To address this rather silly responce to my statement you are going to HAVE to hear responce #1 that you dont want to. I believe even you understand that a 9 year old can not make an informed decision and i also stated quite clearly that children are NOT 100% responsible for thier actions. But parents have the responsibility to teach “just say no” etc. And yes i DO think it would be ok for you to offer drugs to an adult. That adult realizes the consequences of his actions as do you. If its health or legal problems resulting from doing/taking /buying those drugs then that adult is again 100% responsible for all ramifications of that decision. Period.
Well, jonplusc, thanks for the reply. Your philosophy is consistent, although I don’t think too many people would agree that pushing addictive drugs is ethically OK.
Artemis, for a response to your post, please read my previous post where I said that things are not black and white, etc.
I think that people have to take a good long look at the legal system, and decide if they really want lawyers deciding how we are to live our lives. Health insurance is extremely expensive, largely because of malpractice insurance, and ,many pharmaceuticals are NOT available (in the USA), because the manufacturers will not take the financial risk of being sued. So, keep on filing thjose stupid lawsuits, Americans, eventually you will find out that:
-the cost of litigation will bankrupt the country
-products will NOT become safer because of litigation-they will just become unobtainable
-healthcare service providers will refuse many critical cases (because of fear of a lawsuit)
-many types of risky surgery will non longer be practiced.
I know, the evil drug companies WANT to kill people with unsafe products…talk about idiotic logic! That’s what the lawyers want you to believe…
In my opinion, meaninful tort reform will never happen (the association of trial attorneys-the nation’s biggest lobby group) will see that nothing is ever done to dislodge the cash cow.
Try getting your layer to deliver a baby though…you might be out of luck!
I did - that would be the post where you grudgingly admit that ANY food product can be abused, but still insist on accusing McDonalds of selling “unhealthy” food. In other words, you’re completely missing the point. There is no such thing as “unhealthy” food - only an unhealthy diet.
The accusations these plaintiffs are raising against McDonalds can also be raised against any other establishment that sells food - full service restaraunts (prime rib, fettucinni Alfredo, etc.), bakeries (cream puffs, cakes), grocery stores (tuna fish, liver, etc.), even health food co-ops (organic peanut butter, anybody?).
“But your Honor, the label said it was Organic Peanut Butter - and so that means it’s healthy! How was I to know that I’d get fat if I ate a jar of it every day? The co-op should have warned me! They shouldn’t be selling this unhealthy food!”
It is the individual’s responsibility (or in the case of minors, the responsibility of the minor’s parents) to educate themselves about nutrition and to choose food items that will result in a diet that is well-balanced overall - not the responsibility of McDonalds, or the grocery store, or anyone else. Unless McDonalds is being deceptive about the contents and nutritional value of their foods (and I’ve seen no evidence that they are - and plenty to the contrary, since the nutritional information is publically available and posted in the stores), these plaintiffs have no case.
Oh yes, the all so important point that you will not be healthy eating a particular type of healthy food exclusively. I’m not even sure what that argument has to do with anything… Anyway, I meant this one (among others):
So please defend your ridiculous assertion that there is no such thing as unhealthy food. The phrase “unhealthy food” doesn’t mean that you instantly become unhealthy eating it. Did you think that it did mean this? Because that’s the only way your argument makes sense. It just means that the less healthy a food is, the less you should eat it (as I’ve said repeatedly). This should all be common sense.
How about the argument that since crack is physically addictive as opposed to just tempting like Big Macs are, you will only need to tempt kids to smoke crack once or twice before they are overcome with uncontrollable crippling urges to smoke it again? This may seem so simple that you may have missed it but Big Macs are nowhere near as addictive as anything approaching anything anywhere near the same sphere of addictiveness as crack!!
These consumers were motivated by simple gluttony. They should pay the price.
That would be response number 2. Please read already included rebuttal and get back to me.
Perhaps because that’s not the argument being made! Try learning to read. Your simplistic classification of food as either “healthy” or “unhealthy” does not reflect reality.
I already did. Is liver “healthy” or “unhealthy”? Is whole milk “healthy” or “unhealthy”? Is tuna “healthy” or “unhealthy”? Is celery “healthy” or ‘unhealthy"? How frequently can these items be safely consumed? As I’ve already shown, the answer is - “It depends”. And the same thing is true of McDonalds’ food (or any other type of fast food) - how frequently it can be consumed without causing health problems depends on the individual in question, just as with any other food. And if a person consumes it to excess, the problem lies with that individual, and not with McDonalds.
You mean no one ever said that oranges can be unhealthy if eaten exclusively, therefore the terms “healthy” and “unhealthy” are meaningless? Regardless of what you think, that argument was indeed made (and is in fact a slight variation on the argument you yourself use).
