Legal Question in Business Law in California

Oatmeal is good for you, is high in fiber, and is possibly the most wholesome product sold at McDonald's. There are your nutrition facts. Since you did not say you were harmed by your purchase, and possible consumption, of fact-free oatmeal, you have suffered no damages and therefore you have no lawsuit.

Restaurants like McDonald's don't have to put nutrition information on each item. They just have to put some of the very basic info on their menu and have more complete information available for customers who ask to see it. To my knowledge, McDonald's is quite good about meeting these requirements.

Even if the company was required to put the information on your container, that does not mean failing to do so would give you the right to sue. This would be a regulatory matter and probably not a basis for a civil lawsuit. And, as Mr. Stone points out, even if you could sue you would not be able to recover much in the way of damages since you suffered no identifiable harm.

I just write to correct Mr. Stone about the healthfulness of McDonalds oatmeal. Due to all the sugar, etc., added to the McDonald's oatmeal product, it makes the "Not That" on the "Eat This, Not That" website and publications. If you must eat at McD's, go with the Egg McMuffin, skip the hash browns "meal," and have 1% milk with it. It's about the only way to stay within sound dietary guidelines on their breakfast menu. If you want oatmeal and need it fast, buy Trader Joe's Organic and dump 4oz of boiling water in it yourself at home, or go down the street from McD's to Starbucks, or better yet Peet's for actually (mostly) healthy oatmeal. Or you can stop kidding yourself that any instant oatmeal is actually healthy and buy some good steel-cut oats and put them in a Crock-Pot the night before, so you can wake up to some actually healthy food.

Once again I realize I am in the wrong business. I coulda been a nutritionist. If I was, I could make big bucks as an expert witness, testifying that fast-food oatmeal is (or is not) healthy, depending of course on which side was paying my massive hourly fee. The last (and only) occasion of my partaking of McD's oatmeal was at a truck stop in Tehachapi enroute to some court appearance. I admit to liking the stuff. I didn't pack my crockpot and the only alternative cuisine was the aforementioned Egg McMuffin� -- and some sketchy truck-stop hot dogs that looked like they had been rotating on the grill for days. You Bay Area types have already outlawed the Happy Meal�. You can have my oatmeal as soon as you can pry the bowl from my cold, dead fingers.