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Are you saying that is not possible? On the other hand they would have to pay you a lot more then 7.95 because 7.95 would not cover your grill rental , or the cost of the meat. Also, if you want health care, dental, you should look for something that pays better as you need and you can't forget that you will need to pay into Social security and state and federal taxes. So realistically you can't contract at Mc Donald's for less then say $15 per hour, the difference is some of that is already covered by MC Donald, health benefits ( sometimes ), scholarships etc. When you consider the full value of what Mc Donald's pays it is much higher then that I suspect. http://corporate.mcdonalds.com....

Although , there is something in my mind that also suspects most of the employees would rather just have the case and then decide for themselves what kind of benefits they wanted to buy.

    Also, since you are supplying the meat, there would have to be an expectation that you could source your own meat, the requirement for buying from a specific supplier would violate anti-trust laws. Since you are on call, you should also expect some kind of 'retainer' unless there is no obligation for you to show up.

I do think an economy where all employees are contractors is an interesting idea. It would have to have some further regulations, to really make it workable, but in theory the idea is that the employee gains both personal responsibility and control of their finances as well as having greater investment in the work product. Can you imaging the wage difference between those who can flip 10 burgers and hours and those who can flip 25, and since there is no expected obligation , there is no reason you can't check out burger king, McDonald, and Wendy's and see which one is willing to pay you more today.

I think the 'you will be penalized if you are unwilling to show up when we call you' is one of the major things that distinguishes and employee from a contractor. A contractor shows up when they agree to show up and and are/should always be paid for that agreement commitment. A employee is expected to be available when the employer assigns them duties.

I think your own experiences have skewed you perception of the kind of fast food places people see outside of your local city.

Almost every fast food place seems to have a drive-thru in much of the US* - maybe not in NYC but certainly in many parts of the US where land is cheaper.

I couldn't quickly find a percentage of restaurants with drive-thrus but a couple of sources say fast food restaurants get about 60-70% of their sales from drive-thrus.

For every fast food chain, about 60%-70% of the sales they have come from their drive thru services.

https://www.fastfoodmenuprices...

Approximately 70 percent of McDonald's’ U.S. sales now come from drive-thru windows.

http://news.mcdonalds.com/Corp...

That would be quite a feat if they managed to get 70% of sales from drive-thrus when only 1% even have drive-thrus.

* I suspect this may be part of the difference here. I imagine Europe has fewer drive-thrus but also probably fewer fast food places in general.

And when you re-join modern society, let me know how many paper applications you can get for jobs now in a (sub)urban center. Every McDonald's franchise location I've been to here has it posted "Now Hiring: Inquire at https://restaurantjobs.mcdonal...". When I worked at RadioShack 5 years ago, we never had a paper application to give out to someone coming off the street. All we could do was instruct them to view our website. Even 10 years ago the only way I could apply for a job at Best Buy, Staples, or Office Depot was through their website.

Sure...we're less than 20 years past the age of the AOL CD, but we're more than 5 years out from having a majority of jobs worth a damn behind paperless applications. Hell, even the shitty day-labor and temp service outfits around here no longer do in-person contracts / applications.

tl;dr: Get your shitty self out of the goddamn '90s you geezer. While you've had your head up your ass for the last 20 years the world has passed you by and is about to take a huge shit on your portfolio.

McNuggets don't have MSG in them.

Anyway, the idea that MSG sensitivity exists has been thoroughly disproved by double blind tests. Proteins are all broken down to component amino acids starting in the mouth, and glutamates are a very common amino acid essential to life.

Excitotoxic shock doesn't come from what you eat, but the body processes that involve amino acids. You don't understand what Excitotoxins are. Without glutamates we will die, and MSG is a simple salt of an amino acid, that dissolves in water.

It is true that glutamates can make some foods taste good, generally speaking it's very helpful for soups with little or no meat (meat is naturally high in glutamates already).

