And the award goes to...

In Oz, Golden Arches has just won hands down the most manipulative ad award. Second place went to Kellogs for their Coco Pops ads as being the most misleading.

It seems that

The message is loud and clear. Parents are fed up having to contend with McDonald's enticing their children to want its food by using free toy giveaways

IMHO, it doesn't matter how many lettuce leaves and how much pasta is advertised as being on site in a Maccas, I do not think of Maccas as being a place to get a healthy meal. McD's in my mind, is junk food, irrespective that their ads suggest otherwise.

Lettuce and other greenery is for nuking with Roundup, not eating. Pasta is only flour and water, might as well have a nice sarnie with a decent meat filling. Meat and two vege is a healthy meal. Pasta, drowned in a sauce and greenery is not.

As for having the cheek to call establishments that serve such takeaways a restaurant, I find that an obscene technicality.

Whenever I deliberately consider having an unhealthy meal, Macca's instantly hits the top of the list (thank God, the nearest one is 80Km away), closely followed by KFC. Sometimes I go slightly healthy in takeaways with a salty dish with a dash of omega-3 and mercury with the shark de jour at the local fush and chups. An almost healthy takeaway wound be a Chinese - at least they have a bit of meat and vege along the lines of beef strips, orange coated buzzard and some well hidden greens.

Sorry McD's, I, like the 3000 Ozzie parents, will never find reason to dine on your offerings other than for an intake of junk food that will leave me looking for something else to fill the void in half an hour's time.