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MCDONALD’S HAS CONFIRMED that the decision in the US to remove cheeseburgers and chocolate milk from its Happy Meal menu in an effort to cut down on the saturated fat and sugar that children consume at its restaurants will not impact Irish menus.
The fast-food chain in the US said that diners can still ask specifically for cheeseburgers or chocolate milk with the children’s meal, however, it said that not listing them on the menu will reduce how often they’re ordered.
Since it removed fizzy drinks from the Happy Meal menu four years ago, orders for them with Happy Meals have fallen 14%, the company said.
The Happy Meal, which has been around for nearly 40 years, has long been a target of health advocates and parents who link it to childhood obesity. McDonald’s has made many tweaks over the years, including cutting the size of its fries and adding fruit. Most recently, it swapped out its apple juice for one that has less sugar.
Ireland’s approach
McDonald’s in Ireland confirmed to TheJournal.ie that recent changes to the Happy Meal menu announced in the US will not impact on the Irish menu.
“We take our responsibility to families very seriously and in Ireland, we have, for a long time, been committed to evolving our Happy Meal menu to keep in step with what parents want,” a spokesperson for McDonald’s Ireland said.
The spokesperson said that McDonald’s Ireland has “pioneered” an extensive salt and sugar programme in recent years.
They also outlined that there has been an increased choice of Happy Meal combinations, including offering low-fat Irish milk and mineral water as alternatives to the fizzy drink included with the meal.
Fries can also be swapped for carrot sticks or a fruit bag in Irish McDonald’s.
“Not only can you choose these as a side whenever you buy a Happy Meal, you can also always add a fruit bag to the meal for only 50 cent,” the spokesperson said.
Because of these options, McDonald’s Ireland won’t be making changes such as those in the US.
Other US changes
There will be other tweaks made to the US McDonald’s menu too.
The six-piece chicken nugget Happy Meal will now come with a kids-sized fries instead of a small.
Bottled water will be added as an option to the US Happy Meal. This is already an option in Ireland.
McDonald’s will make the changes, including new nutritional standards for the Happy Meal changes, by June in the United States.
For all international outlets, McDonald’s Corp said that at least half of the Happy Meal options available must meet its new nutritional guidelines. The company said some are adding new menu items to comply, like in Italy, where a grilled chicken sandwich was added to the Happy Meal menu.
“It’s a good step in the right direction,” said Margo Wootan, the vice president for nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
“We would love to see many more restaurants do the same.”
With reporting by Associated Press.
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The Elite in this country are not going to take their foot off the ordinary persons neck until we get up off our knees
Well said!
We have some way to go before we even get to our knees.
The most likely scenario is stagflation (low growth, high inflation) for the rest of this decade, and even beyond.
That will mean a few bank bail-ins, such as in Cyprus, so be very careful with your savings, if you have any.
Oh, and an austerity budget each year too.
Look out below.
2014? We’re barely surviving in 2013, another year of austerity will totally sink the country!
I really don’t think people realise that austerity is permanent. Even if we reach a stage when we can balance our incomings and outgoings, every spare cent will be used to pay rich people’s gambling debts for generations. There seems to be a fallacy that when the bailout ends our trouble will be over. The day our mighty government legalised wealthy people’s gambling debts ensured permanent austerity for ordinary people.
Lately I’m just feeling compelled to leave this link in places like this:
http://thechatteringmagpie14.blogspot.ie/2013/07/the-emperor-has-new-clothes.html
We export or starve, its that simple. Creating parasite jobs such as water meter installers and readers is a cop out way of governing the nation and only business large and small have ever created real jobs so get the obstacles such as petty EUSSR rules out of the way and let them get on with it.
“We export or starve, its that simple.” Nonsense. Ireland produces far more food than it consumes.
George,
The potato famine was a long time ago. We produce an excess of food which we export. In the event of Irish people starving as Morticia seems to think is imminent, that food supply would be retained in the country or the government would quickly find themselves removed from power, probably violently.
