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The lack of responsibility and other problems...


Spaceman Spiff

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I'm bored at work and I got to reading an article where McDonalds is putting the nutritional value on the wrapper of the sandwich...in other words, when you order a double quarter pounder you'll see that its 500 calories or whatever it is...two things came to mind...

1. What good does this really do? You've already bought the stupid sandwich, it's staring you at the face, are you going to return it because of what the wrapper says?

2. And more importantly...the quote that really got me in this article was...

"The burger giant is responding to critics who blame fast-food chains and their outsize meals for the high rate of obesity in the U.S. One criticism: People don't really know how many calories or grams of fat the burgers and fries have."

Has our culture really deteroirated to the point where people are too lazy to look up nutritional values for a hamburger and fries online? Not to get all high and mighty here, but when I want to go get some fast food but not eat anything thats too bad, it takes me 5 minutes to go to the companies website and check out whats good and whats bad.

Which brings me the larger issue at hand...is it me or do people seem to be less and less responsible these days? Less responsible in their actions and less responsible for taking blame. It's just a feeling I get, and this example, as stupid as it is, points to that.

What are some other problems that you see in this country? Please please PLEASE leave politics out of this. I don't want to check back in a few minutes and see Chomerics and Sarge duking it out over the war. ;) There are a hundred other threads for that.

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Which brings me the larger issue at hand...is it me or do people seem to be less and less responsible these days? Less responsible in their actions and less responsible for taking blame. This nailed it on the head. A large percent of people always have to have a "reason" for their personal shortcomings or failures. It is never their fault, Im overweight because McDonalds, I fail at work because so and so has it in for me, blah blah. I guess this is "easier" for a lot of people than to concede their own shortcomings and try to improve on those.

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You are making a good point about responsibility Spiff, but you have picked the wrong target, I think.

How is it bad to have nuitritional information easily available to you? You can still eat the burger, but then you will know how much more crap you can eat that day before consuming 3000% of the appropriate sodium intake, or whatever. Having this information allows people to be more responsible for thier actions, not less.

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You are making a good point about responsibility Spiff, but you have picked the wrong target, I think.

How is it bad to have nuitritional information easily available to you? You can still eat the burger, but then you will know how much more crap you can eat that day before consuming 3000% of the appropriate sodium intake, or whatever. Having this information allows people to be more responsible for thier actions, not less.

It wasn't about the nutrition values being easily available it was more about, "critics who blame fast-food chains and their outsize meals for the high rate of obesity in the U.S."

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Which brings me the larger issue at hand...is it me or do people seem to be less and less responsible these days? Less responsible in their actions and less responsible for taking blame. It's just a feeling I get, and this example, as stupid as it is, points to that.

What are some other problems that you see in this country? Please please PLEASE leave politics out of this. I don't want to check back in a few minutes and see Chomerics and Sarge duking it out over the war. ;) There are a hundred other threads for that.

The word "blame" has so many connotations. I think using the word "blame" often throws people off. Yes, many people are in the "who's to blame" mode, always blaming others. Yet "taking blame" is the same process but directed at oneself. I think the biggest problem is the process itself.

Blame others - other suck!! Blame myself - I suck!!! Stop the madness.

Our situation is what we percieve it to be. Our reality is created by us inside of our heads.

No external thing can bring us happiness. Hapiness has to come from within. 100% from within.

We tend to forget that it all comes from within. 10 different people will feel 10 different ways in the same situation. Situations do not make us feel things, we chose to feel certain ways about situations. People do not make us feel things. Objects do not make us feel thigs.

Nothing makes us anything. :laugh:

We are too caught up with seeking happiness outside of ourselves. We forgot that happiness comes from being true to oneself.

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The word "blame" has so many connotations. I think using the word "blame" often throws people off. Yes, many people are in the "who's to blame" mode, always blaming others. Yet "taking blame" is the same process but directed at oneself. I think the biggest problem is the process itself.

Blame others - other suck!! Blame myself - I suck!!! Stop the madness.

Our situation is what we percieve it to be. Our reality is created by us inside of our heads.

No external thing can bring us happiness. Hapiness has to come from within. 100% from within.

We tend to forget that it all comes from within. 10 different people will feel 10 different ways in the same situation. Situations do not make us feel things, we chose to feel certain ways about situations. People do not make us feel things. Objects do not make us feel thigs.

