Yesterday Twitter friend Carlos tweeted about Wendy's new 'Natural Cut Fries with Sea Salt' and a link to go with it. Here's the link http://yhoo.it/fd3Tqq. What does this tell us about fast food and our culture? A few really important things. Let's go through them one by one. There is no regulation on the term 'natural':
Because the marketing geniuses of Wendy's put the term 'natural' in front of cut they could dupe people into believing that they were picking something better for them without providing a product that was in fact better for them. As the article discusses, even though Wendy's claims that they use oil and sea salt for their flavoring they still use sodium acid pyrophosphate to keep the fries from turning brown. There is little that is natural about their product.
People want good quality but refuse to pay:
Demanding high quality but not being ready to fork over some more cash for it is asking for new dangled marketing schemes such as this one. It allows the consumer to feel better about their food, if you can even call fast food 'food' at this point in time, without opening their wallet.
We can demand better, not with our voices but with our wallets. Every bite of food we take, every meal we make, every time we stay at home and make something instead of eating food that's been processed or loaded with enough fat for three people in one meal; every time we do that we are telling companies what we want. If you want a fast lunch, make your lunch the Ning before during one of the commercials on tv. Or make enough dinner that there's leftovers for lunch. There are coupons and co-ops and ways to buy intelligently as well as healthy. It's not as easy as driving up to a drive thru window, it just takes some planning and creativity.
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