Sad day at McDonald's
 

http://money.cnn.com/2004/04/19/new...dex.htm?cnn=yes

Ironic.

Not to make light of the man's death, But it is quite ironic he was felled by a Heart Attack at a McDonald's Convention.

As sad as it is for his family and friends, I haven't seen many articles springing up as to how dangerous Mc Donalds is for you and how, even thinking about McD, will give you a heart attack, cancer and brittle bones, not to forget kidney failure and hairloss.....

Dr Atkins died of a fall and that was what they wrote.....

Yes, indeed, it's ironic...but did the man ever eat at McD's?

I remember quite a while back, McD's sales were slipping, and CNN interviewed a number of their executives, who said something like, "Apparently, the food doesn't taste very good."

Personally I don't understand why anyone eats there at all. If you look up the word crap in the dictionary :

crap ( P ) Pronunciation Key (krp) Vulgar Slang
n.
1. McDonald food.
2. An act of eating at Mcdonald
3. Foolish, deceitful, or boastful language.
4. Cheap or shoddy material.
5. Miscellaneous or disorganized items; clutter.
6. Insolent talk or behavior.

you might have spoken too quickly Madpiano:

McDonald's CEO Death May Fuel Fast-Food Critics
Tue 20 April, 2004 17:21

By Greg McCune

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Distasteful or not, the sudden death of McDonald's Chief Executive Jim Cantalupo from an apparent heart attack on Monday may turn up the spotlight on criticism of the restaurant's food as fatty and unhealthy.

McDonald's Inc. and other fast food chains have come under attack from health and nutrition experts who say its hamburgers and french fries are a major cause of obesity.

There is no suggestion Cantalupo died because he ate too much of his own company's food and marketing experts do not expect immediate criticism of McDonald's. But they said once the dust settles, critics could use his death against the world's largest restaurant chain.

"I think that, after a while, they (McDonald's detractors) will try to liken this to a cigarette company executive dying of lung cancer," said Steven Addis, chief executive of Addis Group, a brand strategy and design company. Addis said such criticism of McDonald's would be unfortunate.

There is a precedent for this with recent attacks on the health benefits of the Atkins diet following the release of a medical report showing the diet's creator, Dr. Robert Atkins, had a heart condition when he died last year.

"It would be horribly bad taste to suggest that because this guy ran McDonald's that he had a heart attack as a result of it," said Bob Dilenschneider, chief executive of The Dilenschneider Group, a public relations firm.

But he said that, to neuter criticism, McDonald's now must continue Cantalupo's vision to provide healthy food choices such as salads and fresh fruit at its restaurants, as well as traditional fare.

People who worked with Cantalupo said he appeared to be in reasonably good health. A McDonald's spokeswoman would not comment on his prior health record.

"He never used the elevators, always walked up the stairs. He was in good shape, not fat," said Herman Boykin, a security guard at McDonald's headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois.

At McDonald's headquarters in the Chicago suburbs, executives have few choices for eating lunch out, unless they seek to venture by car off the company's sprawling campus.

On a given day, many senior staff can be found in the company's in-house cafeteria, a working McDonald's situated in the headquarters building.

Though it does have some offerings that would not be found beneath the chain's landmark Golden Arches outside, it does mainly provide the traditional Big Macs, Quarter Pounders, soft drinks and fries. The restaurant is also often used to test new menu items before they are incorporated into menus in the company's 13,000 U.S. hamburger outlets.

On a trip with reporters to visit McDonald's restaurants in Colorado, Texas and California in June 2000, the company's executives ate french fries, sundaes, hamburgers or triple-thick milkshakes at every stop, saying it would be impolite to visit a franchise and not eat the food.

One executive on that trip spent his evenings jogging in an effort to stave off the pounds that come from eating the company's fast-food for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

A young filmmaker recently won an award at the Sundance Film Festival for "Super Size Me: A Film of Epic Portions," a documentary about his month of eating nothing but McDonald's menu items. Morgan Spurlock gained 25 pounds and his cholesterol level increased.