All in all, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

...has nothing to do with it. It's a stupid phrase used by ignorant people to describe something that is ubiquitous in food preparation. Even a chunk of venison cooked over a fire is chemically processed. What matters is the macronutrient composition of the food.

to a large degree, "chemically processed" is a proxy for high sodium. not necessarily for taste; for purposes of chemical engineering. Solubilize something by lowering the pH, for instance, then neutralize the pH by adding sodium hydroxide.
290 mg of sodium in 168 gm of mcdonald's french fries vs 240 mg in 370 gm of mcdonald's chocolate shake, http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com..., for instance, despite people's not thinking of a shake as salty, compared to fries. But the shakes are very highly processed, whereas the fries are just sliced fried potatoes, with all the sodium on the outside where you taste it.

Haha, what? You're whining about a manufacturer selling their product for whatever price they want to sell it at? Tesla "fixing the price" on their own products that they make and sell themselves, that's funny. How does a single company "fix" the price? They don't "fix" the price, they set the price, that's the price, anyone can buy it at that price. You might as well whine about McDonald's "fixing" the price on a Big Mac because they cost the same anywhere you buy them.

A good example, 80% are franchises and 20% centrally owned but you'd never know the difference. The franchising agreement controls pretty much everything, so would a dealership contract. Some people still hasn't figured out what car dealerships was all about. In the before time, before the Internet and all that the car manufacturer would need a retail store, effectively a dealership since nobody would order a car by mail order or over the phone. But instead of that belonging to a big car company that took all the profits back to their corporate HQ, laws were passed to make that a local business that would keep it part of the local economy. It's a bit of a protectionist racket, but the local customers may have wanted it. Today though you don't need a retail store, because you can do it online. The car manufacturers want to cut out the middle man, the middle men want to stay. It's become a protection racket for e-tail vs retail instead of local vs big business.

McDonald's does make burritos.

Nope. I'm quite sure they mean these bad boys. These NSA-types play mean and dirty.

McDonalds uses a blend which contains hydrogenated soybean oil.

As for "not worth it" I really have to ask: What criteria do you use to define "worth it"?

I know one popular brand of fry oil is Mel-Fry, which contains trans fats. Fry-On is another popular brand. The reason places use these blends is they last longer (fewer oil changes, less waste and less to buy), resist burning better (higher temps = shorter cooking times, less oil absorbed into the food) and add less oily flavor to the food overall. Other than the trans fat thing, there is virtually no reason NOT to use commercial frying blends.

Check the dumpsters behind your favorite restaurants or simply ask what they use in their fryers.

I'm not trying to completely demonize trans fats or anything, but I *am* saying that, much like high fructose corn syrup, it's virtually unavoidable because it's literally everywhere.
=Smidge=

and i see fat people drinking it all the time so it doesn't seem to be working

That's because they're usually ordering it with a Double Big Mac combo ;)

I've always found it funny when people order like that. As if the diet pop is gonna counter the 2234872184732 calories of a double big mac you're about to wolf down. Not to mention the fries (which of course has been super sized!)

When I go to McDonalds, there's no pretense of nutrition or calorie reduction. I order a regular combo with a regular coke :) Diet drinks taste awful anyways.

Soda is not a small part of the picture, it can be a LOT of calories over a day, or even in one meal.
Here's your medium combo, all from here, http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com...

50% 530 Big Mac
32% 340 Medium Fries
18% 200 Medium Coke ... the first one ...
I don't care if you only drink the first one, I'm not drinking four liquid chicken McNuggets each cup and don't worry about it.

So you don't like the taste of diet, I get that, but don't let it fool you into thinking soda is an insignificant source of calories or not worth cutting.
If that McDonalds is bad, your 21 oz of Coke is STILL 200 empty calories when you drink it with a 300 calorie salad.

When I go to mac donalds, I get a hamburger and a diet soda (I don't really care for the fries).
Makes sense for me, a 500-600 calorie meal. I't a nice lunch, tastes good (all beef, even MCD, is awesome this side of the world), and even has lettuce and tomato.

A standard McDonalds hamburger does not come with lettuce and tomato. Catsup, mustard, pickle, minced onions. Has 240 calories.

