McDonalds question?

[Sabelkatten]

That would be... difficult.

I'd like to see a link if you have one.  I'd also be interested to see what metrics indicated that they were healthier.

You can lose weight on an all twinkie diet. (there were supplements. The guy didn't want to lose teeth or anything.)

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/

I'll see if I can find it, I only read the newspaper article about it (good newspaper, thought. Science articles written by an actual scientist! :D ).

Swedish McD do serve carrots, thought. I fact the only thing I can't think of is rice, and that's hardly a requirement. IIRC even the students that ate mostly burgers were soon eating side salads and drinking other things than sodas. And of course servings are a lot smaller in Sweden so few of them over-ate.

Of course part of the success might have been that the standard student diet isn't all that great... ;D

[Kitsune413]

American Mcdonalds doesn't put Carrots in their salads, serve carrot cake in the McCafe or do Sweet Potato Fries? even at thanksgiving? and no vitamin C fortified OJ to make the parents groups shut the hell up over a lack of healthy options on the drinks menu?

Not sure about sweet potato fries. When I went there years ago they had apple slices I think. Vitamin c enriched orange juice is strange but I guess vitamin c is water soluble.

I'm not positive America as a whole is aware that vitamin A is a thing...

[rebs]

I'm guilty of eating Arby's once or twice a week.  It might be somewhat processed roast beef, but it's *not* pink slime. 

Chicken McNuggets are the original pink slime product, aren't they?  Descended lineally from mass-produced hot dogs according to DNA evidence  ;)
 

[Kitsune413]

The nugget from the first restaurant was composed of approximately 50% skeletal muscle, with the remainder composed primarily of fat, blood vessels and nerves, and generous quantities of skin or gut lining and associated supportive tissue. The nugget from the second restaurant was composed of approximately 40% skeletal muscle with lots of other tissues, including bone.

“I was floored,” said the lead investigator. “I had read what other reports have said is in them and I didn’t believe it. I was astonished actually seeing it under the microscope.” I profile some of those other pathology reports in my videosWhat‘s in a Burger? and What Is Really in Hot Dogs?

The researchers concluded that since actual chicken meat was not the predominant component of either nugget, the term “chicken” nugget was really a misnomer.

http://nutritionfacts.org/2014/11/18/what-is-actually-in-chicken-nuggets/

Mmm. Brain tissue and ammonia.

[Kitsune413]

It should also be noted that your children will not care...

https://youtu.be/mKwL5G5HbGA Let Jamie Oliver show you...

[Kidd]

Its amazing what people eat in a food-scarce situation, and what they won't in a plentiful situation.

That said, Mcd food standards outside the US is stricter. Can't guarantee 0% offal but its not pink slime.

[Kitsune413]

Well if you took that chicken carcass, threw it in a pot and boiled it until it reduced down to liquid the bone broth would be really good for you... not that people do that anymore.

But you don't get that when you food process it. Not that you want to chew on not reduced bone. That would be awful. But also the meat remnants.

[guardiandashi]

Well if you took that chicken carcass, threw it in a pot and boiled it until it reduced down to liquid the bone broth would be really good for you... not that people do that anymore.

But you don't get that when you food process it. Not that you want to chew on not reduced bone. That would be awful. But also the meat remnants.

in some cases, but even that stewed chicken can be bad in excess, I know a friend of a friend, who was having income issues so got 2 of the cheap chickens a week and did that to them, after a few months he went into the doctor for some issues or a checkup and the doctor freeked about the levels of hormones and antibiotics in his system.  of course that was his primary source of protein  for a while.

[Kitsune413]

I only eat organic food. But a good warning. Bone broth isn't brilliant if the chicken is sick.

Strange though. The hormones shouldn't have become his hormones. But blowing up all the beneficial bacteria in your body might do that.

[guardiandashi]

I only eat organic food. But a good warning. Bone broth isn't brilliant if the chicken is sick.

