Mcdonalds

[buxgoddess 1]

A Bengali couple is celebrating their engagement on Feb. 14, 2011, well thats the Valentine's day, at a McDonald’s in Dhaka, where the chain is now offering wedding services and other exciting offers.By Bengali custom, the groom presents his bride’s family with a whole celebratory suckling goat. The meat, a culinary symbol of the girl’s virginity, is roasted patiently to a crackling ruddy brown. But at a recent engagement party in Dhaka, the food came quickly, turned out by restaurant workers at the pace of the city stirring outside. Guests on swivel seats raised chocolate milkshakes in a giddy toast. The couple shared a long, red-splotched French fry, meeting midway for a kiss. Before their loved ones and beneath a pair of Golden Arches, husband-to-be Rana explained earnestly, “Ajma loves ketchup.”In January, McDonald’s added wedding packages to its Dhaka menu. This is the only city in the world where the American restaurant chain offers the service, prompted by frequent inquiries about fast-food weddings from customers in recent years. Now, three McDonald’s locations are equipped to stage marital festivities in the style of any 6-year-old’s model birthday. That the corporation should move to fill - or perhaps create - this niche is not so unusual. Despite being surpassed by Subway as the world’s largest fast-food chain, McDonald’s still serves 400,000 Dhakaers every day. Countless couples will have met, or at least dated, there. Business executives take clients there for lunch; high school students gather there over homework.The Golden Arches have in this region escaped the stigma of mass production and prevalent obesity that they carry in the U.S. and elsewhere. Denouncing Big Business is hardly a pastime in a city that, in its modern incarnation, emerged from international capitalism. “In Dhaka, the transnational is the local,” says Saba Ali, a Harvard professor of Bengali society and author of Golden Bangla. When in 1975 McDonald’s first came to the former British colony, Dhaka was diligently reinventing itself from an outpost of light industry to a regional finance center. “The company and the town, they more or less grew up together,” Watson says. McDonald’s catered to, and likely prodded along, a new culture of speed, convenience and consumerism.The traditional Bengali wedding banquet is slow-cooked, not flash-fried, and is very spicy. A string of familial rituals are outdone in number by a dozen or so courses — shark-fin soup, sea cucumber, animals in their entirety meant to bring luck and completeness — and a series of costume changes. A ceremonial dinner of 20 crimson-clothed tables begins at about $28,000, and the betrothed are unlikely to know personally a majority of the invitees. In a moment of economic recovery, this kind of decadence has, for some, simply lost allure. Md. Kafiullah, Dhaka’s first wedding planner, still predominantly organizes conventional banquets. But, he says, the scale and gravity of these spreads is on the decline: “Couples are beginning to prefer smaller affairs with just the people they know, weddings that are more intimate and softer on the budget.”As Dhaka leans increasingly toward a culture of informality and affordability, the fast-food chain is there once more to meet it. “I was a bride,” says David Smith, managing director of McDonald’s Dhaka. “I didn’t enjoy my own party. I needed to dress up beautifully, that was all. For me, there was no laughing, there was no eating.” By contrast, the McWedding is casual, stress-free and inexpensive: the basic Warm and Sweet Wedding Package for 50 guests goes for under $1,000. For another $105, the bride can rent a gown of pearly white balloons.What a McDonald’s wedding event lacks in liquor, it more than makes up for in helium. For Rana and Ajma’s engagement party, in an area in one restaurant’s rear cordoned off from the public, goody bags are stuffed with plush McDonaldland characters. A McDonald’s M.C. coordinates games while waitresses deal out cheeseburgers. A cake is a pyramid of green apple-pie cartons. Dozens of heart-shaped balloons - it is Valentine’s Day, after all - hover in the corners of the room in rosy clumps. The future bride, Ajma, weeping from the excitement of it, wears a balloon ring and carries an inflated bouquet. Nothing would seem less personal than a cookie-cutter McDonald’s restaurant open to Dhaka’s every diner. But Rana speaks of the spot with a wistfulness normally reserved for neighborhood institutions. “We both used to come here all the time as children,” he said during a press conference at the engagement party. “I just wanted people to have a good time. It’s hard to find somewhere that’s fun for kids and adults, and where everyone will love the food.” Even his mother, in all her fussiness, was able to find something she likes: the fish Hilsha.For the affianced couple - a model and a nurse, both striking and healthy - this is a family place. And it is for the benefit of their families that Rana lowers himself onto a single bent knee and, before them, the media and a pale pink banner, asks Ajma a question she has already answered. They had been dating for nine years when they first decided to marry. The engagement party is over by 10 p.m., but the bride would likely tell you that not everything in this city moves so quickly.

