What is wrong with McDonalds?

• McDonald's promote their food as 'nutritious', but the reality is that it is junk food - high in fat, sugar and salt, and low in fibre and vitamins. A diet of this type is linked with a greater risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and other diseases. Their food also contains many chemical additives, some of which may cause ill-health, and hyperactivity in children. Don't forget too that meat is the cause of the majority of food poisoning incidents.

• Workers in the fast food industry are paid low wages. McDonald's do not pay overtime rates even when employees work very long hours. Pressure to keep profits high and wage costs low results in understaffing, so staff have to work harder and faster. As a consequence, accidents (particularly burns) are common. The majority of employees are people who have few job options and so are forced to accept this exploitation, and they're compelled to 'smile' too! Not surprisingly staff turnover at McDonald's is high, making it virtually impossible to unionise and fight for a better deal, which suits McDonald's who have always been opposed to Unions.

• Vast areas of land in poor countries are used for cash crops or for cattle ranching, or to grow grain to feed animals to be eaten in the West. This is at the expense of local food needs. McDonald's continually promote meat products, encouraging people to eat meat more often, which wastes more and more food resources. 7 million tons of grain fed to livestock produces only 1 million tons of meat and by-products. On a plant-based diet and with land shared fairly, almost every region could be self-sufficient in food.

• Forests throughout the world - vital for all life - are being destroyed at an appalling rate by multinational companies. McDonald's have at last been forced to admit to using beef reared on ex-rainforest land, preventing its regeneration. Also, the use of farmland by multinationals and their suppliers forces local people to move on to other areas and cut down further trees.

• McDonald's are the world's largest user of beef. Methane emitted by cattle reared for the beef industry is a major contributor to the 'global warming' crisis. Modern intensive agriculture is based on the heavy use of chemicals which are damaging to the environment.

• Every year McDonald's use thousands of tons of unnecessary packaging, most of which ends up littering our streets or polluting the land buried in landfill sites.

• Children are lured in (dragging their parents behind them) with the promise of toys and other gimmicks.

• Instead of everyone sharing the world's resources for the benefit of all, multinationals like McDonald's just want to use these resources to make profits for themselves.

• There Representative is a clown

• Thanks to Globalization McDonalds has thousands upon thousands of establishment’s worldwide. 6 out of the 7 continents have McDonalds, I am sure if Antarctica was not covered in ice that they would have one there too.

• They use a lot of packaging that is cooled down using chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which can actually damage the Ozone layer .

• Any establishment (like all fast-"food" establishments) owned by a group of people, whether they are shareholders or whether it is privately owned by individuals, if they are not local but are going into an area that is not their home and extracting money from the locals while at the same time taking business away from local establishments to concentrate this money into their own hands elsewhere, is evil.

• Everything you see in a print ad is fairly accurate-provided you ignore the 20 odd hours spent in retouching every major print ad campaign they make. Removing brown lettuce, discoloured saauce, burnt meat.