Notice the word "I". When _I_ go, I have a hamburger (type not specified) and a diet soda (also not specified).

The hamburger I get is a McNifica, which, does have lettuce and tomato, alongside a largish patty. Looked it up, 541 kcal (http://www.mcdonalds.com.ar/mcnifica).

In your example, that double big mac has 700 calories.

A Big Mac has 530 calories. Not sure what a double Big Mac is since it isn't a standard part of McDonald's menu. By itself a Big Mac is fine now and then but people rarely eat just a Big Mac. Usually they have some fries and a sugar loaded soft drink too. This easily can get the meal over 1000 calories as you mention which is about half the daily caloric intake for an adult male.

You are missing the point at "usually". The GP was complaining about fat people _omitting_ the sugar, effectively keeping the caloric below insane ranges.

When I go to mac donalds, I get a hamburger and a diet soda (I don't really care for the fries).
Makes sense for me, a 500-600 calorie meal. I't a nice lunch, tastes good (all beef, even MCD, is awesome this side of the world), and even has lettuce and tomato.

A standard McDonalds hamburger does not come with lettuce and tomato. Catsup, mustard, pickle, minced onions. Has 240 calories.

Notice the word "I". When _I_ go, I have a hamburger (type not specified) and a diet soda (also not specified).

The hamburger I get is a McNifica, which, does have lettuce and tomato, alongside a largish patty. Looked it up, 541 kcal (http://www.mcdonalds.com.ar/mcnifica).

In your example, that double big mac has 700 calories.

A Big Mac has 530 calories. Not sure what a double Big Mac is since it isn't a standard part of McDonald's menu. By itself a Big Mac is fine now and then but people rarely eat just a Big Mac. Usually they have some fries and a sugar loaded soft drink too. This easily can get the meal over 1000 calories as you mention which is about half the daily caloric intake for an adult male.

You are missing the point at "usually". The GP was complaining about fat people _omitting_ the sugar, effectively keeping the caloric below insane ranges.

When I go to mac donalds, I get a hamburger and a diet soda (I don't really care for the fries).
Makes sense for me, a 500-600 calorie meal. I't a nice lunch, tastes good (all beef, even MCD, is awesome this side of the world), and even has lettuce and tomato.

A standard McDonalds hamburger does not come with lettuce and tomato. Catsup, mustard, pickle, minced onions. Has 240 calories.

In your example, that double big mac has 700 calories.

A Big Mac has 530 calories. Not sure what a double Big Mac is since it isn't a standard part of McDonald's menu. By itself a Big Mac is fine now and then but people rarely eat just a Big Mac. Usually they have some fries and a sugar loaded soft drink too. This easily can get the meal over 1000 calories as you mention which is about half the daily caloric intake for an adult male.

Not a diet meal, but not that excessive. It even has a lot of lettuce, which is good against blood sugar spikes, esp. a good thing for most fat people.

No burger sold by McDonalds has "a lot of lettuce". It has at most a small piece (possibly shredded) the size of the bun. That is not a lot of lettuce using any reasonable definition of the word "lot". Furthermore to get enough fiber to actually affect blood sugar levels you would have to eat several cups of the stuff, far more than is in any McDonalds burger.

When I go to mac donalds, I get a hamburger and a diet soda (I don't really care for the fries).
Makes sense for me, a 500-600 calorie meal. I't a nice lunch, tastes good (all beef, even MCD, is awesome this side of the world), and even has lettuce and tomato.

A standard McDonalds hamburger does not come with lettuce and tomato. Catsup, mustard, pickle, minced onions. Has 240 calories.

In your example, that double big mac has 700 calories.

A Big Mac has 530 calories. Not sure what a double Big Mac is since it isn't a standard part of McDonald's menu. By itself a Big Mac is fine now and then but people rarely eat just a Big Mac. Usually they have some fries and a sugar loaded soft drink too. This easily can get the meal over 1000 calories as you mention which is about half the daily caloric intake for an adult male.