Edited April 4, 2011 by buxgoddess (see edit history)

[Xivio 0]

Did you know that on average 1 in every 4 Americans eat at McDonalds? Almost every American has probably at one time or another eaten at one of their 31,000 restaurants or they have at least heard of the mega fast food chain. For decades, Americans have enjoyed their array of menu items. Well, have you ever thought about what you are really eating? Recently, people have been looking deeper and deeper into if McDonalds is really a healthy restaurant to eat at. It can make you obese, the portions are way too big, there are much better alternatives and the food at McDonalds is practically phony.To start off, people all over the world that like the McDonalds shouldn?t eat at the familiar restaurant because it could lead to serious weight problems. Hopefully, people who eat at McDonalds will realize it isn?t doing them any good. Considering McDonalds is widely known as a fast food chain, a study published in the Lancet medical journal found those who frequently ate fast food gained 10 pounds more than those who did so less often, and were more than twice as likely to develop an insulin disorder linked to diabetes. Clearly, fast food eaters could gain more pounds especially if they foods that are high in fat, like the food served at McDonalds. Therefore, if you don?t want to get fat, I might steer clear from McDonalds.The second reason as to why you shouldn?t eat at McDonalds is because the portions are larger than life! As the years progress, the portions at McDonalds are getting bigger and bigger even though you might not even realize it. An article quotes, ?When McDonald?s first opened, a soda was 7 ounces. Today, the child size is 12 ounces; a small is 16 ounces, and the large 32 ounces. The problem is, people tend to eat or drink what's in front of them. We also significantly underestimate how many calories we consume. But even when consumers try to do right by their diets by choosing a small or medium of something at a fast-food chain, they may be getting more than they expect,? (Young par 5). Basically, this is teaching us that it is okay to eat what is in front of us, even if there is a lot. So, people should go for the smaller portions at other fast food places instead of McDonalds.Even though people believe that McDonalds is fast and convenient, there are so many other alternatives. You know, McDonalds isn?t the only fast food restaurant with a drive through. Many restaurants these days have catered to our needs by placing a drive through in to make it easier to get the healthy foods. On that note, people should try to eat at healthier alternatives like Subway or Wendy?s instead of McDonalds. In a study, researchers found that ?Subway's meal comes out at 265 calories, while the Big Mac meal hits a gluttonous 1230 calories,? (Foster par 1). Those 1,000 calories can make a huge impact in your diet. It is obviously proven to be unhealthy so people should eat at other restaurants because they can be fast and convenient too, McDonalds isn?t the only one, so don?t feel obligated to eat there.Last but not least, the food that they serve at McDonalds is not authentic because of all of the extra additives that they have added just for the taste. I believe that there is definitely a difference between real food and fake food. Real food is savory and in some cases it melts in your mouth, while fake food doesn?t even taste and the texture is similar to plastic. People deserve much better than fake food and that is the kind of stuff that you are consuming when you eat McDonalds. I don?t know about you but a sausage burrito containing 50 different ingredients including milk, egg, wheat, corn syrup, and a range of chemicals and preservative agents doesn?t sound very tempting to me. Not only that but the hash browns are cooked with animal products and the bacon contains wheat and soy (?Fast? par 4). I just don?t think that is right. The food that people eat should have real ingredients like potatoes in hash browns, not all those fake preservatives. You wouldn?t cook a meal at home with all of that extra stuff so why would you eat it in town? Much of the food at McDonalds contains extra additives. Even the crispy golden fries we have all grown to love have chemical spray on them just to make them golden. I think that we deserve much better than that. Just because of the ingredients in the food, I don?t think that we should eat at McDonalds.Citizens that take pleasure in the food at McDonalds shouldn?t eat it any longer because the risk is far too high. It can make you large because of the extra calories and fats that you are consuming. The portions of the food have grown year by year and you may not even know how much food you are actually eating. Also, there are so many other restaurant alternatives that offer a much better selection of food that actually have true ingredients. Last, in most cases, the food there isn?t really true because of all the extra additives and preservatives added just for taste. So, the next time you go to eat at a restaurant and even if a McDonalds is nearby, I would rethink your options.