Nothing makes us anything. :laugh:

We are too caught up with seeking happiness outside of ourselves. We forgot that happiness comes from being true to oneself.

1. objects do make us feel things

2. We do not choose to feel anything, it is a response to an event.

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It wasn't about the nutrition values being easily available it was more about, "critics who blame fast-food chains and their outsize meals for the high rate of obesity in the U.S."

That's why I said this was a poor example of a good point.

Putting the info on the burger wrapper is a good thing - blaming McDonalds because you are a Fatty McFatFat is a bad thing.

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So McDonalds has gone from posting NO information about the nutrition of a burger, to posting it on the wall of the restuarants, then to posting them on the internet, and now finally to posting it on the wrappers. WOW. Who here honestly orders a Big Mac and thinks its ****ing health food? ITS GRADE F MEAT AND DRESSING FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

Whats next? Are they going to argue with me when i try to order an artery clogger?

"Yes, i'd like a Big Mac Meal, and supersize it, im hungry :)"

"Are you sure sir?"

"Uh, yeah, im frickin' hungry"

"Well, sir, you know that the Big Mac Meal has over 1000 calories"

"Ok, then make it a Diet Coke, but lets go, im hungry :mad: "

"Well, i just dont think you realize the possible health consequences"

"I realize the health consequences of STARVATION, gimme my sandwich! :tantrum: "

"I just dont think thats a good idea sir"

"Well, i didnt ask you, uh, Chet, now make with the food before i come over the counter, and throw some extra salt packets in there! :cuss: "

"Im going to have to ask you to leave sir"

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I do agree that America is moving more and more towards a "blame" culture. When something goes wrong, often the first reaction is to look around and find out whose fault it is, rather than work together to make things right.

That said, I don't believe that this example is a good one. One of the microeconomic assumptions of capitalism is perfect information; increasing information can only lead to better decisions.

PleaseBlitz, I realize you were partly being facetious (and it was funny), but I bet there are people who have no idea that a double quarter pounder has 770 calories.

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PleaseBlitz, I realize you were partly being facetious (and it was funny), but I bet there are people who have no idea that a double quarter pounder has 770 calories.

So blame their parents for not teaching them ANYTHING! Can people really eat a sandwich from Micky D's and not think that it is bad for them? Im not saying they have to know that it has 770 calories and 22 grams of fat and 500mgs of sodium triglycerol or whatever. But if you had 2 food categories, HEALTHY and NOT-HEALTHY, who puts that garbage in the former?

McDonalds has done an admirable job putting the info out there IMO. I was being facetious, but unfortunately, I can see a time in the near future that the cashiers in McDonalds have to inform the customers verbally about the nutritional info, which just adds to the dumbing down of our society. Funny thing is, McDonalds doesnt care. They could stamp the information to people's foreheads, and they'll still order anyways. Hell, this thread is actually making me crave 2 double cheeseburgers and a biggy fries.

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This is a good thing and it has nothing to do with a lack of responsibility. It's about making information readily available. If you go to the drive through you don't have the nutritional information box readily available, so it makes sense to include this on the wrappers. I wish every restaurant were required to disclose an estimate of the nutritional information of thier meals, but that's too much of a perfect world I guess. Usually you can guess, but it's nice to know.

I'm also a bit stunned by the "it's bad for you" crowd. Yes it is, but some of us want to know exactly how bad it is so we can plan our diets around the occasional splurge. Can you be healthy and still eat at McD's every once in w ahile? Of course. Why shouldn't it be easy to figure out how often you should be able to do that?

Food doesn't belong in two categories. This kind of information is important.

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That's Wendy's man - McDonald's has super-size fries ... didn't your parents teach you anything? :silly:

Yeah, well i was typing double cheeseburgers to stay on topic, but i was thinking Jr Bacon Cheeseburgers. MMMmmmmmmm MMMmm!

Those are good for you right? Especially with extra mayonaisse?

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Not to derail the thread, but increasingly it's clear that there's no "good for you" and "bad for you" food. You can eat whatever you like, as long as it's in moderation (despite what the diet books say). OK, there are some exceptions (like arsenic), but in general, you can eat a double quarter pounder with cheese and still be pretty healthy. However, you'd need to know how many calories it packed. I could grill up a pretty good half-pound burger with cheese and nowhere near 770 calories; I wouldn't be surprised if people thought that McDonald's could too.