Not a diet meal, but not that excessive. It even has a lot of lettuce, which is good against blood sugar spikes, esp. a good thing for most fat people.

No burger sold by McDonalds has "a lot of lettuce". It has at most a small piece (possibly shredded) the size of the bun. That is not a lot of lettuce using any reasonable definition of the word "lot". Furthermore to get enough fiber to actually affect blood sugar levels you would have to eat several cups of the stuff, far more than is in any McDonalds burger.

That's pretty ridiculous. The Big Mac is made with 100% pure beef.

McRibs and McNuggets, on the other hand...

I fucking love McDonalds, but I stopped eating there. I'm a supposedly educated, well-off person with a relatively higher amount of "freedom" than some citizens. And I didn't know that almost everything on their menu was a *full day's* allotment of calories, until the Gubmint made them advertise it.

[Citation needed]

Here's a link to the McDonald's nutrition facts for their menus.

A standard "fulls day's allotment of calories" for an adult is 2000 calories, as assumed, for example, on most nutritional labels. (Many nutritional labels that contain multiple columns will give numbers for 2000 and 2500 calorie/day diets.)

Can you find any item on the menu that approaches those numbers? I can't. The highest calorie single-item is a "big breakfast" meal, which comes to a little over 1000 calories. Most of the premium sandwiches are in the 500-600 calorie range. Add on a standard size fries and drink, and you'll get to around 1000 calories.

Yes, that's a lot for a single meal, but for a 2000 or 2500 calorie diet, that's what a lot of people eat for dinner.

If you pick the worst sandwiches on the menu (double quarter pounder or one of the bacon/chicken sandwiches), you can get up to 750 calories just for the sandwich. Super-size (or, well, they got rid of it, but just ask for "large") fries and get some sugary soda, and you might get to 1500 calories. Even if you add on a dessert, you'll have to choose carefully to get the highest calorie counts to get anywhere near 2000 calories for a single "normal" meal. If you choose a "normal" value meal, with normal size stuff, you'd usually have to eat at least 2 of them to get to a "full day's allotment of calories."

And if you are more reasonable and choose smaller cheaper items, like a cheeseburger, small fries, etc., for your meal, then you're looking at significantly lower calories.

Meanwhile, take a look at calories even for SALADS at most sit-down restaurants. If you love that blackened chicken salad with blue cheese dressing and bacon bits, chances are you might be consuming more than your typical McDonald's Big Mac meal.

I'm NOT saying McDonald's is a healthy place to eat. But, like anywhere, you need to make reasonable choices. If you order the largest and fattiest items on the menu just about anywhere, you'll be eating a lot of calories. But most items on McDonald's menu won't get you anywhere near a "full day's allotment of calories" -- if you're "supposedly educated and well-off," maybe you might learn to read nutritional facts better.

False.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
http://www.snopes.com/business...

While those specifically deal with the "100% Beef" (brand, company name) legend, they're also VERY clear that the USDA is pretty strict about what you can call beef, and McDonalds meets that definition. By-products must be labeled as such.

And, in case you still don't buy it:
http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com...

QUARTER POUND 100% BEEF PATTY*:
Ingredients: 100% Pure USDA Inspected Beef; No Fillers, No Extenders.
Prepared With Grill Seasoning (Salt, Black Pepper).
*Based On The Weight Before Cooking 4 Oz. (113.4g)

considering we can already clone dead chickens

Source?

It does explain a few things.

But but I do all my online shopping at http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/home.html

i doubt the veracity of those statements.

the big mac has: 28g fat, 46g carbs, and 9 g sugars.
the "worst" salad has 22g fat, 24g carbs, and 7g sugars.

http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/getnutrition/nutritionfacts.pdf

Salads are generally quoted without dressing. One packet of ranch dressing (not the "worst" dressing, but the one that goes with a "Bacon Ranch Salad with Crispy Chicken" that has the nutrition facts you listed) adds 15g of fat, 9g of carbs, and 4g of sugar. So it actually does end up with more fat and sugar than a Big Mac.

