nabeepchen

As much as I dislike McDonald’s, and even though this story sounds right up their alley, it’s just not something that even the PR wizards at MickieD’s could pull off due to the basic biology of the situation. Plus, this post is completely riddled with errors. Nice try…

I’m not sure of the origin of this story, but it appeared on this blog:

When McDonald’s introduced ice cream to its franchises operating in Indonesia, it faced a problem: many people had lactose problems and would not buy the product because it made them sick.

So what did they do? They gave ice cream cones away for free.

You’d be surprised at what people will consume when its free, regardless of the associated nausea. After repeated exposure to dairy products, the allergic reaction diminishes such that people can enjoy the dairy product without any significant consequences. So sure enough, after a while the target market in Indonesia had lost its intolerance. This made McDonald’s (and I suppose the Indonesians?) happy.

Whoever created this story failed to figure out the difference between “lactose problems” and an allergy to milk. They are two entirely different things. An actual allergy to cow’s milk is the same as an allergy to anything else–if you ingest it, you get a reaction. Allergic reactions range from mild sneezing attacks to rashes to life threatening anaphylaxis. Cntinued exposure to milk isn’t going to “cure” the allergy, unless you’re talking something like allergy shots, where minute amounts of the allergen are injected with the hopes of building up a resistance.

But in this case, the issue is lactose intolerance, which is NOT an allergy. Lactose intolerance is caused by the lack of the enzyme lactase, which is required to digest milk. Since milk is baby food, the majority of the world’s population is lactose intolerant—probably 75% of adults. Lactase begins to disappear from the body about the age of 8 years old. Not to get off the subject, but if you suffer from GI problems and consume dairy products, there’s a good chance you’ve got some degree of lactose intolerance, especially if you are Asian, American Indian, or African.

I would guess that probably 90% of Indonesians are lactose intolerant and ice cream isn’t going to be a big hit. And sorry, but lactose intolerance isn’t “cured” by consuming dairy products. If anything, symptoms become worse. The more you eat, the worse you feel. The enzyme doesn’t reappear if you decide to eat ice cream every day. If McDonald’s wanted to get Indonesians to eat ice cream made from cow’s milk, then they’d have to hand out lactase pills with every ice cream cone.

This is really a silly story, but I’m sure that a lot of people are going gaa gaa over it.