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KFC has changed its logo and announced that it will stop using trans-fats by some time next year. The rebranding exercise has seen their usually chubby Colonel Sanders undergo some extensive facial surgery, probably involving botox injections into his forehead, lips and chin with some hardcore liposuction on his cheeks and chins.

The KFC press release is more focused on the addition of an apron to the logo:

The apron symbolizes the home-style culinary heritage of the brand and reminds customers that KFC is always in the kitchen cooking delicious, high-quality, freshly prepared chicken by hand, just the way Colonel Sanders did 50 years ago.

From the way they talk about their food you would think they are a reputable restaurant! Has anyone been to a KFC recently? They are even worse than McDonalds!

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is to hold a conference for health ministers at the end of the month where it will urge them to sign up to an anti-obesity charter stating that children should not be “exploited” by food companies. The main policy aim is to ban advertising for unhealthy foods aimed at children and adolescents, the WHO says “Special attention needs to be focussed on vulnerable groups such as children and adolescents, whose credulity should not be exploited by commercial activities.”

Norway and Sweden have already put a TV ban into force and France imposes health warnings on any junk food ads. But the WHO points out that advertising on the internet and mobile phone text messaging is largely unregulated and must also be part of any new regulations.

It is well known that advertising companies use child psychologists to help manipulate the desires of the children beyond the influence of their parents. Financially it is very successful because it works. It is very subtle and starts as soon as kids can recognise images, and that really is a huge challenge for parents today. It is up to the governments of the world to ‘tip the balance’ away from junk food corporations in favour of responsible parents. It is not the first time in history that companies have exploited children for financial gain, think chimney sweeps and child labour.

Banning junk food advertising aimed at children is the first step in curbing the obesity problem that is developing all over the world. The problem is also seeding itself in parts of the world that is still developing such as Eastern Europe where for every $100 invested in fruit and vegetable productions, another $1000 is invested in soft drink and confectionary.

If you want to know what a society that doesn’t have corporate junk food pushed down its neck looks like then Cuba is a perfect example. Cuba was subject to a United States embargo that banned all US companies from selling products in or to Cuba, this included food and medicines. This meant the fast food industry didn’t establish itself and Cuba had to look for its own ways of developing a food industry. The result is a society that eats food as nature intended, with little or no factory manufacturing. But the real measure of this lack of junk food is the fact that Cuba has a life expectancy rate that is higher than many western developed nations.

The WHO conference takes place on Nov. 15 in Istanbul and will be attended by ministers from over 50 countries.

Our favourite is Taco Bell’s Cheesy Gordita Crunch that looks so appealing in the advert, with its perfect cuts of lettuce and delicate cheese arrangement. Badfoodad.com points out the high expectations you might have after seeing the adverts and the photo of the actual item illustrates perfectly how crazy junk food adverts are.

Visit: www.BadFoodAd.com

McDonald’s has executed its latest corporate tactic in trying to convince the world that junk food is not junk by launching food labelling in New Zealand and Australia. The low key launch in these isolated markets is obviously a test launch as the company prepares itself for a worldwide launch of nutritional labelling.

The McDonalds cheeseburger is probably the ‘healthiest’ burger they have because it only weighs in at an unsatisfying 106 grams. But as the McDonalds nutritional label shows, you get 13.4 grams of fat which includes 6.4 grams of saturated fats. What they don’t show on their nutritional labelling is how much of the non-saturated fats are actually trans-fats which are the worst types of fat. We all know the real reason McDonald’s has taken this step is because its sales fell sharply in 2000 and its shareholders were demanding a change.

But McDonald’s is fully aware that their average burger loving customer is already addicted to eating their junk and probably doesn’t know how to understand percentages or can’t come to terms with data that isn’t telling them that burgers are nice. They will look at the label on their cheeseburger and notice that it only contains 26.5% of their daily intake of saturated fat, so they could get away with eating 3 more.

Visit: www.mcspotlight.org