Strange though. The hormones shouldn't have become his hormones. But blowing up all the beneficial bacteria in your body might do that.

its not so much that the chickens were sick.... but that the chickens were fed hormone enhanced food to make them grow faster... and were also treated with pre-emptive antibiotics to keep them from getting sick.  so the chickens bodies were taking that nasty stuff and sticking any "leftovers" into their bones, and when they got boiled (rendered down) it started coming back out... and then he got excessive doses from the "contaminated" food he was eating.

its kind of like mercury poisoning from eating contaminated sea food.

if you eat plankton you get ~ 1 part per million
if you eat something that eats plankton you get 1 part per 100,000
if you eat something that `eats the thing that eats the plankton you get 1 part per 10,000

etc etc as you move up the food chain

[Jackmc]

BK uses a cooking system where the patties move through a "cooker" on a chain belt that "flame broils" them more like cooking them on your bbq grill.

That's mostly marketing hype.  The burgers are only exposed to direct flame for a small fraction of their cooking time.

-Jackmc

[Drop Bear]

Got a friend that worked at HJ's (our BK), back in the day (20-25 years ago) a lot of the food (espechily on night shift) was pre-cooked and just nuked, the "Flame Griller" used on the day shift was a convener with grill elements like Americans would find in their Toaster-oven, pre-chard paties where just feed in to be re-cooked they later added a 2nd convener with some LPG flame elements to finish the paties if they where forced to cook from fresh (like they have to do today). But that's Mass Market (really can you remember when it was fast?) food for you.

[Failure16]

That's mostly marketing hype.  The burgers are only exposed to direct flame for a small fraction of their cooking time.

-Jackmc

It's not really hype--at least it wasn't many years ago and they look the same in concept nowadays.  Burger King's chain grill does indeed use an open flame and the meat rotates around the heating elements while they cook.  The meat is not in contact with open flame for the entirety of its circuit, true, but why would you want it to be, even if you could?  No matter what, the technique is indeed as close to a traditional barbeque as is likely to be found in a commercial kitchen of the type Burger King and its various competitors use and it is quite an impressive contraption.

Bitch to clean, though.

[Kidd]

Sorry, I'm gonna call that story a wee bit tall since chicken farming doesn't use growth hormones. Cattle, yes. Not chicken. Though I support the recent proposal to eliminate antibiotics from chicken farming.

@Failure - shawarma or kebab does that, and rotisseries like Kenny Rogers Roasters. The former is probably the best 'fast' food one can get as far as meat quality goes.

[guardiandashi]

Sorry, I'm gonna call that story a wee bit tall since chicken farming doesn't use growth hormones. Cattle, yes. Not chicken. Though I support the recent proposal to eliminate antibiotics from chicken farming.

@Failure - shawarma or kebab does that, and rotisseries like Kenny Rogers Roasters. The former is probably the best 'fast' food one can get as far as meat quality goes.

well I might be misremembering exactly what the doctors complaint was so the growth hormones might be wrong, but I know the antibiotics aspect was more or less accurate, especially with all the pushing to reduce the amount of over use of antibiotics in chicken and pork production.

[kato]

This thread is rather interesting from the German perspective, where McD's way of innovation is basically "which item can we drop off the menu this year so that people will buy two of that other thing for 10% more instead".

[StoneRhino]

 - on a sidenote, I also just read an article in Hong Kong this past week about the "McRefugees"; people in Hong Kong that have nowhere else to go and so they sleep in 24-hour McDonald's overnight. Apparently there is a whole community of people that do this every night in Hong Kong now.

I take you have never been to a McD's in Los Angeles then. One joint had half of the tables filled with the homeless that were napping at the tables.

[StoneRhino]

McD's needs to realize what it is, and what it is not. McD's is anything but premium. You can offer all the premium stuff you want, but you'll never ditch the decades of the image of ..well..McD's. McDs has been the place for happy meals, the place where teenagers with change go to hang out and get a burger. Its that place you drive through to get a squashed burger and greezzy fries and a large coke. It is not where you go for a petite salad with baby lettuces and fansy schmancy dressings based upon blueberries.

That is not to suggest that McD's is a failure, or disgusting. Everyone likes to bash mcd's but I am sure that 100% of those people have at least one item that they like there, and chances are it's not the salads. The reason that McD's still exists is not because of the healthy ingredients, the cool factor, or premium products. People like junk food, and they like it fast when they want it. They like it because at some point when they were young they enjoyed going there. Slinging fast junk food and appealing to kids is the bread and butter of McD's. If they want to open up the starbucks of burgers, pretentious, over priced, and slow as can be, they should open a different joint altogether. That way those that want McBucks can go there and get their premium nonsense while those that just want a quick bite or a happy meal for the kids can go to mcdonalds and quickly get in and out.