Speaking about learning to read, how about reading my posts, since I answer all your points before, and no one has refuted me.
And I already debunked this notion about a dozen times. But here goes again. Practice makes perfect.
So your argument is:
- Foods have different nutrition
- You can eat different amounts of these foods and still be healthy, depending on the person
- Therefore, “healthy” and “unhealthy” when applied to food, has no meaning.
1 is true, and 2 is true, but 3 does not follow from 1 and 2.
We humans call the food that can be consumed safely only in small quantites “unhealthy”. We call the food that can be consumed safely in large quantities “healthy”. There is a range of foods like liver and whole milk that lie somewhere in between. But just because every food is not easily classifiable as “healthy” or “unhealthy” does not mean that there aren’t foods that are easily classifiable.
What you are doing is playing semantic games. MOST foods “lie somewhere in between,” as you put it. MOST foods have significant nutritional limitations that need to be taken into consideration when a person is trying to decide how much of that particular food should be included in his/her diet. A Big Mac is no different from liver in that regard - yet you’re willing to slap the “unhealthy” label on one but not the other. French fries are nutritionally similar to a heavily buttered baked potato - but few people villify buttered baked potatoes with the same venom that you’re launching against McDonalds’ fries. Soda has the same nutritional value as most fruit juices (lots of calories from simple carbohydrates, very little else) - but I doubt you classify fruit juices in the “unhealthy” category.
Fast food can be consumed healthfully in moderation - just as liver, buttered baked potatoes, or fruit juices can be. Eaten to excess, it can result in severe health problems - just like liver, buttered baked potatoes, and fruit juices can. It’s the responsibility of the consumer to make reasonable food choices - and not the venders of ANY of the foods I’ve mentioned. If McDonalds is responsible for the ill-health of those plaintiffs who are suing the company for THEIR ill-considered food choices, they why aren’t grocery stores responsible for the ill-health of people who go there and buy too much liver and too much Welch’s Grape Juice?
Of course there are unhealthy foods.
Let’s just assume the plaintiff in the OP is the biggest dolt around and truly thinks that McDonald’s is healthy. Maybe it’s the lettuce and onions, I don’t know. So thinking he is doing his body a favor, he succumbs to a Big Mac attack twice daily, oblivious to the fact that it’s loaded with fat and calories.
Here’s the catch: At some point in time, his pants are not going to fit anymore. And since he was eating exclusively at McDonald’s… my 7 year old could connect the dots here! Unless we are also to believe that McDonald’s deliberately misled this kid into believing that one gets fat from breathing the air, after, say, 10 pounds how can the plaintiff NOT KNOW he was getting fat from eating their food?
It is my humble opinion that whatever (if any) responsibility McDonald’s might bear for not making it crystal clear that the special sauce ain’t so special is negated by the fact that the plaintiff apparently didn’t realize he now sported five chins and was out of breath when he finally heaved his ass into the well-worn booth.
Would you take responsibilty when their parents rightly pummel the living shit out of you? Or would you whine and snivel about being a victim?
The kid wouldn’t be homeless if he spent more of his money on a house and less on McDonalds and those damn fat kids could eat as much McDonalds meals as they want if they had some McDonalds and some exercise. A shake and a treadmill. But NOOO they had a super sized value meal and some TV.
If they did, that would mean that they thought that people aren’t 100% reponsible for their actions, therefore they would be agreeing with me. And since you say “rightly” you obviously do too. I take it as a compliment.
I’m not aware that liver is all that unhealthy. But I really don’t know, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. I can accept that there are other things that are not good for you, such as heavily buttered baked potatos. But many of those things aren’t mass produced (thus a problem on a large scale) and advertised to children. Some are, and I have problems with that as well. I don’t mean to single out McDonalds for abuse. About soda and fruit juices, fruit juice has a lot of vitamins. It can be quite healthy as long as you don’t overdo it (since they are high in calories and low in fiber). The same “can be quite healthy” cannot be said about soda’s, fries, or Big Macs. With those foods, the advice is more like “well, you really shouldn’t eat any of those, but if you do, just don’t overdo it”. There realy is a difference.
According to UIUC’s Nutrition Analysis Tool, beef liver has about 13 times as much cholesterol per ounce as a McDonald’s hamburger. Of course, that doesn’t mean liver should never be eaten… but a diet with excessive cholesterol is unhealthy, and liver is a great way to consume too much cholesterol.
Not a problem on a large scale? You can get potatoes and butter at any grocery store! Baked potatoes have been around much longer than french fries.
If you take vitamin supplements, it doesn’t matter whether you drink soda or fruit juice, since the amount of vitamins in juice is a fraction of what you get from vitamin pills. In fact, a McDonald’s hamburger has more Vitamin A than the same amount of orange juice.
