Sinking US sales hit McDonald's earnings in Q1

This is great to see. McDonalds is particularly bad, because they market unhealthy food directly to children. I just visited Canada, where McDonalds is running an ad campaign that equates McDonalds food with family togetherness - this company has no soul.

Here is an interesting, if disheartening, report from the USDA. Per-capita consumption of meat and poultry increased continuously from the 1950s through 2000: http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf . In particular, there has been a huge increase in the per-capita consumption of poultry, due to its perceived healthfulness.

Here are extensive data on the per-capita consumption of over 200 different food types in the United States, from 1909 to 2012: http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-availability-(per-capita)-data-system.aspx . A real eye-opener.

Here's something that really caught my eye in this report: in the year 1909, each person consumed an average of 300 pounds of wheat per year! American wheat consumption then declined steadily, until it reached a low of 110 pounds per person in the 1970s. From there, it began to increase again. In 2012, each American consumed an average of 134 pounds of wheat per year, but most of that is now refined wheat (cookies, cakes, crackers, hamburger buns, pizza crust).

RedPill said:

To be fair, that's in China, a country with a reputation for unclean water. Secondly, the bacteria present in toilet water is likely to be much more harmful than that in an ice machine. Surely you've seen the tv shows where they take swabs from everything in the house and find that things like keyboards, remotes and phones actually have the highest bacteria count?

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I agree with you there, the ice-machine & water may be much more cleaner & suitable for consumption in U.S or Europe compared to developing countries due to their advanced treatment systems. I know that keyboards, phones and anything touched by hands constantly will grow bacteria that's why I clean them once a day using alcohol based cleaners, may not make them free of bacteria but sure might help reduce them.

Bacteria per se isn't the problem they're everywhere, its the presence of certain variations E.Coli that is worrying because they can make one violently ill. This bacteria has been found worldwide in every water source specially where meat is handled. They've also traced the same bacteria to ice water in U.K and certain diners in America. If the ice machines aren't cleaned thoroughly as specified this might indeed happen anywhere. Most don't do it because of a general misconception that freezing anything should kill bacteria like E.Coli, it wont it merely suspends activity.