As if the Middle East didn’t have enough conflicts already, a new one erupted yesterday between the Prince of Wales and the burger.

Visiting a medical centre in Abu Dhabi, the Gulf state that has the second highest incidence of diabetes in the world, the Prince suggested that banning McDonald’s could be the key to improving the emirates’ health.

The burger chain, which has six outlets in the largest of the United Arab Emirates, immediately sprung to its own defence, suggesting that the organic and environment-loving Prince was out of touch with current burger thinking, particularly in Britain. He was, the company implied, bordering on the ungrateful.

Accompanied by the Duchess of Cornwall on his ten-day tour of friendly Gulf states, the Prince was learning about new initiatives to improve Abu Dhabi’s health as he visited the centre backed and largely staffed by Imperial College, London. The royal couple watched a class of children being taught about food choices when the Prince turned to Nadine Tayara, a nutritionist who had put the children through their well-rehearsed paces, and asked: “Have you got anywhere with McDonald’s? Have you tried getting it banned? That’s the key.”

More than one fifth of the population of the oil-rich state aged between 20 and 79 are diagnosed as diabetic, and 40 per cent of the entire population is deemed to be at risk.

In an effort to keep the peace the Prince’s spokesman said: “The Prince has for a long time advocated the importance of a balanced diet, especially for children. In visiting the diabetes centre today he was keen to emphasise the need for children to enjoy the widest variety of food and not to eat any particular sort of food to excess.”

It would be fair to say that McDonald’s was hurt by the aside, calling it “disappointing”, and immediately launching a counter-attack.

“This appears to be an off-the-cuff remark,” a spokeswoman said. “The Prince is clearly unaware of some of the moves the company has made, such as improved labelling, supporting sustainable agriculture and nutritional changes.”

Although he has not previously attacked McDonald’s by name, the Prince has had a series of stand-offs with the burger, most of which he has lost.

More effective antiburger publicity was generated by Morgan Spurlock, whose attempt to survive on nothing but McDonald’s supersize burgers for 30 days, with dire consequences for his health, was the subject of a revoltingly riveting TV documentary. The company subsequently dropped its supersize portions.

The Prince’s attempts to keep his family away from the dish have largely failed. The late Diana, Princess of Wales, famously took the young Princes William and Harry to the burger stall at Alton Towers and made them queue like ordinary kids. But it was not McDonald’s. Mervyn Mycherley, then the chef to the Royal Household, disclosed that the boys often demanded beef-burgers, which he made with the finest fillet steak.

“Princess Diana did like to give them a treat occasionally and take them to Burger King, which apparently they preferred to McDonald’s,” he said.

Since then the Princes, and William’s girlfriend Kate Middleton, have regularly been seen munching into a burger.

Only yesterday a tabloid newspaper covered its front page with a picture of the Queen tucking into a whopper. Oh, sorry; that was Dame Helen Mirren, in a feeding frenzy after her Oscar triumph.

Prince on food

After years of polluting, processing and overrefining our food, we are suffering from adverse health problems and, worse still, we are inflicting them on our children

To Royal Society of Medicine, 2005

We no more want to live in anonymous concrete blocks . . . than we want to eat anonymous junk food which can be bought anywhere

Slow Food Movement conference, Turin, 2004

Over the last two generations we have managed to create a nation of fast-food junkies

Slow Food conference, Isle of Skye, 2005

The list of diseases with a dietary linkage is long, and there is increasing concern about overweight and obesity in young people

The Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health, 2003

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