I wish I had seen a fly or two buzzing around my Happy Meal. At least that would be a sign that this was real food. No, not one fly, not one insect ever decided to befriend my Happy Meal. He’s has been pretty lonesome, up there on my shelf.

No one wants to see her prodigy ostracized. My Happy Meal is 2-years-old today. The twos are certain to be terrible for my Happy Meal with no little friends.
My Happy Meal on it’s second birthday 3.3.11

No play dates! He’s sure to drive me crazy looking for a companion. Don’t cry little Happy Meal, Mommy loves you. Of course, everyone needs to get out. From time to time I take him to a moms meeting for show-n-tell. There’s nothing like the real thing to make a point and it’s as perky as the day I brought it home.

My Happy Meal wasn’t an “experiment,” like some claim, but an observation. I had no idea I was taking on a lifelong obligation!

Yes, I know all about natural food dehydration and the bun ingredient list is mostly chemicals. The meat, bun and fries are all loaded with salt. Sodium has been used as a preservative for thousands of years. Add to all that, trans fat forms when food is fried at a high temperature. Trans fat is never utilized in the body and has a half-life of 51 days. Talk about a combo!

But, come on, take a close look at the pictures. After 2 years, this food looks good enough to eat. You’ve got to admit there’s something just plain wrong about that.

Click Here for “Happy Birthday to My Happy Meal”
First birthday 3.3.10

My Happy Meal looks pretty much like it did the day I purchased it. If you didn’t know better, you’d think the food was plasticized, just like display food in a restaurant.

In fact, McDonalds claimed I “tampered with or held frozen” my Happy Meal.

Sorry, McDs, the Happy Meal looks this way all on it’s own. Talk about the fountain of youth. I didn’t tamper with it (as if I even would know how to tamper with food to prevent it from decaying).

It’s party time! Where are the flies?

Don’t you want to come out and play with my Happy Meal?

Please, please (I’m hoping) at least one teeny fly will show up for my Happy Meal’s birthday party!

My Happy Meal the day I purchased it on 3.3.09

Click Here for the original Nonna’s Happy Meal blog.

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Happy Birthday, Dear Happy Meal, Happy Birthday to You!

I know it’s hard to believe. Time flies, doesn’t it? My eyes tear when I think today, March 3, is my Happy Meal’s first birthday. They grow up so fast, don’t they?

I purchased a Happy Meal, not to eat, but to observe and blog about. Yes, I bought a Happy Meal and then placed it on my office shelf, right behind me and my computer. It sat on my shelf for a year as a silent witness to our fast food industry.

It smelled delicious for a few days. I’d get a whiff of those yummy French fries every time I walked into my office. After a week or so, you could hardly smell it. My husband worried that when the food began to decompose, there would be a terrible odor in our home. He also worried the food would attract ants and mice. He questioned my sanity.

No Worries
NOPE, no worries at all. My Happy Meal is one year old today and it looks pretty good. It NEVER smelled bad. The food did NOT decompose. It did NOT get moldy, at all.

This morning, I took it off my shelf to take a birthday photo. The first year is always a milestone. I gave it one of my world famous nonna hugs as we’ve been office mates for a year now! (Okay, maybe my sanity is in question.)

What’s WRONG with this picture?
The photo above on the left is the one I took today. Because Colorado has an arid climate, over the year the moisture has been slowly pulled from the Happy Meal. The bread is crusty and if you look closely, you will see a crack across the top. The hamburger has shrunk a bit and still resembles a hockey puck. Yet, the French fries look yummy enough to eat. I never had an odor problem, after a couple of weeks, I couldn’t even smell the fries.

Now look at the photo on the right, I took it a year ago. Not much difference. The bread is plumper and the fries a tad bit perkier.

What’s not HAPPY about a Happy Meal?
Picky eaters universally love junk foods. They won’t touch veggies and sometimes refuse to eat the food their moms prepare. Out of desperation, parents give in and purchase the food their picky eaters will eat…junk food.

The next time you’re tempted to purchase a Happy Meal for your child, think about these photos. Food is SUPPOSED to decompose, go bad and smell foul…eventually.  When I was a kid, I remember our garbage pail for the left over food scraps was kept by our back door. After a couple of days, flies deposited their larvae (maggots) in the meat. When I would lift the lid, I would see the recently hatched maggots wiggling on the putrid mess. A fly never bothered to land on the tiny hamburger patty on my office shelf.