True, same as getting a salad at McDonald's -- it's got more fat and sugar than the Big Mac.

i doubt the veracity of those statements.

the big mac has: 28g fat, 46g carbs, and 9 g sugars.
the "worst" salad has 22g fat, 24g carbs, and 7g sugars.

http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/getnutrition/nutritionfacts.pdf

Here ya go:

http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/meal_bundles/dollar_menu.html

(captcha: classy)

Given all the attention recently put on beef, I expect McDonalds to be truthful on their page talking about their meats:

Do you use American meat?

We do. All of our chicken comes from our trusted USDA-inspected suppliers in the U.S., like Tyson Foods and Keystone Foods. Our beef and pork products also come from trusted USDA-inspected suppliers, such as Lopez Foods. In order to keep up with demand, a small percentage of our 100% pure beef is imported from USDA-inspected suppliers in Australia and New Zealand

The term USDA-inspected doesn't carry nearly the same power as it did 20 years ago. From allowing meat grinders to create and monitor their own safety plan with no followup corpwatch.org, to allowing chicken farms to do the same foodsafetynews.com, to criminally lax contamination guidelines on pork mercola.com ... this can continue but there are already dozens of documentaries to make these points.

Big Food will keep telling us our food is safe while pumping us full of the steroid-ridden anemic flesh that so many love.

Given all the attention recently put on beef, I expect McDonalds to be truthful on their page talking about their meats:

Do you use American meat?

We do. All of our chicken comes from our trusted USDA-inspected suppliers in the U.S., like Tyson Foods and Keystone Foods. Our beef and pork products also come from trusted USDA-inspected suppliers, such as Lopez Foods. In order to keep up with demand, a small percentage of our 100% pure beef is imported from USDA-inspected suppliers in Australia and New Zealand

Thank you for your link, I was educated by it. Good stuff.

Given all the attention recently put on beef, I expect McDonalds to be truthful on their page talking about their meats:

Do you use American meat?

We do. All of our chicken comes from our trusted USDA-inspected suppliers in the U.S., like Tyson Foods and Keystone Foods. Our beef and pork products also come from trusted USDA-inspected suppliers, such as Lopez Foods. In order to keep up with demand, a small percentage of our 100% pure beef is imported from USDA-inspected suppliers in Australia and New Zealand

the only guarantee any country can have of sovereignty, for some decades now, is nuclear capacity

I agree - every two-bit, four-bit or eight-bit nation state must pursue a nuclear program regardless of the cost in terms of international trade of humanitarian aid. The sovereignty of Canada, Australia, Mexico, Japan, Brazil and the rest of South America, most of Africa, all the Scandinavian countries and southern Europe, and Switzerland have been teetering daily on the brink for decades. How is it that these non-nuclear nations have not yet been annexed by the nuclear powers and overrun with McDonalds drive-throughs or Trabant factories? Or maybe bagel shops instead?

Now a $1 bill will get you a burger.

Where?

Welcome to America: http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/meal_bundles/dollar_menu.html

Even Apple's name, and logo, is ripped off.

Here's an idea, maybe there actually is a simpler explanation, maybe Jobs and Wozniak just figured that nobody would ever confuse Apple the computer company with Apple the record label anymore than you would confuse McDonald's fast food restaurant with McDonald the plumbing supplies merchant. In fact trademark dispute cases suits are often tossed out of court if the judge decided commonsensically that there is a very negligible chance that anybody would ever confuse the products of the two companies having the dispute (or these cases used to be kicked out, common sense seems to have been going out of fashion in the courts recently).

McDonald's nutrition facts

1 hamburger = 250 kcal
6 * 250 kcal = 1500 kcal

So, no. And adding ketchup won't get you much farther (15 kcal/packet). Something like honey mustard or ranch might; you wouldn't typically put them on a hamburger but it wouldn't exactly be horrible.

But really, the sedentary lifestyle that most people have lowers their kcal requirement by a few hundred kcal. They wouldn't starve.