So fruit juice would have to fall into the same “never healthy” category as soda, fries, and baked potatoes.
Please explain why any diet containing Big Macs or soda is automatically unhealthy, regardless of its total content or proportion of fats, carbohydrates, sodium, etc.
Why would the presence of a few “bad” foods ruin a diet that contains normal levels of all these nutrients?
Are you actually making your argument that because you can take vitamin supplements, that fruit juice is not healthy? And who the hell cares that McDonalds hamburger has more vitamin A than the same amount of orange juice? Orange Juice is not well known for being a significant source of vitamin A, you know. It’s known for having a lot of vitamin C. So sounds like that comparison is without merit.
Straw man argument. Please reread this thread, you obviously aren’t getting it.
That is because you are an idiot. If you walk up to grade school kids and start trying to convince them of ANYTHING, then you are a lowlife scumbag. And if one those kids is mine, you get your ass kicked. For being a lowlife scumbag around my kid. I frown on shit like that.
And that would be your responsibility. Being the lowlife scumbag and doing what you have absolutely no business doing. My responsibilty as a parent is discourage lowlifes from being around my kid.
BTW, your analogy sucked bilgewater.
I see this thread is still going so I’ll respond to Avumede on a couple of points.
I can see what you’re trying to say here, but for the love of Og’s donkey did you have to go straight to selling crack to kids ? In this case your actions are unethical because you are breaking the law and influencing impressionable youngsters incapable of making an informed decision. However, if you stick to adults then yes it’s their responsibilty for accepting the crack and then taking it. It’s still your responsibility for breaking the law.
I don’t blame the shopkeeper I bought my cigarettes from yesterday, nor do I blame any of the people that I could, perhaps, hold responsible for me starting smoking. It was my own choice to start and to continue to smoke. It’s my own choice when and if I choose to (try) and give up. Similarly if someone may an balanced, informed and educated decision to end their life and someone was to assist them I wouldn’t hold the assitee responsible, although they may have their own moral and ethical dilemas. The key is making an informed choice, if you can prove misinformation on the part of your drug-dealer (or whatever) then you have a case for some responsibility on their part.
Providing crack is not the same as providing burgers. Here’s the deal: burgers are not ‘unhealthy’ on the same level as crack. Not even nearly. They’re just food, legal food. Having said all that I do see your point about people being responsible for their actions, and could perhaps be convinced of some merit of it. I’d be more than happy to take this to a new thread in GD unfortunatly I don’t know if I’ll have the time to participate fully this week, maybe I’ll try and start one next week.
To return to the main thrust of your latest posts tho’ …
No, I don’t believe there is. Food is at it’s most basic level a mix of different components. We could reduce all food to a list of vitamins, minerals, fats, etc, etc.
If we combine this information with knowledge out our daily/weekly/monthly requirements of the same things (factored for metabolism and activity levels) then we can sort of ‘plug in’ the different foods to ensure that we get enough of everything without too much of anything. McDonalds meals can just as easily be plugged into this template as anything else. Given this information you can make your choices based on cost and taste.
Your use of the term ‘unhealthy’ probably stems for the fact that McD’s are generally regarded as a fast non-healthy option (i.e. junk food). What I’m saying (along with various people in this thread) is that there is no really distincting between healthy and unhealthy food – they’re just labels used by some people to make their choices easier. A diet of so-called ‘healthy’ food could just as easily be bad for you as a diet of Big Macs. In the end it’s all just food, eat a balanced diet that provides enough (but not too much) of all your requirements and you’re fine. It doesn’t matter what form that food takes.
IMHO at least, I am by no means an expert.
SD
I think his only point is ‘Freedom of choice is just too much to deal with for some folks’.
No, I’m saying fruit juice is just as healthy as soda. The lack of vitamin C in soda doesn’t mean you shouldn’t drink it, as long as you have another source of vitamin C.
If you think soda is bad but fruit juice is good, you’re saying the mere presence of an important nutrient can change a food from “never eat it” unhealthy to “go for it” healthy. (And if so, you ought to be championing McDonald’s. A quarter pounder with cheese has 28 grams of protein, about half the RDA for a 160 lb person.)
In that case, who cares that a hamburger has more fat than other foods? It’s not known for being a low-fat, high-fiber food that you can at every meal.
Your exact words were “well, you really shouldn’t eat any of those, but if you do, just don’t overdo it”. If you really shouldn’t eat any hamburgers, a diet containing hamburgers must be less healthy than the same diet without them, right?
SpaceDog explained it better than I have. Food basically consists of components like fat, protein, and carbohydrates.
Now listen up, because this is the part you obviously aren’t “getting”: What matters is not which specific foods you get the components from, but how much of each component you’ve consumed at the end of the day. 37 grams of fat is 37 grams of fat, whether you get it from peanuts or Big Macs.