Unfortunately, I've never seen the original post here, but I'll put a word in anyway. (very, very nice analogy, Justin)
I'm very interested in lobbying, it was my career choice when I was a young child. I love finding out about companies and their impact on our everyday life, especially the fast food and tobacco companies. I used to be a walking encyclopedia on this stuff, but I'm not anymore (find my post in the School Subjects board to find out why I'm a retard now). Always been disgusted by them, and that's what draws me towards learning about 'em. When can you blame the consumer, and when can you blame the company...? It ultimately depends on the people. ...Hrm, maybe I've got a few facts lying around (about fast food).
*French fries are the most eaten vegetables in America.
*1 in 4 adults visit a McDonald's every day.
*60% of all adults in America are overweight or obese.
*A serving of meat is as big as (and a bit thinner than) the palm of your hand. Typical hamburgers at fast food joints are twice that.
*Carmine (a type of African bug grinded into powder) is included in red/pink food coloring in most junk food including Kool-Aid, most strawberry shakes, and M&Ms.
*There are McDonald's on every continent but Antarctica.
*The total number of McDonald's customers per day exceeds the population of Spain.
*Aspartame (Sweet n' Low among other things) is twenty times as sweet as sugar, and sucralose (Splenda) is one hundred times as sweet.
*Heart attack is the leading form of death in the United States, with nearly 600,000 people dying from it per year on average.
*A representative of McDonald's once said, on stage and on national television, that CocaCola was healthy simply because, and I quote, "It's got water in it.".
*The shelf life of the french fries is undeterminable.
*The Fruit Parfait at McDonald's has just as many calories as a Big Mac.
*Beef flavoring is inserted into McDonalds' fries to give them unique flavor.
*The same fries were sold in India, which obviously is home to millions of Hindus, who were upsetted by this fact and rallied for months and months until the company reluctantly retracted it.
*McDonald's food tastes so "fake" because most of the flavor comes from preservatives and little "shots" of flavor instead of the food itself. These "shots" are regularly tested and improved in factories all over the country. These are also incorporated into most frozen foods.
*NOTHING in McDonald's menu is organic.
The reason most of my facts are on McDonald's is because they're the worst. I'm sure there are many horrible facts I did not disclose about this and other chains. I just did this all from my dim memory...