> "but there's a difference between an occasional indulgence"

Indeed...

> "and the business model that depends utterly on persuading the most persuadable people to harm themselves, for no other reason that they were persuadable"

You've lost me. You compare McDonald's to Philip Morris - even though one produces a highly addictive substance and the other produces (crappy) hamburgers. Last I checked, burgers are non-addictive.

In what way is McDonald's core business model dependent on something more than "occasional indulgence"? If we are to play the game that a business can only succeed if people are mindlessly, constantly, repetitively consuming its products, then we should be beating down the doors of, say, Redbox. After all, their business model works best if everyone sat on their asses all day doing nothing but watch movies.

I do not see the argument at all that McDonald's business hinges on the abusively high consumption of their foods. They are in no way worse than any number of peddlers of less-than-healthy foods. Where is the outrage for Ben & Jerry's? Frito Lay? Campbell's?

"A growing body of medical research at leading universities and government laboratories suggests that processed foods and sugary drinks made by the likes of PepsiCo Inc. and Kraft Foods Inc. aren’t simply unhealthy. They can hijack the brain in ways that resemble addictions to cocaine, nicotine and other drugs.

“The data is so overwhelming the field has to accept it,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “We are finding tremendous overlap between drugs in the brain and food in the brain.”"

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-11/fatty-foods-addi...

Not saying the science is done, but there's a strong possibility that burgers are addictive.

Surprisingly, Sweet Tea (otherwise known as would-you-like-some-water-with-your-sugar in the south) has about 15 grams less carbs in the large than a Coke. I think I might never order another coke again.

Frito Lay is possibly even more morally fraught than McDonalds, since a large part of their business involves marketing themselves into kids lunches.

I'm not sure where Campbells comes into this. It's not great soup, but it's soup.

Obviously, there are people who think there's nothing wrong with a particularly successful marketing campaign for an unhealthful product. There are plenty of people who think there's nothing immoral about selling cigarettes.

I don't think less of those people, but I strongly disagree with them.

This is the same thing as pointing to the banks for selling CDOs. Risky for the banks? No. Risky for the whole system to collapse? Yes. Since systematic risks are largely not direct risks they never get counted as risks to begin with, and therefore do not impact decision making.

Well fats are addictive. Not in the you will die from withdrawl like heroin or alcohol way, but in the way that gamblings and sex is.

And like the other guy said - it's backed up by science too. The insane amounts of fat, salt, and sugar spike the reward processors in the brain WAY past what they're built for. They are hacking you.

Some people must think they taste "good enough", given their popularity. Convenience and price obviously play big roles here, but they are also likely choosing McDonalds over other options on at least some basis of taste.

> But make no mistake that McDonalds is a business that is, if not as harmful as Philip Morris, gradable on the same scale. For the most part it's a company whose core business model is "leverage unfathomably vast marketing resources to coerce large numbers of people into making the least healthful dietary choice available to them at any given moment".

In Australia, they actually [no doubt due to social pressures] a large range of "healthy options" that are actually half-decent. I'm not sure whether they offer this stuff in the US, but compared to the numerous fried chicken, roast chicken and Burger King restaurants here, they are leagues ahead.

Note that I'm not defending their past behaviour-which I think we can agree was abysmal-but they have at least tried to reform and for a business of their size and brand, is no easy feat.

Can't comment about US ones.

UPDATE: And I didn't like it in the US either.

This was surprising to me. You can make a much better burger than McDonalds in 10 minutes with standard equipment. Just take some minced meat, form it into a flat cylinder, rub some olive oil salt and pepper, cook it in a frying pan, after you turned it around add (real) cheese on top and cook the other side, slice a bread in two and roast it a little in the same pan, and stack up the burger with some lettuce, tomato and some mustard and/or ketchup. Why can't a company whose primary purpose is to make burgers not make a burger half as good? It's not like the ingredients here are more expensive. Or do people really prefer McD's burgers?

Don't get me started on restaurants that use canned peppers and mushrooms that make the whole pizza wet and acidic. Also: http://popsop.com/wp-content/uploads/kraft_cheese_snack_befo... WTF? "Natural cheese made with 2% milk no added growth hormones"

They don't coerce anyone to eat their food. What a ridiculous hyperbole.

Or are you seriously going to argue that McDonalds has ads that are considerably more emotionally manipulative than other typical advertisers?

Yea well that's just your opinion man.