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Well, at what point does it become YOUR responsibility to find out what is in something before you ingest it? As far as im concerned, McDonalds is just a business that trades their burgers for your cash. Its YOUR responsibility to make the informed decision as to whether or not to make that trade. They arent forcing you to buy their delicious and convenient meals. They shouldnt be forced to tell you all of the bad things about their product.

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It's the old "caveat emptor" vs. "caveat vendor" argument. I agree that the line has to be drawn somewhere; I guess we have different perceptions of where that line is.

They arent forcing you to buy their delicious and convenient meals. They shouldnt be forced to tell you all of the bad things about their product.

We are DEFINITELY going to disagree about "delicious" here. :)

In an age where there's an overabundance of information, I think that sellers need to support disclosure to consumers, whether it's drugs or food or drinks. If I'm buying steak, I want to know whether hormones have been used in the meat without having to go home and look up the company and stuff. It's a far lower cost to society to have sellers provide this information, which is immediately accessible to them, than for each buyer to access it.

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This is a tricky issue i admit. The role of information in capatilistic society and who is responsible for it is not a clear cut one. I for one do think that the seller ought to be responsible for providing clear and accurate information about the product they are selling.

We can all agree that mcdonalds cannot lie. For example, mcdonalds cannot claim that they have adopted a new recipe with 200 calories per Q.P. and then proceed to make the burgers. Why not? Isn't it the consumer's responsibility to determine the veracity of McDonald's complaints?

But the question of how much info mcdonalds is forced to give up is also an interesting one. (also worht noting is that no one is doing any forcing whatsoever in this case, it is mcdonalds doing it of its own free will). I happen to belive that the best and most efficient thing to do is basically what we do now. Have the FDA require certain information be posted according to certain standards so that expectations are clear all around.

I know some don't agree with the above, and they have valid points, I just don't think it can really work any other way. We know that violations existed before the FDA came around, so without some way to know things would work out, I think we have to go with this system.

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This is a tricky issue i admit. The role of information in capatilistic society and who is responsible for it is not a clear cut one. I for one do think that the seller ought to be responsible for providing clear and accurate information about the product they are selling.

We can all agree that mcdonalds cannot lie. For example, mcdonalds cannot claim that they have adopted a new recipe with 200 calories per Q.P. and then proceed to make the burgers. Why not? Isn't it the consumer's responsibility to determine the veracity of McDonald's complaints?

But the question of how much info mcdonalds is forced to give up is also an interesting one. (also worht noting is that no one is doing any forcing whatsoever in this case, it is mcdonalds doing it of its own free will). I happen to belive that the best and most efficient thing to do is basically what we do now. Have the FDA require certain information be posted according to certain standards so that expectations are clear all around.

I know some don't agree with the above, and they have valid points, I just don't think it can really work any other way. We know that violations existed before the FDA came around, so without some way to know things would work out, I think we have to go with this system.

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Just kidding. Good post. :applause:

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Nobody who regularly smokes cigarettes does not know it's bad for them.

Nobody who regularly eats fast (fried) food does not know it's bad for them.

The listing of nutritional info hurts no one, but I doubt it helps many either.

I disagree, the listing of nutritional info hurts McDonalds. If people actually KNEW there were 770 calories in a double QP w/cheese and over 40 grams of fat, then people would not but them. Not everyone, but say maybe 5% of people. That is a GYNORMOUS amount of slaes in the billions of dollars to McDonalds, so it would directly effect their business.

I actually go back and forth on this one issue, but it is with the grease they use to cook the fries. They have stated many times that they are changing their grease, yet the never have. They use a trans-fat grease which is a known carcinogen and the leading cause of heart attacks in this country. Now, should they be FORCED to stop usinf trans-fat oils? Should they be allowed to use it, but should they have to lable their fries similar to cigs? like I said I go back and forth on this answer, and I have not yet decided which way to go, but it is definately a good question.

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for the record... a double quarter pounder has 770 calories. 1600 if you include the fries and coke.

As a general rule I have no problem making people label their products accurately.

For the record, do you think someone who scarfs down a couple double quarter pounders a day should have a right to sue McDonalds?

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