They're not selling "Linux", they're selling Ubuntu. Mentioning Linux won't make most people go "I want to use Ubuntu and/or give them money".

Apple doesn't make that many references to Foxconn, Samsung, Darwin or the S5L8940X/S5L8945X on their main pages either.

Perhaps Ubuntu could have a section for Linux similar to what McDonald's has for their ingredients and suppliers: http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/food_quality/see_what_we_are_made_of.html

Not to get too off topic, but when was the last time you went to McDonalds? It isn't considered awful food by millions and millions of people (or whatever their signs say now). Why would people eat it if it was awful? It's not like it's half the price of other places. They also do have some food choices that aren't bad for you. nutrion info at McD's.

It is the ***same*** mentality that people who want to lose weight so they have a Diet Coke along with a large meal. If ya want to lose weight you must either reduce intake, do more exercise, or both. A Diet Coke is only 0.05% of the big picture. Be a man and have a real coke.

Completely incorrect. Let's look at McDonald's as an example. Let's say you ate the following for lunch every day:

1/4 Pounder with Cheese: 510 calories
Medium French Fry: 380 calories
Large Coke: 310 calories
Total: 1200 calories
(source)

In this scenario the Coke accounts for 25.8% of the calories (!!!). If you were to switch from regular to diet coke and change NOTHING ELSE, you would lose 31.5lbs in a year.

310 calories * 365 days in a year / 3500 calories per pound = 31.5 lbs/year

I was mildly disgusted to see that the domain http://mcdonaldsmom.com/ actually exists. Happily, it redirects to http://www1.mcdonalds.com/momstrust/ which gives a 404. As it should be.

The reason Starbucks and Caribou were mentioned is that they both provide free Wi-Fi for customers at all locations. McDonalds is one that could be added to the list.

1. The kids are not the ones buying happy meals; the parents are. If the parents are not strong enough to say "No" there is a much bigger problem.

2. Happy meal toys are a good thing. They give the kids something to do while the parent is eating their meal. Kids get bored fast.

3. Today's Happy meal can be quite healthy. http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/meal_bundles/happy_meals.html. A bit low on vegies but not all that bad.

Yes, you can.. and fast food salads actually got me to eat salads more often long ago.

The implication of the message you're responding to was that eating a salad was healthier than going to a fast food restaurant. But your idea of going to a fast food restaurant for a salad doesn't really fit with that.

A Big Mac has 540 calories. A "Premium Southwest Salad with Crispy Chicken" has 430 calories, and the Creamy Southwest Dressing has 100 calories (a different one of them is 190 calories). So you can easily get more calories in a salad + dressing than a Big Mac (this specific example has 10 fewer calories, but you could go higher as I said, and admittedly most people don't get JUST a Big Mac). I think the essential point is valid -- going to a fast food place for a salad, expecting it to be significantly better for you than a burger, is not a good idea.

(Calorie counts from http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/nutritionexchange/nutritionfacts.pdf)

He meant a 1/4 pound of meat, not a 1/4 pound patty of something that is part meat, 80% cereal. And don't come back with that 100% pure beef bull, yes, the beef is 100% pure (have you ever seen a cow crossed with something else ?), it's just not 100% of the patty.

Sorry, I forget some people never let facts get in the way of their beliefs. Check their ingredients list, they MUST list all ingredients, and there's nothing saying the patty is 80% cereal, or anything other than beef.

http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/nutritionexchange/nutrition_ingredients.html

If you believe, and have evidence, that McDs is using filler in their beef (and on that page you'll find this: 100% pure USDA inspected beef; no fillers, no extenders. Prepared with grill seasoning (salt, black pepper)), please contact the relevent government agencies, since legally they MUST list all ingredients.

Otherwise, STFU.

