Ethicurean friend WW tipped us off to this recent BBC video clip of a U.K. McDonald’s executive facing off with Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser. This is the first time anyone from the fast-food chain has had the (meat)balls to appear with Schlosser, as opposed to just issuing press releases insinuating he’s an un-American vegetarian communist. (He is none of the above. We know because we [heart] Eric Schlosser. Who says bald and smart isn’t way sexy? But I digress.)
Alas, the host — known as “Ethical Man” (Justin Rowlatt, trying to live blamelessly for a year) — does not appear entirely unbiased. He leans heavily toward the popular English take that “those crazy fat Yanks need to take some personal responsibility and stop blaming corporations, who are just trying to make some money while they feed people, for heaven’s sakes” (creative license applied to paraphrasing). There’s a long introductory segment showing English cows destined for McDonald’s cavorting in green fields, and a farmer who is proud to supply the prime meat for those delicious Big Macs. That’s all rather deceptive, as Schlosser rightfully points out — the vast majority of McDonald’s beef is not raised that way, and since meat from hundreds of cows gets mixed together to produce your burger, the fact that one nano-protein of it came from the camera-ready happy cow doesn’t make it healthy … or ethical.
But Schlosser ultimately gets out-whined by the Mickey D. dude, and Ethical Man chummily gives the executive the last word. I’d say this evens the score to Schlosser 1, McDonald’s 1.
But: Fast Food Nation has been made into a feature film directed by Richard Linklater, with fictionalized characters meant to illustrate different ugly faces of ole Ronald McD, including inside a Mexican slaughterhouse. As Salon’s Andrew Leonard wrote about this scene, “Without venturing into lurid detail, you see the entire process by which a living, terrified four-legged creature is reduced to the source material for many identical little high-fat patties. None of the cast members who witnessed this personally (those present insisted) has eaten a fast-food burger since then.”
We’ll update our running score after we see the movie, if we can — cough — stomach it.
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May 26th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
What an unfortunate encounter. I thought this would be an opportunity to see McDonald’s taken to task for its part in the industrial food crisis. Instead, Mr. Schlosser spent half his statements in the interview giving praise to McDonald’s efforts to lower salt levels in food, offer organic alternatives, etc. His main gripe seems to be (I have not read the book, so this is strictly based on the interview) that McDonald’s is marketing to unsuspecting children, which if they stopped doing, would make McDonald’s an admirable business.
The reality is that this is exactly the kind of opportunity McDonald’s would look for to improve their brand image (”Hey, we’re a good company…don’t look at how the food is processed, what effects it has on people’s health, or how destructive it’s procurement is to the environment. Instead, look at the nice salads we offer.”)
I’m afraid that Mr. Schlosser did more harm with this interview than good.
May 30th, 2006 at 10:21 am
I agree with you, Zdean, it was a debacle. I suspect the editing had something to do with it. They left in his praise for what McD’s is not doing anymore, but took out any comments with teeth. I kinda feel Schlosser got mugged…by Ethical Man!