![]() ![]() ![]() The 55-cent offer will rotate from the Big Mac to the Quarter Pounder to other sandwiches over the next year.īut it is not entirely clear that increased traffic will translate into more people eating more fast food. McDonald's franchisees voted on Saturday to accept the new pricing, which will begin on April 26. The company is losing market share to other burger chains, and its pioneering Egg McMuffin-based breakfast has suffered the indignity of bagelmania. Sales at individual McDonald's that have been open more than a year have been falling for the last six quarters. By steeply discounting its flagship sandwich, now around $2, McDonald's is expecting an immediate and sizable increase in foot traffic. ''The away-from-home impact is not as major an impact on the diet of an individual as one would think.''Įconomists who follow the fast-food business say that its customers are highly cost-sensitive. ''The total effect on fat will be a slight increase, not a huge increase,'' he said. Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina who also holds a doctorate in economics, said that research shows that people who eat high-fat foods at restaurants also eat high-fat foods at home. The total meal is three-quarters of the Government's recommended daily allowance of 66 grams of fat.īut not all nutritionists expect inexpensive Big Macs to lead to ruin. The 55-cent offer, meant to recall the epic year of 1955, when Ray Kroc, the patron saint of franchisers, opened his first McDonald's, is good only when a Big Mac (530 calories and 28 grams of fat) is purchased with french fries (450 calories and 22 grams of fat for a large order) and a soda (310 calories for 32 ounces). McDonald's growth also went into hyperdrive starting in the 80's, from 5,213 outlets in the United States in 1980 to more than 12,000 today. The number of overweight people, after holding steady at a quarter of the population in the 1960's and 70's, shot up to 33 percent in the 80's, according to the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. We would expect to see the trend of increasing body weights also.''Ĭall it coincidence, but the increase of overweight Americans roughly tracks the era of McDonald's greatest empire building. ''We will continue to see the amount of fat and saturated fat in the American diet go up. ''It's a nutritionist's nightmare,'' she said of the 55-cent price. Marion Nestle, the chairwoman of the department of nutrition and food studies at New York University, was blunter. ''They contribute more artery-clogging fat than any other single food. ''Hamburgers are already the worst food in the average American's diet,'' said Bonnie Liebman, the director of nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington advocacy group. At company headquarters near Chicago, where the 55-cent offer was conceived to overcome declining sales, the mission is to build a restaurant no farther than a four-minute walk or drive from every man, woman and child. McDonald's feeds 7 percent of the United States population each day. Predictably, many nutritionists were alarmed. According to classic economic theory, the steep price cut will draw more customers, who will buy more Big Macs, which will fatten the company's bottom line.īut what of the fattening of American waistlines? What of the thickening of American arteries?Īs news of McDonald's widely publicized Campaign 55 has spread, the ubiquity of the golden arches upon the landscape and the increasing centrality of burgers and fries in the American diet have led public health experts and even anthropologists to ponder some noncorporate consequences.Ī new chapter is being writ for the Big Mac, which in its 30-year history has never been less than a culture-defining sandwich. SO the price of a Big Mac is dropping to 55 cents. ![]()
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