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McDonald's Chats Up Its Healthy Side With Moms

Did you know that McDonald's fries are rich in potassium and a good source of fiber? That's the sort of information that moms are getting in a new "Quality Correspondents" program that the world's largest fast-food chain has initiated to showcase the quality of its food and win over the gatekeepers of what we eat.

"The mothers are invited to go behind the scenes of the company's operations, meet senior executives and then communicate what they see via the Web, along with appearing in video of their travels," Michael S. Rosenwald reports. They are not paid.

Jerry Swerling, director of the University of Southern California's Strategic Public Relations Center, says McDonald's is attempting to capitalize on a significant shift in who consumers most trust for information -- themselves -- and not outside "experts" like journalists and academics. New York University nutritionist Marion Nestle, author of What to Eat, says the moms appear to be willing tools of McDonald's PR apparatus.

The moms do push back. "Once you throw them in grease, you kind of ruin it," one mother responds to Debra DeMuth, McDonald's global nutrition director, in a session that Rosenwald attends. It's doubtful that such exchanges make it to the videos that McDonald's produces, however. An excerpt from one can be viewed here. But the story implies that the moms are free to write whatever they want in their Web journals -- "one said the food contains too much sodium" -- and that McDonald's is banking on getting credit for its "transparency."

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