Would you like fries with that?

This is the typical question at McDonald’s employee would ask you when you are placing your order, isn’t it? well, maybe not in Japan these days. It turns out in the country of the rising Sun the common spud is in short supply. As a result, and to make sure that everyone gets at least some fries, McDonald’s in his 2’900 Japanese restaurants for the next week will only serve small portions of chips.

Reason for the shortage, according to McDonald’s, seem to be floods in Canada and general problems with supply chains. In the meantime the company is considering other measures, such as flying the potatoes to Japan. In fact McDonald’s Japan has already faced a similar situation in 2014, when an industrial dispute between 20,000 dockworkers, terminal operators and shipping lines at 29 ports on the west coast of the US caused a shortage of French fries. In response McDonald’s Japan took the emergency step of only selling small portions of French fries while it flew in 1’000 tonnes of potatoes.

It’s not called junk food for nothing, and just in case you feel like indulging as well, a small portion of French fries at McDonald’s weighs 75 g and contains 225 calories (and just in In case you are like me and tend to go for the regular or even large size portion, these contain 333 and 503 calories respectively). Say, because it’s Christmas, you want to treat yourself to a large Big Mac meal, this alone will provide you with 1’320 calories. So how long would it take to burn these off again? According to calorieking.com you would need to be jogging for some 2 1/2 hours, swimming for over 1 1/2 hours or cycling for more than 3 hours…. Maybe best then to give that treat a miss to start with.

In Japan it has apparently become a bit of a tradition that on Christmas Day families eat out at an American fast food joint. Now the Japanese are mostly svelte, so an occasional trip to McDonald’s as a treat won’t do much harm. Nevertheless it is just as well that they are selling only small portions of fries – even if it’s only for a week.

Update 29.12.21: A US freight forwarder just contracted three Boeing 747s to fly potatoes to McDonald’s in Japan… these will no doubt be the most ecologically unfriendly spuds ever….