Food is broken down into it’s essential nutrients in our bodies and turned into fuel. Our children grow strong bodies, when they eat real food. Flies ignore a Happy Meal and microbes don’t decompose it, then your child’s body can’t properly metabolize it either. Now you know why it’s called “junk food.”

I think ants, mice and flies are smarter than people, because they weren’t fooled. They never touched the Happy Meal. Children shouldn’t either.

No matter what, deep-fried food is unhealthy. Read Freaky Fried Food, CLICK HERE.
Read Nonna’s Happy Meal Blog, CLICK HERE.

CLICK HERE for ordering information for Baby Bites: Transforming a Picky Eater into a Healthy Eater and The Forest Feast: Baby Bites Mealtime Adventures.

For info about the free Baby Bites Ezine, CLICK HERE.

Researchers at Ohio State University analyzed government data on 6,500 children and teens, ages 2 to 18. They found the children were consuming an average of 2 cups of fruit, vegetables, and juice combined a day. French fries account for 25 percent of their vegetable intake. Someone consuming 2,000 calories a day should be eating 2 cups of fruit and 2½ cups of veggies a day—over TWICE the amount recorded.

Then there’s the nagging statistic that French fries compose 25 percent of children’s vegetable intake. While writing “Eat Your French Fries Vegetables,” I decided to see if the claim that a Happy Meal will last for years is true. I purchased a Happy Meal on March 3, 2009. To follow Nonna’s Happy Meal Blog, you’ll want to subscribe to the Baby Bites Ezine.

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Nonna’s Happy Meal Blog:

March 3, 2009
My newly purchased Happy Meal smells yummy and it’s very colorful. I receive a PetShop virtual pet dog in a yellow plastic doggie carry-case, along with my child-size hamburger, small fries, and a soft drink. On one side of the cardboard box the meal comes in are cutouts for a pet shop window and door. What little girl wouldn’t absolutely love it? The boy’s side of the box has a Spider-Man scene. The Spider-Man side states, “Meet the spectacular Spider-Man in McWorld at HappyMeal.com and go on your own superhero adventure!” WOW what fun. As colorful as my Happy Meal is, the food is mostly colorless. French fries are made from starchy white potatoes and a hockey puck-size brown hamburger is served on a mini-white-bread bun. There’s no lettuce, cheese, or otherwise healthful topping, just a dab of ketchup and a slice of pickle.

March 4
Happy Meal greets me as I walk into my office this morning. It’s perched on a shelf behind my desk and there is a faint smell of French fries as I enter the room. My husband is concerned about the odor. I ask, “What do ya mean?” After all it smells yummy. He says, “What about when it putrefies, decomposes, and turns rancid?” I answer, “That’s the point of my experiment. It’s NOT supposed to decompose, only a natural food would do that! If it does, I’ll move it into a glass container, to control any unpleasant smell. Then, I’ll have more to report.

March 5
Day three, my cheery Happy Meal’s yummy smell is hardly noticeable as I come into my office. I can’t help but think about the hidden ingredient in much of McDonalds’ food. It’s even in their fries …MSG. MSG is an excitotoxin, which over-stimulate brain cells to the point that they die. Many people experience headaches when this occurs. MSG is an excitatory neuro-transmitter or “excitotoxin.” Excitotoxins are chemical transmitters allowing brain cells to communicate. Unfortunately, excitotoxins over-stimulate your brain cells and they die. It’s a toxic substance. As you would guess, children are most at risk from ingesting MSG in Happy Meals. It can pass the blood brain barrier and even the placental barrier, affecting unborn children. Morgan Spurlock, from the movie SuperSize Me, experienced extreme headaches on his McDonald’s diet. In his movie and book, he says his health team was at a loss for the reason. It’s a shame they missed the connection to MSG. For more information about MSG, Click Here.

