If you know me you know that I'm not a big McDonald's fan. I find the chain and food lacking for various reasons but primarily because I can't eat it any more.
Selfish I know. But for some reason it makes me ill a few hours after eating it...so I don't. Thankfully my son no longer eats it either. I attribute it to not being able to eat many types of "fatty foods" these days. Cheap pizza, KFC, fatty pork in all forms. Surprising to me that Hungry Jacks (Burger King) does not seem to effect me like this. Is it due to the more veggies in the whopper?
Other reasons include their business practices like charging more in low economic regions where they know they can get away with it. Ironic that the less you earn the more likely you'll pay more for your Big Mac.
Many people complain about McDonald's and that is their right. I for one don't promote them but I'm a stickler for accurate information and I find that many people exaggerate the truth at best. Many people pass on faulty information that is out right false or maybe just old information.
Some people just spout shit without even trying to back up their statements like on this Yahoo Answers Page where someone says
"i am not sure if they contain animal fat, they most likely do, but you can be pretty sure anything coming from those joints called a "milkshake" contains no trace of anything dairy."
Spending less than 1 minute I found the list of ingredients with the first ingredient being "Milk"
McDonald's have put in a big effort to make themselves, at least look like they are, healthier these days. I'll argue against that in a future post maybe.
On to the point of this article. Passing on the truth and not just "what you have been told"
A friend of mine shared a FB post that went like this
Can You Guess What McDonald’s Food Item This Is?
Say hello to mechanically separated chicken. It’s what all fast-food chicken is made – things like chicken nuggets and patties. Also, the processed frozen chicken in the stores is made from it.
Basically, the entire chicken is smashed and pressed through a sieve — bones, eyes, guts, and all. it comes out looking like this.
There’s more: because it’s crawling with bacteria, it will be washed with ammonia, soaked in it, actually. Then, because it tastes gross, it will be reflavored artificially. Then, because it is weirdly pink, it will be dyed with artificial color.
But, hey, at least it tastes good, right?
Source: http://docakilah.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/can-you-guess-what-mcdonald%E2%80%99s-food-item-this-is
Now normally people just put the URL in and FB makes the post. But after reading the article I first thought that the person read the article, put a bit of their own wording to it and then posted but it seems it comes from an email and mix of other sources. Which supports what I'm getting at about people just passing on information without vetting it.
Note: I found this article, http://www.snopes.com/food/prepare/msm.asp, after writing this and edited the paragraph above.
Let me step back to the original article posted on May 11, 2011. Just 8 months ago.
Now the title says "Can You Guess What McDonald's Food Item This Is?" but no where in the article does it say ANYTHING about McDonald's. The logic here being.
Many commercial chicken nuggets are made with mechanically separated chicken.
McDonald Chicken McNuggets are a type of chicken nugget
Therefore McDonald's Chicken McNuggets are made from mechanically separated chicken.
If you agree to that logic then you'd have to agree to this logic
Some people are prostitutes
Your parents are people
Therefore your parents are prostitutes
See the faulty logic here?
Did McNuggets used to use "Mechanically Separated Poultry"? I'm not sure, I can't find an trustworthy source for ingredients in McNuggets in the past. The current ingredients, as of Jan 19th 2012 are:
Chicken, Water, Flour (Maize, Bleached Wheat), Salt, Canola oil, Thickener (1404), Raising Agents and Mineral Salts (341, 451, 450, 500, 541, 551, 327), Whey (Milk), Spice, Wheat Starch
Now before you say "Chicken could mean Mechanically Separated Chicken" Know that the USDA requires any product that is made from "mechanically separated chicken", or any other meat, to be listed as such.
A few years ago McDonald's went to a single piece of breast meat to make up a McNugget but because most customers preferred the previous version they went back to that. The previous version is still made from all white meat but it is a pressed nugget meaning that it is smaller pieces of chicken pressed into nugget shapes before being battered and flash frozen.
What about the other ingredients? What the hell is Thickener 1404 or Raising Agents and Mineral Salts (341, 451, 450, 500, 541, 551, 327)
Thankfully there are sites like http://www.foodstandards.gov.au where you can find out what the numbers mean.
Go look them up and see what you think. Go look at any processed food you have at home and see what they have in them.
Unless you never use prepackaged food you're probably downing these additives all the time so don't blame McDonald's for using them.
At the end of the day the picture at the top of this rant has about as much to do with a McNuggets as the picture below has to do with you or someone you know. Sadly the picture below probably has more to do with you or someone you know then the MSP has to do with McNuggets.
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