I hate clowns, and Ronald McDonald gives me yet another reason to dislike those laughing, painted creatures that annoyed the poop out of me as a child. Indeed, Ronald McDonald and the sub-par restaurant he represents just bother me to no end.
Why? I have two small children. While my 11-month-old daughter isnt old enough to pester me about McDonalds, my five-year-old son is. Kids love to go to McDonalds and play all over the little kiddie park theyve got going there. What that means is, my son is too busy trying to play on the indoor jungle gym at McDonalds to worry too much about eating his dinner there, and Im stuck eating fries, drinking Coca-Cola and muttering curse words under my breath.
McDonalds is geared for children, see, and the restaurant has one goal in mind when it comes to food -- keep it cheap as possible. That translates into chicken nuggets that are full of dark meat and God only knows what else and hamburgers that have too high of an eye ball count for my liking. The fries taste okay, but the potatoes used to make them are so, errr, genetically enhanced that Im not sure you can accurately call them potatoes any more. The food, for the most part, tastes rather like cardboard and is as bland as can be.
And, breakfast isnt much better -- dry biscuits and scrambled eggs that taste rather like simulated eggs. The cheese Danish there is okay, though, but I try not to think about whats in it. The coffee there is okay, but its nothing special -- just cheap ol Folgers, Maxwell House or something along those lines.
While I might sound like Im being a bit harsh toward McDonalds, its because thats my intent. Out of all the fast food spots in the world, McDonalds uses about the cheapest food substitutes it can find, and anyone who claims to find anything healthy there is lying. While good health isnt a concern of fast food restaurants, McDonalds is about the worst of the bunch -- using the cheapest ingredients cant lead to anything good.
Want proof that McDonalds uses cheap garbage? My wife works for the corporate headquarters of Tyson Foods, one of the largest providers of chicken (and now pork and beef since the company purchased IBP) in the world, and makes the chicken nuggets for McDonalds. McDonalds has directed Tyson to create nuggets made with the cheapest stuff allowed by law. The emphasis, see, is on quantity and low prices rather than food meant for human beings. The story is, Im sure, the same for beef and everything else served at McDonalds.
Oh, and one more thing. Avoid this place.