An Oxymoron: McDonald’s and Coca Cola Sponsor the Olympics

An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms such as “living dead”.

As their press materials explain, “McDonald’s has been a proud sponsor of the Olympic Movement for more than 35 years, and every dimension of our partnership reflects the Olympic ideals we share of excellence, teamwork and being your best. As the Official Restaurant of the Olympic Games since 1996, we are proud to feed the world’s best athletes, coaches, officials, media and spectators on-site at our four new Olympic venue restaurants.  We are connecting our customers to the Games by creating meaningful, relevant and fun experiences both on-site at the London 2012 Olympic Games and in our more than 33,500 restaurants around the world.”

McDonalds may be feeding, but are they nourishing the world’s best athletes, coaches, officials, media and spectators?!  The Weston A. Price Foundation recommends that in order to nourish ourselves, we “eat only foods that will spoil, but eat them before they do!”

As Dr. Joseph Mercola explains, “Manhattan artist Sally Davies has photographed a McDonald’s Happy Meal every day for six months. And it looks almost as fresh as the day it was bought, with no trace of decay.

The Daily Mail reports: “In a work entitled The Happy Meal Project, Mrs. Davies, 54, has charted the seemingly indestructible fast food meals’ progress as it refuses to yield to the forces of nature.”

However, it turns out that Davies has some catching up to do. A Hamburger Today reports that wellness educator and nutrition consultant Karen Hanrahan has kept a McDonald’s hamburger since 1996, which is pictured on the left below.  As you can see, it still looks the same as the fresh one on the right next to it!”

Mercola concludes, “Folks, wholesome food is “live” food, and the hallmark of live food is the fact that it will wilt and decompose. The fact that these burgers, buns, and fries do not decompose, even after a decade or two, is a clear sign that it’s just not real food, and serves no beneficial purpose as part of your diet.”

A look  at the list of ingredients in McDonald’s most popular items will reveal how a bread can remain mold free for years, embalmed in chemicals.  Mercola has linked to many of the ingredients below.

“Enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid, enzymes), water, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, yeast, soybean oil and/or partially hydrogenated soybean oil, contains 2% or less of the following: salt, calcium sulfate, calcium carbonate, wheat gluten, ammonium sulfate, ammonium chloride, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, datem, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, mono- and diglycerides, ethoxylated monoglycerides, monocalcium phosphate, enzymes, guar gum, calcium peroxide, soy flour), calcium propionate and sodium propionate (preservatives), soy lecithin.”

The editors of The Lancet argue that the Olympic “Games should encourage physical activity, promote healthy living, and inspire the next generation to exercise. However, marring this healthy vision has been the choice of junk food and drink giants—McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Cadbury’s—as major sponsors of the event. Health campaigners have rightly been dismayed. On June 20, the London Assembly (an elected body that scrutinizes the work of the Mayor of London) passed a motion urging the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to adopt strict sponsorship criteria that exclude food and drinks companies strongly associated with high calorie brands and products linked to childhood obesity. Meanwhile, the UK’s Academy of Medical Royal Colleges has said that the presence of McDonald’s and Coca-Cola at the 2012 Games sends out the wrong message to children.”

Jan Cho writes in her article for Care2, “The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has a responsibility to its brand like any other company or organization, and it makes no sense for junk food and sugared-up sodas, hardly the optimal fuel for body or brain, to be associated with world-class athletic achievement.” McDonald’s and Coca-Cola have signed as major sponsors of the Olympic Games through 2020. Cho reports that Jacques Rogge, president of the IOC confessed that “It was not an easy decision,” but he was forced to set aside his reservations in light of financial realities. McDonald’s and Coca-Cola are each paying up to $100 million for access to this market.

Malcolm Clark, writing for CNN, notes how “the sponsors try to sugar-coat their Olympic involvement with ever-grander sports and exercise schemes that they claim will make children more active.” The companies, however, “cannot disguise one salient fact: no amount of free equipment and sporting initiatives will make unhealthy diets any less unhealthy. This is what makes McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Cadbury’s such unsuitable Olympic sponsors.”

As Joel Salatin, the American farmer, lecturer and author asserts: “We don’t need a law against McDonald’s or a law against slaughterhouse abuse, we ask for too much salvation from legislation.  All we need to do is empower individuals with the right philosophy and the right information to opt out en masse.” 

There may be hope! Take a look at the Walt Disney Company who recently announced that it’s taking ads for junk food off its children’s programming.  The term junk food appears to be another oxymoron. As I recently read, “there is no “junk food”.  There is junk and there is food.” Food is defined as “any nourishing substance that is eaten, drunk, or otherwise taken into the body to sustain life, provide energy, promote growth, etc.”

Here are the dietary recommendations  we support – comprised of whole, real food that will nourish. Food that spoils! http://www.westonaprice.org/images/pdfs/healthy4life2011.pdf

Let us opt out en masse – do you think we can ever put McDonald’s and Coca Cola out of business?!