March 6 AM
I now own my very own McDonalds’ Spiderman toy. Yep, I went back to McDonalds and purchased the toy alone. Now I have a toy for each side of the McDonalds’ box. A toy meant for a girl and one for a boy. I was motivated to purchase the second toy, because yesterday, Kelly wrote a comment on my Facebook page after I mention the “Nonna’s Happy Meal Blog.”Kelly observed, “Sadly, with all the marketing it seems to be more about the toy.” And then offered her solution, “I often will make them a healthy lunch at home, and then go thru the drive thru and just buy the toy!”Checking my original receipt, I found my purchase of a Happy Meal cost me $3.02 (after taxes, before taxes $2.79). The toy with the Happy Meal is listed on the receipt as zero.  When I purchased the toy alone, it cost $1.69 (of course, plus tax). Using a rule-of-thumb that the cost of an item is doubled, the toy most likely cost McDonalds about 80 cents. It would be my guess the paper products (the box, napkins, and cup) were next in expense for McDonalds. That alone speaks volumes about the quality of the food.

March 6 PM
YIKES, I’m becoming a regular McDonalds’ costumer! Yes, I went back there today and purchased a second tiny hamburger. Yesterday, I realized my experiment hamburger had ketchup and a slice of pickle on it. I was afraid these two toppings would alter the result, so I went back and purchased a PLAIN tiny burger. It cost me another 89 cents, plus 6 cents tax. Now, I have a control burger without toppings, albeit three days fresher. While I was there, I checked out what it would cost to purchase a small order of fries: $1, plus 7 cents tax. That means that the FOOD and PAPER portion of my original Happy Meal cost me $2.02 and the toy $1.00.

March 7
You’d think at least the ketchup your child is dipping her French fries in and the dab on the hamburger is healthy, after all it’s made of tomatoes. Tomatoes are a super food, right? Not so fast. Ketchup is usually one-third sugar (unless you purchase a healthy brand at a whole foods store).The ingredients on the McDonald’s Fancy Ketchup read: “Tomato concentrate (not whole tomatoes), distilled vinegar, High Fructose Corn Sweetener, Corn syrup, water, salt, natural flavorings.” When you add the High Fructose Corn Sweetener with the Corn syrup, most likely sugar will be the real first ingredient. Ketchup is sugar and worst kind of all. Click Here for more info on High Fructose Corn Sweetener.

March 8
It’s day five, and somehow I don’t feel consoled by McDonald’s website reassurances: “McDonald’s offers a range of menu options to help meet your family’s nutrition needs. When it comes to eating with your kids at McDonald’s, you can feel good knowing that our Happy Meals and Mighty Kids Meals contain important nutrients that growing kids need. Many of the foods we serve at McDonald’s are the same trusted brands you might purchase for your family at your local grocery store.

“My Happy Meal looks pretty much the same as the day I purchased it. The only difference I can tell is the ketchup and the pickle are being absorbed into the mini-white bun. Of course, the plain burger I purchased looks the same, so do the fries. If this were real food, there should be some decomposition. In Morgan Spurlock’s (Super Size Me) McDonald’s experiment found fries are turning black from decomposition by 2 weeks. But, McDonald’s fries never did decompose. That can’t be food, for food to nourish your body it needs to decompose.

Could the lack of decomposition be because of trans fat? I thought McDonalds said they no longer use trans fat, but according to the McDonlds website their French fries are prepared in hydrogenated soybean oil, corn oil, or canola oil. Any hydrogenated oil is a trans fat! Trans fat is created when a vegetable oil is overheated. Restaurants use their frying oil for a week. It’s heated over and over again. Trans fats can’t release any useful mediators. Their shape keeps them from being recognized by enzymes. Explains a lot, don’t you think.

March 9
How many times have I heard “It’s cheaper to eat out than cook at home“? I don’t know maybe a million! I don’t get it. A Big Mac Meal costs $5.39 and a Happy Meal, $2.79, plus tax. For a family of four that’s $16.36 or a mom and one child $8.18; not including taxes. Not a bargain when you think what that could purchase. Last Spring, I worked out a food budget for two people on food stamps. ( Click Here for my Food Stamp Budget blog.) With a meager food stamp budget of $300 a month for two people, about $10 a day you can feed two people whole foods. One trip to McDonalds would cost almost as much as a day’s groceries. If you ask me, that’s NO bargain.

