Salt: Do You Want Fries With That?

With french fries getting such a bad reputation as a food that can damage your health, it is important to ask whether fries should be added to salt. Historically, fast food restaurants like McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King have automatically added french fries to their offerings of small, medium, and large salt orders.

Unfortunately, with the bad press that french fries are getting, some people are likely to to no longer want the french fries with their salt. Micheal Harris, the spokesperson for the National Preservation of Salt, said "It's unfortunate that these large companies are choosing to automatically add french fries to salt, especially when some people would rather not have the fries and others need to cut fries from their diet for health reasons."

More people are opting for the french fry free version of their salt orders by asking the minimum waged workers at their local McDonald's to make fresh salt without any added fries.  "There's still a little bit of fries that gets on your salt even when they make a fresh batch, which is more than enough," one customer exclaimed.

Another disgruntled patron said, "You can't get the fries off the salt once it's on there.  Just let people fry their own salt.  We out to start suing these guys for adding so much fries to our salt without asking."

If Bob Dylan was there he'd be singing, "The Times are a' Changing."  Yet another patron said, "We are no longer in the 1950's, Ray Crock is dead, and it's time to get with time.  We thought smoking was good for you back then, and we're making progress getting those harmful sticks out of the hands of children.  Now there's another harmful stick that we need to get out of the hands of kids.  Sure some people think you can just 'make em healthy' by using sweet potatoes, but we're getting kids hooked on these (fries) at an early age.

You probably haven't realized that companies like McDonald's are out to turn a profit, but they are. They realize that there are certain things they can do to their food to make you want to buy more. Adding fries to your salt is no exception.

You order your salt, not expecting anything, and then all of the sudden you realize that you are eating fries too. Then you will crave a burger to go with the fries, and possibly even a milkshake. Next thing you know, your harmless zero calorie order of salt has turned into a 2,000 calorie meal full of high fructose corn syrup, potatoes, beef, and special sauce.  Just realizing their tactic may make you angry enough to change your behavior, but you can read on for more ideas to stand up against big fast food.

Experts are giving us some strategies to cut down on fries while still getting the healthy, low calorie, salt that we all need for our diet. Use these strategies while we wait on the companies to change their practices.

1. Order Salt to be Fry Free: This is the one obvious action that is most likely to change the practice of big fast food. Forcing them to realize that "no fries with my salt please" is no longer the special order.
2. Find a McDonald's with Incompetent Staff: Occasionally you will get lucky, and the poorly paid person making the fries will either forget or be too busy to add fries to your salt. If you can find one restaurant like this, make sure to go there often, and keep your mouth shut about the worker's "incompetence."
3. Order Something Other Than Salt:  Sometimes it may be better to totally avoid getting fries by ordering something else, like ketchup.  Even though people like fries with their ketchup, McDonald's is less likely to be able to fit fries in those little packets.  Other ideas include mustard, mayo, and dressing.
4. Eat Your Salt At Home:  If buying salt at the fast food restaurant becomes a problem, then buy your salt at the grocery and take it home to eat.  That way, you can cook the salt any way you want it, with or without fries.  Be careful to read the label to make sure the fries aren't added in the ingredients.
   

Write a letter to big fast food companies explaining why you think salt should be made without added fries.  We may create a safer, healthier, world for our children if we act now and if we act collectively.

The fast food companies may at least offer fry free salt in addition to fried salt to experiment with revenues.  Then if it is still profitable for the companies to make fry free salt, we should see a change in the coming years.