I believe in change. I'm hoarding every penny because I'm gonna need it. I'm a rich fat bastard and will be taxed accordingly so with change Icanhazcheezeburgers http://icanhascheezburger.com/ at http://www.mcdonalds.com/ then will come the evil that I will do in the name of Cthulhu http://www.macguff.fr/goomi/unspeakable/vault298.html to feed his insatiable appetite and my lust for power. But I will secretly worship http://www.venganza.org/ his noodly appendage and court disaster if the slimey idiot finds out. I will bow to the holiest president ever or suffer damnation by http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0drwfnGlF_E having to watch that. I shall covet weapons of massive destruction at http://www.schlockmercenary.com/ and I will dwell in the house of oblivion forever! http://www.elderscrolls.com/home/home.php

I will eat your process servers, rape your thugs and gnaw out their hearts and feast! FEAST! I say!

Sorry to reply to myself, but this link seems to indicate there is a charge.

http://www.mcdonalds.com/wireless/general_info.html

This is on topic since the Title indicates free.

Look at the nutrition facts:
http://www.panerabread.com/pdf/nutr-guide.pdf
http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/nutritionexchange/nutrition_facts.html

Average half sandwich is around 500 calories, 10 grams of fat, and 5 grams of saturated fat.
Big Mac has 540 calories, 29 grams of fat, 10 grams of saturated fat.

The panera sandwich is only a half, which won't fill up most males as a lunch or dinner, so if you want the full sandwich double that.

Panera is delicious, but don't think that its anywhere near good for you.

Man, you weren't kidding. Compare Panera Bread sandwiches (page 4 of the PDF), with McDonald's sandwiches (select sandwiches from the drop down). The highest calorie sandwich from McDonald's is 740 calories. The highest calorie Panera Bread sandwich is the Full Chipotle Chicken on Artisan French at 1070 calories. Panera Bread has no fewer than 16 sandwiches that exceed the calories of the Double Quarter Pounder.

I thought McDonald's food was unhealthy, but damn Panera Bread's stuff is even worse! Panera Bread's stuff is also loaded with sodium, even more so in many cases than the notoriously sodium-heavy McDonald's fare. In fact, their highest sodium sandwich has more than twice the sodium as McDonald's highest sodium sandwich! Trying to pass off Panera Bread as a "healthier alternative" seems like a pretty irresponsible thing to do.

oh get off it. Here:
"yellow pages" . . 244 000 000 hits . . . 2 600 times linked in all of the Internet
flickr . . . . . . 251 000 000 hits . . 305 000 times linked
blogger. . . . . . 222 000 000 hits . .. 92 300 times linked

Two useful web sites that get a similar number of mentions. Only in this case the mentions aren't referring to a paper edition! Because these services are actually useful, they get linked to from all over the web.

Here's the table with hyperlinks, you can check for yourself:
"yellow pages"-244 000 000 hits-2 600 times linked
flickr-251 000 000 hits-305 000 times linked
blogger-222 000 000 hits-92 300 times linked

Still think I picked on Slashdot? I've given you ample evidence.

The above are actually useful services. If you want to try to give me a counterexample, go ahead. I have shown you that yellowpages.com is a useless service. If you want to produce a counterexample (a site linked as little as yellowpages despite being actually useful), be my guest, I defy you.

But you won't find one. Because it's as I told you: yellowpages.com is as useful as looking at hamburgers over the Internet, and gets about as many links.

I mean, I've never heard a McDonald's ad begin with a crowd talking about how much they hate McDonald's. Is this what passes for clever advertising now?

Not blatantly; you have to read between the lines a bit. McDonald's doesn't actually tell you that everyone thinks their food is crap, they just go out of their way to tell you it isn't.

Dude, where do you shop?! Are you sure you're checking the labels correctly? The FDA allows food manufacturers to state they have 0 grams trans fat per serving if they actually have less than 0.5 grams. Check the ingredients. If they have "hydrogenated", "margerine", or "shortening" anywhere in the list, they almost definitely have trans-fats.

At my local grocery store. Yes, I know all about checking the labels. The rule about less than .5 grams also applies to all other fats as well. And honestly.. so what? LARGE AMOUNTS are a problem, and ALL fat contains at least some transfats. Check out the references in that link.