March 10
Today, is day 7. My Happy Meal still looks happy. The fries haven’t changed a bit, although the French fry smell is faint. The hamburger itself looks like it did on day one. The ketchup and slice of pickle have dried. The mini-white bun is now hard and has split. If you look closely at my original photo at the top of this blog, you can see a vertical crease in the bun. It looked as if it had been squished or bent before the patty was placed on it. The split is in the crease. (My second PLAIN Burger, purchased three days after is still perfect.)

March 12
What is a natural flavor, exactly? McDonald’s says their fries contain a natural flavor. A substance can be natural, but it may violate a religious or dietary restriction or it may cause allergic reactions in some people. It turns out that today, “natural” can mean just about anything. The natural flavor in McDonald’s fries is beef flavor containing hydrolyzed wheat and hydrolyzed milk as starting ingredients.

March 15
The Happy Meal was launched in 1979, by 2003 the Happy Meal accounted for 20 percent of all meals sold at McDonalds! It was pure marketing geniuswhen Ronald McDonald became their mascot. In commercials, Ronald McDonald inhabits a fantasy world called McDonaldland. He has adventures with his friends Mayor McCheese, the Hamburglar, Grimace, Birdie the Early Bird, and The Fry Kids. Our kids have been taken captive, by a clown. According to Barna Research, kids ages 2 to 7 watch an average of 25 hours of television a week and see about 40,000 television ads per year. It’s no surprise Ronald McDonald was number two on a list of the most recognizable people in the world. This, of course, relates directly to our kids’ addiction to junk food!

March 16
My Happy Meal is 12 days old. I’m taking it off my shelf, just for a little peek to see how it’s doing. Ya’d think that there would be some sort of decomposition going on by now. I don’t see any…nope none at all. My Happy Meal is still looks perky.

March 19
It’s too bad that even in the midst of the recession, parents are finding the financial wherewithal to keep their kids supplied with Happy Meals. February’s sales were up 5.4 percent above last year. January’s global comparable sales leaped 7.1 percent. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if parents cooked whole foods at home? No only would they save during these tight financial times, but their kids would be healthier, too.

March 30
Do you know the:
1) percentage of potatoes which end up French fried: 22
2) age when a toddler first eats a French fry: 6 mo
3) percentage of toddlers who eat French Fries everyday: 21

March 31
I’m taking my Happy Meal on its first field trip. It’s going to be my show-and-tell for tonight’s presentation to preschool moms in Littleton, Colorado. No one will believe my Happy Meal is one day shy of four week’s old! It looks as good as it did on day one.

April 10
You remember the jingle, “Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.” What’s in the  Big Mac® special sauce: Soybean oil, pickle relish [diced pickles, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, vinegar, corn syrup, salt, calcium chloride, xanthan gum, potassium sorbate (preservative), spice extractives, polysorbate 80], distilled vinegar, water, egg yolks, high fructose corn syrup, onion powder, mustard seed, salt, spices, propylene glycol alginate, sodium benzoate (preservative), mustard bran, sugar, garlic powder, vegetable protein (hydrolyzed corn, soy and wheat), caramel color, extractives of paprika, soy lecithin, turmeric (color), calcium disodium EDTA (protect flavor). CONTAINS: WHEAT, EGG AND SOY.
Looks like sugar is the number one ingredient in the Big Mac® Sauce.  (And by the way, the Happy Meal purchased on May 3 looks as good as it did on day one.)

April 29
Since I began this blog, I’ve written another post about Monosodium Glutamate. MSG is a common ingredient in McDonald’s food.  Click Here to read “Hidden Toxin in Food.” Unappetizing as it is, my Happy Meal is just as perky as the day I bought it, nearly two months ago!

June 3
How sad are Americans? Despite all the cautions about fast food, a recent poll found that 44 percent of Americans say they like the taste of fast food too much to give it up. Greg Chu, senior vice president of health care for Synovate in North America, says people in the USA have “a love-hate relationship” with fast food. “We love the convenience. We love the taste. We love the assurance that you can count on it. But we know it’s not good for us.”

December 14
I wish I could say that my Happy Meal has changed in some way. But it looks pretty much the same nine months after I purchased it. The bread is crusty. That’s all!

March 3, 2010
Read about my Happy Meal’s first birthday, CLICK HERE.

Click Here for a synopsis of “Baby Bites: Transforming a Picky Eater into a Healthy Eater”