What, no cherry on the top? (2024)

McDonald’s deserves some credit for heeding concerns about its food. But there’s more to be done. What’s next?

I don’t make it to McDonald’s much these days, though more often than I should.

So, it came as a big surprise the other day that, when my daughter insisted on getting a cherry on top of her vanilla shake, the drive-thru staffer ruefully told us that McDonald’s no longer served cherries.

Don’t tell my daughter I said this, but good for Mickey D’s.

I’ll confess that I have a long-standing love-hate relationships with cherries — or, more precisely, with their dyed, sickly-sweet, over-preserved cousin, the maraschino cherry. That’s the “fruit product” (aka “candy”) that’s been used to top ice-cream sundaes and soft drinks for more than a hundred years.

If I was a good boy as a child, my parents would put those special treats in my weekly cup of soda. (Yes, a single cup — 75% glass, 25% space for beverage — each week. I’ve sworn never to treat my child so cruelly.) To this day, if I’m at a bar, I’ll try to sit next to the mini-trays of lemon slices, martini olives, and pearl onions, so that I can casually nab maraschinos, building a pile of stems in front of me.

The fewer of those that my daughter eats now, the less she’ll have to fight off the temptation later and the healthier she’ll be.

If you look up the nutritional value of a single maraschino cherry (weight: 5 grams), you’ll see the number 8 (for calories) and nothing else but zeros.

It also has some ingredients that never get mentioned in “what’s best to eat” guides. Among them is “Allura Red AC”, aka “FD&C Red Dye #40.” That’s the stuff that gives the maraschino cherry (along with cosmetics, tattoo inks (!), and cotton candy) its particular bright red hue. It’s also, according to a Food and Drug Administration study, a possible source of increased hyperactivity in some children.

No wonder my attention-challenged child is lovin’ it.

I suppose one could say that Allura Red is better than some of its colorful predecessors: Croatian maraschino liqueur (the original), sodium metabisulphite, and FD&C Red Number 4 (banned by the FDA in 1976).

But “safer” does not necessarily equal “safe.”

I don’t know why McDonald’s really stopped serving cherries in April 2017. The company has hinted that it was due to a lack of consumer demand, saying that 49% of customers asked to “hold the cherries.”

But, even if the ban was just a matter of penny-pinching, it’s worth recognizing that McDonald’s — among other fast food places — is making a real effort to improve its food’s nutritional value and ecological footprint. The “Golden Arches” deserves applause for that.

For example, it’s a lot easier to figure out what’s in McDonald’s food now than when I had my first meal there, back in that ancient time before Big Macs and Quarter Pounders (or “Royales With Cheese” for those metrically-inclined). In that era, McDonald’s — and most Americans — probably considered yogurt vaguely foreign and the term “low-fat” an expletive; now the chain sells over 100 million helpings of the stuff each year. And, as of this June, Happy Meals for kids in the United States will pack less than 600 calories.

Don’t get me wrong. I think that most McDonald’s meals are a public health and environmental catastrophe in the making. But, as my wife says when she succumbs to a Big Mac Attack, they’re not going away anytime soon. And, given McD’s enormous volume and its influence on its competitors, small steps in the right direction cover a lot of ground.

That enormous market-making power also begs the question: “Why has McDonald’s bothered to change its tried-and-true formula?” And, more importantly, how can we persuade it to keep going?

I see three main factors:

1. Changing consumer preferences: McDonald’s awareness that 49% of its customers want their shakes cherry-free gives you an idea of how much data it collects about consumer preferences and how much it cares about what that data reveals. Depending on your level of cynicism, you either can call it good business sense or a feeling of social responsibility. (Having worked closely on my college newspaper with the company’s future chief counsel, I lean slightly towards the former.) But, whatever the motivation, the company has responded somewhat to the growing public concern about nutrition.

2. Federal, state, and local laws and regulations: Mickey D’s didn’t decide to post the fact that its Bacon & Cheese Sirloin Third-Pound Burger has 810 calories due to a principled love of transparency. It was required by federal and state laws, such as a little-known provision of the Affordable Care Act. (Give the company credit, though, for complying with the law well before the deadline.) And, those laws didn’t materialize out of thin air. They’re the result of a lot of hard work by public health advocacy groups, such as the Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG) and the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

3. Direct advocacy campaigns: Like any company, especially one that can easily lose customers to competitors, McDonald’s does not like bad PR. (Ask Chipotle, which McDonald’s once owned, but unloaded right around the time the quick-service Mexican food restaurant started having e-coli problems.) McDonald’s would much rather stave off potential boycotts and avoid embarrassing news reports about its food leading to health and environmental problems. Such campaigns, ranging from French farmers dumping manure at restaurant entrances to the distribution of a scorecard grading fast food chains’ meat purchasing practices, have often forced McDonald’s hand. For example, in 2015, McDonald’s agreed to requests to require its U.S. suppliers to stop using medically-important antibiotics on healthy chickens. Doing so will reduce the development of antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” that can kill humans.

U.S. PIRG and the state PIRGs are now trying to persuade the company to “hold the antibiotics” on all of its meat purchases. If McDonald’s — which is the world’s largest buyer of beef and pork and second to KFC for chicken — agrees, others will follow.

I hope the PIRG campaign succeeds. If not, I’ll have to switch to McSalads or just pig out on their yet-to-be-surpassed fries.

As for cherry-less shakes, I can deal with the loss. I don’t usually get anything other than root beer anyway, as I choose to “hold the caffeine.”

So, it came as another big surprise when the McDonald’s drive-through staffer ruefully informed me they were also no longer serving root beer.

Sorry, Ronald, that may be the straw that broke this customer’s back. The Wendy’s across the street is looking deliciously different now.