"kids meals" news and stories

Looking for a way to make your mac and cheese more interesting? Try these clever little Macaroni and Cheese Drums. Just mix any vegetable you like into the mac and cheese (chopped spinach or broccoli are good options), then use thinly sliced zucchini or pastry dough to create the drums. Kids love them, and you will, too.

Get the Macaroni and Cheese Drums recipe.

As if it weren't hard enough to dissuade your children from billboards and television ads touting fast food, a new tactic has entered the ad world. Fast food chains in Australia have begun emailing free-food vouchers to kids under 12. But could it happen here?

This "direct mail" marketing campaign from Australia-based chains Hungry Jack and Taco Bill strategically bypasses parents with an online "Kids Club," where children can register to receive "free meals on their birthdays, vouchers for free ice cream" and finger puppets, reports The Daily Telegraph. And you'd better believe health organizations went after them.

Under the umbrella of The Obesity Policy Coalition, the prosecuting organizations include: The World Health Organization, Diabetes Australia, VicHealth and Cancer Council of Victoria. But when they called on the Federal Government "to amend the Privacy Act to outlaw direct mail advertising to children," the Feds said children were already protected by spam laws, reports the Telegraph.

Jane Martin, the coalition's senior public officer, believes no such thing. And, really, if that were true, wouldn't the chains stop sending the mail?

Why so glum, Ronald McDonald?

First, officials in one California county banned toys in fast-food kid's meals, Happy and otherwise (setting off a nationwide trend). Then there was that flap over McDonald's cadmium-contaminated Shrek glasses.

Now a public advocacy group has issued an ultimatum to the Golden Arches: Get those toys out of all Happy Meals, or we'll sue.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest announced yesterday that it will take McDonald's to court unless the fast-food giant immediately stops including toys in any meals (the plastic baubles no doubt constitute some sizeable portion of our trade deficit with China). The group charges that the toys lure children into a lifelong cycle of unhealthy eating habits, obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

Unhappy times are ahead for those who love Happy Meals in Santa Clara, California. The Los Angeles Times reports that Santa Clara County has approved a ban on the promotional toys that often accompany kids' meals at fast-food spots like McDonald's, Burger King and Taco Bell. The toys must be discontinued unless the restaurants can institute a voluntary program in the next 90 days that improves the nutritional offerings.

According to ordinance sponsor Ken Yeager, "This ordinance prevents restaurants from preying on children's love of toys. This ordinance breaks the link between unhealthy food and prizes."

Childhood obesity and diabetes is certainly on the rise in the U.S., and Santa Clara is taking a route that goes above parental roles in healthy eating and targets the food itself. The ban will undoubtedly create havoc for franchise owners in Santa Clara; fast-food establishments are fairly rigid in terms of their menus and can't add new, specialty offerings on demand -- it just doesn't work that way.

Also, promotional toys are typically nationwide roll-outs. So Santa Clara kids and parents alike might have a hard time understanding why they can't get a toy for their child when advertisements and their Iowa cousins tell them they should be able to. We suspect this might lead to the inevitable: families driving across county lines just for some plastic.

Photo: Breakmould, Flickr.

Fast food restaurants know where their bread is buttered -- with the kids! The chains have been using toys as little-kid bait for decades, and it's an effective tactic: Children have an adorable propensity for confusing junk for treasure, which is why kiddie meals can be the highlight of their day.

Most of these meals fall into two categories: interactive advertisements for recent blockbusters or beloved television shows, and lame.

We're focusing on the latter, those toys over the years that were uninspired, nonsensical, or just plain disappointing. Each of these so-called "collectibles" currently languishes in the corners of garages, the bottoms of landfills and in the remote, digital wastelands of eBay.