tomman, you seem to be having a hard accepting that many of us have figured out what works for us regarding what we eat. I have not been sick for a long time, but like tigertiger i do not eat out much and am very careful when i do. As i said before i have eaten Mcdonalds for over 55 years, am not addicted to it, but sometimes it is a convenient safe food option for me when i cannot get home to cook for myself.

Where's my Whataburger?

tommann

I don't think I have eaten in a McD's in Kunming. I agree that McD's has horrible, terrible, crap food but that is only my opinion. I understand some people like to eat there, but I don't feel the need to call anyone who likes the food a destroyer of culture.

Like Sly says "different strokes for different folks." Perhaps someday you can understand not everyone hears your drummer nor feels the need to live by your opinions or dictate.

What does eating lousy pseudo American burgers in China have to do with any culture anyway?

Still having gongbao jiding laduzi as I type this.

tallamerican, I do not mean to be abrasive or cause trouble, but, I find it hard to believe that Chinese food, of which the most is simply vegetables and meat, is deadly or makes people violently ill all the time. I am not doubting you, because only you know yourself, but I am making the point that McDonald's is bland, processed food. It is not good. It does not taste good, and it has little or no nutritional value. Perhaps a steady diet of bland, processed chemicals is what is making people sick when they switch to regular food? Just an idea. Again, I am not trying to be argumentative. It is just something I feel strongly about.

blobbles, but most Chinese food is simply vegetables and meat, maybe some noodles. It is not like it is terribly exotic or weird. How can such simple food, which 1.6 billion people eat daily, be so terrible that it forces people to eat nothing but bland, processed McDonald's? It is not logical to me.

Feel much better since i have taken most of the beef from my diet, but when i do crave a burger cannot beat O'Reilleys.

Blobbles, NOBODY is genetically designed or adapts to eating a high trans-fat, high refined carb, high sodium, high sugar Happy Meal.

Please stop kidding yourselves that mcdonald's is the answer to anything. if you eat that stuff more than once a week, you're asking for health problems down the line and you'll almost certainly be overweight.

If you can't handle local food, learn to prepare simple meals for yourself and eat in good high-quality restaurants as often as you can afford.

Cacao is having a 38 yuan special. McDonald's is what? 20 yuan?

Magnifico, that is true. Also, for people who simply cannot live without burgers, there are burgers in Kunming a thousand times better than McCrap. Salvador's makes a very decent burger, and while it is not the best one in the world, it is real food and not McDonald's.

All this talk of food has made me hungry, think i will go have a couple McBricks, Large order of Fries and wash it down with a couple of large cokes. Yum Yum. Forgot the Mcflurry? for desert. Damn wife just told me has made chinese for me tonight!!!

The last time I ate western fast food was over a year ago, and about 3-4 years before that. So no need to worry about me being exposed to it (although I do sometimes get an ice cream from McD's/KFC, but I don't really consider that to be all that unhealthy considering the frequency - once every month or so).

You would be surprised Tommann. I tried eating Nasi Lemak for breakfast (comes in cute little pyramid banana leaf wrapped packs which have rice cooked in coconut juice, an egg and spicy small fish) for the 5 months I am talking about. It would then be spicy Thai/Malay food for lunch and probably a home cooked rice dish at night. After the 5 months, I realised that I needed to go back to eating at least a western breakfast, toast/muesli/oats as my whole system started shutting down! After switching to a western breakfast, I found/find I can eat pretty much whatever Chinese/Malay food I want for the rest of the day.

It would only take a single person who eats Mc Donalds every day to defeat that argument Magnifico and I think, if you do a google search, you will find plenty of people who are reasonably healthy who have eaten McDonalds every day of their life for decades, a lot only eat Big Macs, not the fries and soft drinks. If that isn't adaptation, I don't know what is. Remember I am just talking about being able to survive off it, not being superhuman. In China, for some peoples systems, eating a burger and fries can actually settle the stomach if they have been eating la jiao mi xian for a few days or similar Chinese dishes. Believe it or not, I know it to be true from seeing people who end up HAVING to have something to calm their stomachs.

In the same way, peoples bodies can adapt to alcohol and alcoholics often can go days without eating, only consuming alcohol because their bodies learn to live off it for short times. That shows the extent of the extreme adaptations your body can handle!

Regardless of all this, if you live off McD's or any other fast food in China, that is a complete travesty and you should admonish yourself by eating a bowl of bamboo worms dipped in la jiao at your local Dai restaurant :-)