tell me which of these should be banned, and why?

RGv2

McD has offered sliced apples as an aternative to fries for some time. Only about 10% of parents opt for the apples though.

That's not even true anymore. They come with sliced apples and a really small serving of fries now, there is no opting.

sloth3toes

Yeah, the people who are all for forcing people to do things are always only all for forcing people to do what they think is best. They never want to let people with other views to be the deciders of what is right and wrong.

That's the American way.

america is fat

This should stop the argument, right there.

sloth3toes

Further to all this.... Why do you think they call it a 'Happy Meal?' If it was supposed to be GOOD for kids ( nutritionally.... ) they probably would have thought up a more fitting name. Like ... the 'It tastes like @$$ but it's good for you meal.'

What's happy about a kid eating sliced apple and orange juice? That sounds like what they'd dole out at preschool everyday.

knittnponder

As a parent I am the one who determines what my children are or are not allowed to eat and drink. I don't care what McDonald's, the government or anyone else say they should eat, we as the parents get the last word. My kids have not actually eaten at McDonald's or any other fast food place for several years. In part because the better we ate at home, the worse we felt when we ate at those places but also because we ended up having to go gluten free and most of those places are not safe for us now. When we go to parties or celebrations my kids are allowed to have an occasional can or glass of soda with whatever other junk food they're eating. Every now and then they eat junk but the norm is healthy.

McDonald's isn't alone in serving junk food that's bad for people, they just seem to get the brunt of the firestorm. Some of the sit down restaurants have far worse numbers than McD's! People need to quit blaming these places for choices they make.

MercenaryNoetic26

My 11yr old won't be down with giving up soda. Too late. Maybe there's hope for my 13mo old, though.

schonkreuz

I am now craving a McDonalds fountain Coke!!

Why does McDonalds have the best diet coke ever? I know I am not the only person who has noticed this...On the other hand, Subway's pop always tastes super watered down. :sick:

Its because they have a special ratio of soda water to syrup

bcattoes

Further to all this.... Why do you think they call it a 'Happy Meal?' If it was supposed to be GOOD for kids ( nutritionally.... ) they probably would have thought up a more fitting name. Like ... the 'It tastes like @$$ but it's good for you meal.'

What's happy about a kid eating sliced apple and orange juice? That sounds like what they'd dole out at preschool everyday.

Um .. what? I'm pretty sure "Happy Meal" is a marketing strategy. Eat our food, get a toy, play with the clown, be happy.

But I have no idea what you are trying to say above. That a child can never be happy eating an apple?

spookiefox

I am now craving a McDonalds fountain Coke!!

Why does McDonalds have the best diet coke ever? I know I am not the only person who has noticed this...On the other hand, Subway's pop always tastes super watered down. :sick:

Its because they have a special ratio of soda water to syrup

The ratio of syrup to water is determined by Coke, not McDonalds or Subway. Good post mix soda depends on the water being cold enough when it carbonates. Water carbonates better when it's really cold. It's also important to check the machines daily to make sure the syrup ratio is correct. McDonalds has very specific procedures for how their foods, including sodas, are made and their machines maintained to ensure consistency. As a result, most McDonalds have Coke products that taste most like what Coke intends them to taste like.

HeatherHoskins

As a reformed soda addict I do not let my child (3yrs old) drink soda. Chocolate milk is her treat. I know that as she gets older she will taste it and have it occasionally but as of right now I do not know what age that will be. I do however know it will be beyond the happy meals years. I think it is absurd that anyone would boycott McDonalds because of this choice.

PBsMommy

Further to all this.... Why do you think they call it a 'Happy Meal?' If it was supposed to be GOOD for kids ( nutritionally.... ) they probably would have thought up a more fitting name. Like ... the 'It tastes like @$$ but it's good for you meal.'

What's happy about a kid eating sliced apple and orange juice? That sounds like what they'd dole out at preschool everyday.

Believe it or not I can get my 19 month old to eat plenty of fruits and veggies, because she simply loves them. She would eat cherry tomatoes, kiwi, strawberries, and grapes every day, every meal if I let her... and guess what? She would be happy.... Now protein on the other hand, I have to sneak into things, and sometimes that doesn't even work:grumble:

Different things make different people happy. Saying orange juice and apples taste like *kitten* may be true for your child, but not true for mine. My daughter is like her dad, she likes what she likes and she doesn't like anything new. So sliced apples and milk would make her oober happy. Maybe throw in a small handful of fries for a treat. She would most likely eat those, but she wouldn't touch a hamburger or chicken nuggets....

I really personally do not understand were you get eating apples and orange juice taste like *kitten* and no one could ever be happy doing so... But different strokes for different folks.

sloth3toes

Further to all this.... Why do you think they call it a 'Happy Meal?' If it was supposed to be GOOD for kids ( nutritionally.... ) they probably would have thought up a more fitting name. Like ... the 'It tastes like @$$ but it's good for you meal.'

What's happy about a kid eating sliced apple and orange juice? That sounds like what they'd dole out at preschool everyday.

Um .. what? I'm pretty sure "Happy Meal" is a marketing strategy. Eat our food, get a toy, play with the clown, be happy.

But I have no idea what you are trying to say above. That a child can never be happy eating an apple?

Ya, I think so.... maybe.... now, I'm not so sure. I think I should just put down the keyboard for awhile.