Morticia also doesn’t seem to accept the role of government in creating jobs. The private sector will never provide an adequate supply of sustainable jobs for the people. How could they when the objective of private enterprise is to produce as few jobs as possible and pay them as little as possible in order to maximize profit.
The necessity of the state intervening to plug the massive gaps in the free market system and create employment for its people was well understood from the 1930s onwards. Post WW II (near) full employment was the norm in the U.S, UK, Europe, Australia, Canada etc. which rarely had unemployment higher than 2% and where prosperity was far more equally shared. The government employed millions of it’s own citizens in these countries and did so with newly created money from their own central banks where necessary.
Since the 1980s however, self serving neo liberal economics has gained world wide traction which sees an elite get ever richer while they peddle myths to the rest of the population such as “We must balance the books” , “Austerity is the only alternative”, “Banks are the engines of growth”, “ Don’t restrict the markets with regulation”, “ only business large and small have ever created real jobs “ etc etc.
Obviously the use of a ‘figure of speech’ can be confusing for some, but where does all the magic money to fund the generosity of our various govenrments come from ? Do we have a big collection box somewhere for donations or do we sell stuff abroad to bring in the few bob.
Morticia, apologies if I read too much into an off the cuff figure of speech. We can export goods to generate money that is true. Real sovereign countries can also create their own currency to fund a budget deficit if the so wish. The U.S does not need to borrow dollars in the financial markets. It can simply create them by pressing keys on a computer in the Federal reserve. Ireland handed that power over to the ECB when we joined the Euro and are paying massively for that mistake now. The ECB has created over a trillion euros in that’s past few years and distributed it to the European banks at extremely low interest. Ireland has been forced to massively hike our taxes and shred our social systems to get the funding at a much higher which the ECB can create on a whim. This is neo liberal economics in a action.
“neo-liberal economics” what exactly does that mean????
the UK and US employed the theory of “Quantitive Easing”, the US more than the UK, especially considering all their austerity cuts in comparison with the US.
The ECB should do so aswell without the restraints!
Each job is worth 20 k, looking at the jobseekers app ,its hard to see a job paying more than 18k..that includes some trades ie.welding/painters/panelbeaters etc..If the race to the bottom continues the country will never recover.
Too many employers taking advantage..if you cant pay a living wage you shouldnt be in business.
How is someone going to be able to spend on minimun rate..as a poster said on another thread recently there are over two million medical cards in issue..so apart from the approx 350,000 on the register there are over 1,750.000 people who cant afford basic healthcare from their wages/salaries.
If thats not a damning indictment on a country..what is?
The race to the bottom benefits no one.
I hear what you say but I absolutely despise your attitude!
forgive me if I’m wrong but the way I interpreted your last comment was “work pay = x”, “welfare et al = x + 1″, why should I get out of bed?!??
please tell me I’m wrong?!?
wrong end of the stick Pat.Can you explain to me how having almost 2 1/2 million people dependent on welfare to some extent is benefitting the country.Only people the minimun wage benefits is the employer, who is effectively subsidising their wage bill via FIS etc
I know from experience that the working poor who have allmost no spending power after paying the essentials are paying the price.!
If you have no discretionary spending because of low wages/high taxes..(relatively) and stealth taxes..how can you lift the local economy?
Everyone cant earn 50k+but surely a worker is entitled to a living wage in one of the most expensive countries in Europe!
I am sure IBEC will have a counter agreement soon. “Austerity” call it by the correct name a Recessionist policy
“argument” not agreement.
“indirect taxation or other income streams instead” In other words introduce further regressive taxes that screw the workers, poor and unemployed and don’t tax the incomes of the rich!
A suggestion IEA and Noonan make 2013 the last budget of austerity otherwise there will be no Ireland to rescue.
Hopefully someone from the business communirty can answer a question relevant to this item. How much money do we need in circulation to create a job? I was told by a person [expert in such matters] that each £100,000 in circulation supported a real job but that was in c1984, is there a more recent figure? With so many ‘jobs’ piggy-backing on manufacturing it would be nice to figure out where our priorities lie.
have your say