Are you lovin' it?

On July 14th, McDonalds will be opening a new "green" location in Cary, North Carolina [1]. No, they're not rolling out a new line of garden fresh salads, but rather a location offering electric car recharging. Yep, that's right...charge your car at America's most beloved fast food joint.

We go "green" with everything BUT our diets, doesn't it seem? While McDonalds does offer salads (and shamrock shakes...), you have to access both the salad and salad dressing nutrition facts online in order to calculate the true caloric value of your meal. Don't forget the croutons, those will cost you 90 calories on top of the salad and dressing calories. Con-fus-ing.

The Center for Disease Control conducts the largest consumer telephone survey in the US called the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), designed to track health risk behaviors nationwide. Not surprisingly, more than 75% of American's fail to meet the recommended 5+ servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Those over the age of 65 are noted as the highest consumers of fruits and vegetables at a whopping 31.6% consuming 5 or more a day. Overall, males consuming 5 or more F&V's a day was a mere 18.2% with the females coming in at 27.6%. Fruit and vegetable consumption was also highest in those with college degrees and those with the highest incomes (> $50,000) at 28.6% and 22.7% respectively [2].

Seriously, though...we want to sustain everything but ourselves. I'm all for electric cars, I think it's great! It's just a shame more American's don't sustain themselves by making small lifestyle changes to sustain their health.

At least we can thank McDonalds for (hopefully) making it safely to the nearest ER when our Big Macs and french fries finally take their toll, right?

[1]. Stone, Jerry James. McDonald's Debuts Plug-In Charging Station. Reuters. July 6, 2009.

[2]. BRFSS Data. Produce for Better Health Foundation. July 9, 2009.