Most people don't know what they want until they get to the front of the line. The idea of giving everyone a chance to create something all their own is just nonsense. It is even more nonsense to believe that mcdonalds is going to somehow execute the orders properly. It can be hard enough to get them to give out some damn catchup packets when asked, 3 times. If you cannot count to 5 then you cannot execute complicated burger orders in a timely fashion.

There are places that have a wide range of ingredients that they can toss onto your burger such as Five Guys, but they are going to charge you significantly more and take up much more time then a mcdonalds for a bigmac.

[Kitsune413]

I don't like anything there. I'm a food snob.

[Daryk]

I didn't miss McDonalds at all for the two years I was in Italy, but if I'm in a hurry and low on cash, McDoubles are hard to beat.  They're not on the dollar menu anymore, but they're still cheap.  McGriddles are tasty too, though I realize it's just the sugar talking there.

[Kidd]

This thread is rather interesting from the German perspective, where McD's way of innovation is basically "which item can we drop off the menu this year so that people will buy two of that other thing for 10% more instead".

Lord not the McRib! Passing through Frankfurt airport a year back I saw this legendary item and just had to have it! Excellent stuff. And I like how I could exchange the fries for a salad.

Ahhh McGriddles.... used to get it for no extra charge but gone the way of the dodo down here too.

[Kitsune413]

What would Alton Brown say?

[Drop Bear]

Maccas had had little growth for a decade down hear, in that period it has had consecutive quarters it has had flat growth many times and even negative growth, in the lead up to the release of CYT it had had three constitutive quarters of negative growth (it had a 4th of negative growth during the roll-out), all because Gen Y & Millennials  where not eating there, Boomers & Gen X where preferring to go elsewhere, the solution was to be as the adds say "Very Un-McDonalds".

[Red Pins]

Frankly, I won't shed a tear for them.  They've "Had it their way!" for too long.

[Drop Bear]

It's not dieing it's just not growing, it's just unnerving for business types, speechlessly McBusiness types to find out the economic "truth" that "McDonlads grows and turns a steady profit" isn't actually true, McCafe turned around the last flat period, M Selections held off the current flat period from turning in to a down turn for a wile.

[BrokenMnemonic]

I'm not positive America as a whole is aware that vitamin A is a thing...

Probably not as a whole, but there are generally at least a few cases of Hypervitaminosis A each year caused by people taking vitamin supplements who think that if a little Vitamin A is good for you, then a lot most be even better.

[Kitsune413]

Not water soluble, ironically.

They could have just juiced carrots.

[Jackmc]

Probably not as a whole, but there are generally at least a few cases of Hypervitaminosis A each year caused by people taking vitamin supplements who think that if a little Vitamin A is good for you, then a lot most be even better.

Less that than the prevailing opinion that since most vitamins in excess of your body's needs are simply excreted, then it's better to simply overdose rather than underdose.

-Jackmc

[Kitsune413]

Less that than the prevailing opinion that since most vitamins in excess of your body's needs are simply excreted, then it's better to simply overdose rather than underdose.

-Jackmc

Most people aren't aware of a difference in water soluble and fat soluble vitamins. Water soluble vitamins are simply excreted in excess that can't be absorbed. Fat soluble vitamins can be overdosed...

but without food and without the vitamins existing in food itself your bodies ability to absorb the vitamins anyways isn't fantastic. I tend to take supplements like chelated zinc that you need daily and your body can't store. Mostly minerals. But you have to be careful because you can overdose on those.

If you are a big fan of bread then the phytic acid tends to bond to zinc so you're likely depleted. caffeine also depletes it so the American diet is pretty anti-zinc. Not ideal since it stabilizes your mood.

[Feenix74]

If my memory serves me correctly, zinc is also important to our immune systems. Unfortunately, Australia's ancient soils also mean that our food sources are naturally low on zinc.