Will you have anaphylaxis with that?
It’s peculiar to see McDonald’s announcing that from now on, all of its fast food products “may contain” nuts and other allergens. This is like saying to customers, “To hell with you people and your wholly rational fear of death by anaphylaxis.” I have waited in vain for a change of heart.
Since it will no longer use prepackaged nuts, anything could be nutty or brushed by nuts, as McDonald’s explains to its “guests” in an obscure part of its website, complete with grammatical errors. McDonald’s childishly refused to respond to upset customers on social media, as if they had cooties rather than allergies. What a strange company.
It’s the corporate equivalent of British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott who once punched a voter in the face, or the irate but principled Labour MP caught shouting on a yob voter’s doorstep, “You will not vote for me! I will not accept your vote!” Politicians need voters, McDonald’s needs mouths.
It is odd for me to comment, given that I don’t think McDonald’s sells actual “food,” merely approximations of same. I haven’t eaten in one of its outlets in years because honestly, who eats in McDonald’s. The answer is: everyone but me.
Hungry people, including parents and children — all children are clamorous and specific about their requirements — will walk through its doors and ingest the stuff. Children have birthday parties there, grownups suck its candied fluids through a straw, people in need of gasoline in their personal structural tank will buy a warm softburger.
I myself had been secretly planning to buy a Big Mac, part of my I No Longer Care/How Bad Can Things Get project, codenamed Operation Sinkhole. Now I’m not going to.
This is not of the faintest interest to McDonald’s, I do understand that. But losing the trade of families with allergies, people lunching with friends with allergies, people who have heard of allergies and sympathize? That’s a lot of “guests.”
McDonald’s may now perhaps no longer risk liability for a death on its premises, possibly avoiding the legal concept of “duty of care” in the nut sector. Duty of care was born via Donoghue v. Stevenson, the 1932 case of the Scotswoman with an unwelcome snail in her ginger beer. The bottler came to regret that snail.
But would not the legal risk then fall on unaware parents and unwittingly allergic toddlers? It’s arguable, which is how lawyers earn their food. They live to argue; they argue to live.
I am allergic to nothing but have family members born with severe allergies. My sister, allergic to fish and nuts, spent her early years looking more red shrimp than child. She and her inhaler remain as one.
For those who casually dismiss parents — particularly mothers, I note — as overly protective, you may be reacting to some secret resentment of your own. Did your carnival parents shoot you out of a cannon for money? Good parents advocate for children, who will happily eat anything including batteries and dice.
Parents are now told to try feeding peanuts to highrisk babies to fend off allergies with early exposure. Great, so some babies have their first anaphylaxis and ambulance race at four months.
And remember, allergic children became allergic grownups.
For those who have never gone into anaphylactic shock, here’s an adult describing it: “My mouth burns. My tongue feels prickly and I get hot throbbing hives on my lips and on my face. I start to feel an ache in my esophagus as the hives move down my throat. I try not to panic, but it’s hard not to. My legs feel weak and I want to cry. My hands start shaking. I get what feels like a golf ball stuck inside of my esophagus. My stomach aches with both a sharp and dull pain.”
People describe feeling as though they have a knee driven into their throat, a rash like Rice Krispies under the skin, a huge tongue, cold clammy skin, dropping blood pressure, then unconsciousness. They are terrorized. The worst part is the knowledge that death is coming.
As for McDonald’s, there is the “Is this where you want to die?” factor.
Places where people would be happy to die: at home in their sleep, on top of K2. Where people don’t want to die: in a Porta Potty, at work, in the lineup for the SKOR McFlurry.
So don’t risk it. Find a better feedbag. Life is short, you don’t want it shorter.