There have even been lawsuits against the world's largest restaurant chain, charging that its food caused consumers to become obese. Courts have so far dismissed most of the suits.

"I think it is not only McDonald's but the fast food industry in general that has contributed to the expanding waist lines in this country and now abroad," said Samantha Heller, Senior Clinical Nutritionist at New York University Medical Center.

Cantalupo's death follows the untimely passing of others in the industry. In January 2002, Dave Thomas, 69, founder of No.3 U.S. hamburger chain Wendy's International Inc. died of complications from liver cancer. In December 1999, Wendy's CEO, Gordon Teter, died of a heart attack at age 56.

Heller said new CEO Charlie Bell should continue to broaden McDonald's menu to include affordable and healthy choices.

"We need to eat healthy foods that do not contribute to heart disease, like cheeseburgers do," Heller said.

This is sad, I think he was leading mcds into a great direction. Getting rid of the super sizes and introducing salads and such. I hope his direction is documented and keep going. McD's is 100 times better then it was about 5 years ago.

McDonald's salads are NOT healthy by any strecth:

K.i.s.s.
 

The Fast food industry needs this slogan.
"Keep It Simple Stupid"

In the best possible world:

Beef Ingredients: Grass Fed Beef. Salt and Pepper.
Salad Ingredients: Lettuce, assorted other veggies.
etc...

also put up billboards which say: CORN SYRUP IS POISON.

Not surprisingly, the UK press is comparing Jim Cantalupo's death to Dr. Atkin's:

Cantalupo's death comes two months after revelations about the poor health of the inventor of the high-fat, high-cholesterol Atkins diet. Dr Robert Atkins, 72, died a year ago after slipping on an icy street.

Earlier this year, a leaked report by the New York medical examiner revealed that he had a serious heart disease and at 18 1/2 stone was clinically obese.

The report showed that Dr Atkins had suffered a heart attack, congestive heart failure and high blood pressure before his death. But colleagues said his weight had ballooned because of fluid retention while he was in a coma after he collapsed.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/...id77156?source=

Linda

That is expencive though. It is much cheaper to use fillers. That way you can meet the American public's demands for "bigger" and "cheaper" If you add sugar to the mix, you satisfy thier sweet tooth and get them to come back unknowing they are feeding a carb addiction :)

""He never used the elevators, always walked up the stairs. He was in good shape, not fat," said Herman Boykin, a security guard at McDonald's headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois."

Sounds to me like the poor man either had a coronary caused by a spams of the coronary vessles or a fatal arrhythmia.

A spasm can be treated, and the symptoms (and treatment I think) are the same or similar to CAD, but there's no or little plaque build-up.

An arrhythmia is an irregularity of the heart that causes sudden cardiac death. If he was lucky enough to have this within reach of a defibrillator....and if there was someone to use it, he may have survivied long enough to have a defibrillator implanted. There are many causes of this, from a viral infection to the after effects of a "true" coronary....a myocardial infarction, where plaque blocks the vessel.

Last I heard, neither of these are related to diet, weight or cholesterol levels (except when arrhythmias caused by CAD damage). They can be successfully treated, but a lot of people don't find out until they have an event...and that first event can be fatal.

Can anyone say In-n-Out burgers? Of course, they don't have salads. But you can get your double-double (2 patties, 2 cheese--and that's REAL cheese, not cheese food product slices) protein style, which is wrapped in nice crisp lettuce.

Jude

you know, after all the hype I thought that In-N-Out Burgers were pretty overrated.

Backyard Burgers, however, are worth every penny.

I'm sorry to hear about Cantalupo's passing. He was really the one responsible for pushing a lot of healthy menu initiatives forward at McDonalds. Though I did read an article recently that the new CEO plans to continue along this route.