I admit, it has gotten a lot better in the last few years, but there's still a lot of work to do. I had to stop eating burritos for a long time until just 2 weeks ago, when manny's finally stopped using trans-fats. I couldn't find another tortilla anywhere that didn't use them, or wasn't some crazy fat-free tortilla that fell apart or something like that.

There's no work to do. If people care, they will read labels as you have. If they don't, they will buy whatever, and risk taking in large amounts of transfats. So you just eat what you want, and leave everyone else to do the same.

do, and even in a hippie town like Bloomington, IN, it's hard to find places that don't. Nearly all fast food is out, though I heard recently that mcdonalds is making moves to eliminate it (Wendy's said they did, but they actually didn't. It's the 0.5 rule).

So don't eat out. It's not like you have a right to eat at someone else's property anyway.

McDonald's either elimited it already or never had it: http://www.mcdonalds.com/app_controller.nutrition.index1.html

I saw only a few things that had 0.5 or higher transfats.

Many waiters can't answer my question, or lie just to shut me up. A lot of the time restaurant owners don't realize that margerine and shortening are trans-fat, so they say they don't use it even if they do. I'm a crazy person. I go back and check their boxes. I catch them in lies all the time.

So don't eat out. Seems simple enough.

I really won't trust the system until there are actual regulations in place; preferably a complete ban, as I see no reason for this stuff to be around anyway. That's the sticking point for me: why do we need it? What do we lose in banning it?

We lose our rights. At the end of the day, if I make a dougnt with transfat, and someone wants to buy it, you really have no right to interfere. I don't see you running around advocating banning all sodas. Personally I see no reason for religion to be around either, but that has never been a reason to interfere with the rights of another person's beliefs.

When they work in a foreign country and their family hates it and they are tired of weird squishy food and odd customs they will wish they had not gone.

Exactly - no one likes weird squishy food and odd customs.

Calories aren't the only thing that matter. The chicken on that salad has lots of sodium (depending upon which salad you're talking about, the salad+chicken can have up to 960mg.) The salad dressing has another 700mg or so. That's per serving--I don't know how many servings you get per order.

I can't figure out which salad you're talking about, anyway. Every non-ceasar salad with chicken has at least 260 calories per serving, plus another 40 from the dressing (again, always assuming 1 serving of each). Maybe you didn't include the dressing when you were reading on the salad's nutritional information?

Citation:
http://www.mcdonalds.com/app_controller.nutrition.index1.html

The salads may taste good, but that doesn't mean that they're good for you.

540 Calories. Not that makes it ok, nor negates your point any. Now add French Fries 570(LG Fry), and a large Coke , 310, and then you're well over 1000. Throw in a deluxe breakfast(1200) and you're at your calories for the day (2000-2500). Source: http://www.mcdonalds.com/app_controller.nutrition.index1.html

For a minimum of 1/80 people it causes great gastrointestional distress. McDonalds was the only company where a lawyer answered when I was asking for ingreedient information. Lets take a look at the published ingreedient list today. I'm sure you can find a few things that will cause you much violence within your gut.

http://www.mcdonalds.com/app_controller.nutrition.index1.html While nothing on there is very healthy, with proper planning, you could fit a burger into a CAREFULLY PLANNED day of eating and still stay eating quite healthy, make it a regular habit and then things start to become a problem. That said, you're probably happier not knowing what's in it if you're not willing to stop eating it constantly.

Many businesses (MacDonalds and Starbucks, for example) operate open and free access points

Lies!

Starbucks has a deal with T-Mobile to charge. According to this, a day pass is $6.

I haven't been to a McDonald's in over 10 years, but this says they have "several convenient connection options: on-line credit card payment, subscriptions, prepaid cards, or (sometimes) promotional coupons".

My experience has been that the bigger or more "corporate" the business, the less likely they are to have free Wifi. Starbucks can count on a million people a day through their stores simply because they have the green mermaid out front. The place on the corner has better coffee and all us locals go there, but since they don't have the green mermaid trump card to suck in out-of-towners, they actually have to compete with other local businesses, and that means free Wifi for us.