McDonald's FAILED HARD in This Country

The year 2002 was not a great year for McDonald.

Although the company market capitalization was around $25 billion, that year they reported a loss of $343.8 million and a 38.4% drop in their stock price, and most importantly, the company had to close each one of its 8 venues in Bolivia, because Bolivian didn’t buy into their food.

Few factors came into play serving many lessons in disguise to the brand and any business looking to approach different demographics.

What I get from this is the cultural resilience of a country going against the impact of globalisation.

Also, Bolivian food is too good, it takes long time to cook and it was cheaper to make than McDonald’s food. It reminds me of the food I grew up with in my region, Emilia Romagna (where Bologna, Modena and Rimini are).

WHAT CAN YOU LEARN FROM THIS?

Fast food is the opposite of healthy nutritious food. Dah, ok.
But let me tell you few things to keep in mind:

• When you first introduce food into your mouth, chewing is the first tool that helps you through digestion. The more your chew, the better you will absorb nutrients since your saliva will release enzymes that will start breaking down the food even before it reaches the stomach.

• Nutritional Density: the reason it is believed we evolved is because we discovered fire and started cooking with it around 1.5 to 2 million years ago. Since then we were able to extract more nutrients from food (to chew it better too) and as a result our brain evolved (Terrence McKenna would disagree but the stoned ape story will be kept for another episode). Fast food does not contain too many nutrients (sorry Zambrero) which your brain requires to keep an edge and climb the ladder in society.

• Nurturing VS Feeding: cravings, anyone? When you introduce fast food (or any processed food mostly) your stomach breaks it down and like an Amazon warehouse tries to send each single unit across the body so you can operate efficiently. Mitochondria get their share of energy so your cells can keep you moving, thinking, breathing. When you ingest something dodgy, the body struggles to recognise it and to assign it to the right department.

• The dirt under the carpet: Your body is a fully functional environment with cognitive abilities and capable of moving. It requires energy, lots of it. But if you eat the same thing day after day, it will start develop an intolerance for it (ask any long term chef). The solution to this it to eat real food to minimise the toxicity you introduce, diversify what you eat, eat as much seasonal food as you can AAAND (drum roll) detox few times a year. There are many paths to the same goal but if you want to introduce a good habit, fast once a week (it’s going to be challenging until the habit is set) every day (as intermittent fasting, so 16 hours with no food which means you go to sleep and you have the first meal after 12pm) and detox each change of season (more on this). Most people accumulate so much toxins in their guts they can’t even digest (and absorb nutrients) from the food they eat and like a game of tetris, inflammation builds up until the day it can’t be ignored anymore.

A GAME CHANGER APP

I have the habit of turning the package of anything I buy (I don’t buy much processed food, but this extends to anything, like toothpaste, coconut cream, chocolate bars and so on) and searching any ingredients I don’t fully understand.

This habit alone was eye opening, but it’s also time consuming.

If you have the will but not so much time, there is an app that I recommend, and it was suggested to me from a mum working as childcare educator.

YUKA is the name and it provides you all the information of most products you want to buy, so you can limit the amount of nasties you put in your trollies and never have surprises again.

All you need to do is scan the bar code with the app (tap on the name to download it) and read through the description.