Golden Goodness

McDonalds-- shut the hell up!
Apparently, McDonalds is attempting to shift the focus off their fried foods and onto the "healthy" foods they offer. Which is complete and total bullshit.
Believe me, when I saw Supersize Me, I was put off my nuggets and gallons of soda for a while. Across the street from the theater I saw the movie in is a McD's, and I jeered it as Morgan Spurlock vomiting up his super-size meal played itself on endless loop in my mind. I even walked home from the theater to atone for the butter I put on my popcorn. It's sobering to think about what actually happens to your body when you eat that much processed, nutritionally empty food.
Eventually, McD's won me back. It was through advertising french fries. I don't seek out McDonalds, for the most part-- I don't like their soggy hamburgers or chewy chicken sandwiches. My fast-food dollar is almost entirely spent at Wendy's, where the chicken resembles chicken and (if I suspend disbelief) I can imagine the tomatoes being grown in nature. However, despite my love for the spicy chicken sandwich and Frosty, Wendy's has not yet perfected the art of the french fry. There is the rare instance when Wendy's gets the fries just crispy enough with the right amount of salt when I am glad to eat them. Most times, the Wendy's fries are soggy, like the oil wasn't heated hot enough and it seeped into the "potato," or they taste like gruel because there's no salt.
Burger King's fries used to be pretty good, but in an effort to distinguish themselves from McDonalds, they introduced the "new" fry back in the '90s, which I hate. BK's "new" fries taste more like a salty loaf of bread than a fried potato covered in salt. Thus, Mickey D's is the home of my favorite french fry. Once I catch a whiff of them, I'm done for. I will not rest until the red cardboard box, grease stains forming at the bottom of the box is in my hand. When I take the train back to Rhode Island and I leave from South Station, I am powerless to resist the call of the Golden Arches.
Now that McDonalds has made the foolish decision to advertise fruit and salad, I can guarantee I won't be walking through the doors that Ronald McDonald built anytime soon. McDonalds, since it's inception, has marketed itself as a hamburger joint. When I was a kid, it was a huge treat to drive through ("thru") and get a Happy Meal. I think the average person with a frontal lobe understands that food cooked in oil and slathered in sauces isn't good for you to eat on a regular basis. I also remember, back in the '80s and '90s, watching my Mom suffer through many withered McDonald's salads. The bottom of the bowl had a quarter of an inch of standing water, the lettuce was brown on any salad purchased after 3pm, the eggs on the chef salad had gray spots. Despite all the yummy looking toppings on their salads, I can't get past my Mom, in her stirrup pants and big hair saying "God, these salads suck."
In short: McDonalds, I know where Subway is. I know where Souper Salad is. I know where the produce section of my local grocery store is. If I want a healthy lunch that won't make me wish I were dead the second I'm done eating it, I know where to go. You, as the first major fast-food chain in America, serve as a place of distraction. When I walk through the doors, see that expansive menu in front of me, I don't want to look at vegetables in their natural form. I want to see bits of "potato" cut with lasers frying in oil. I want to hear "do you want cheese on that Big Mac?" I don't want to hear "do you want your hamburger low-carb?" I want to forget good nutrition, forget Morgan Spurlock's guts on a New York City sidewalk and just enjoy my damn french fries without feeling like I should have had a yogurt instead.

...dammit, now I want fries.

Yummy, delicious fries.