What’s In That Bag? McDonald’s Food Dissected

What’s In That Bag? McDonald’s Food Dissected

People are increasingly afraid of the contents of processed foods. While there are easy targets, none seem to come as easy as McDonald’s, the epitome of corporate expansion, stereotypes surrounding malnourishment and obesity, and all-consuming dead-endness. Recently a woman named Sally Davies purchased a Happy Meal—a hamburger and fries—and discovered that it didn’t change at all in appearance in six months, simply losing its water content and petrifying instead of molding or rotting. 

McDonalds’ beverages and the boneless pork McRib, which will be back for a month and a half this fall, are not excluded from this. All of their shakes are made from reduced fat ice cream and a flavor syrup, but the Triple Thick shakes have a much longer ingredient list: in addition to ice cream, the shake contains nonfat milk solids, corn syrup solids, mono and diglycerides, guar gum, dextrose, sodium citrate, artificial vanilla, sodium phosphate, carrageenan, disodium phosphate, cellulose gum, and vitamin A palmitate. The flavor syrups add additional corn syrup, sodium benzoate, and artificial colors. Many of these help to bind the mixture together to ensure consistency in the product and prevent it from souring or spoiling. 

McDonalds’ smoothies seem innocuous enough when described as a fruit blend, low fat yogurt, and ice. However, the “low fat yogurt” includes protein concentrate, fructose, cornstarch, and kosher gelatin (making it vegetarian-unfriendly) to affect its flavor and sweetness when none of those ingredients are necessary to make a yogurt. The fruit blends also include cellulose powder, “natural and artificial flavors,” and xanthan gum which affects the beverages’ viscosity. 

The McRib is described as consisting of “McRib Patty, McRib Bun, and McRib Sauce.” The patty, beyond just pork and salt, contains dextrose and a mountain of preservatives: BHA, BHT, propyl gallate and citric acid (perhaps they’re made several months or years in advance). The Sauce isn’t so much made from ingredients as it is things that resemble ingredients: it includes high fructose corn syrup but also tomato paste, “natural smoke flavor,” modified starches, onion powder, garlic powder, chili pepper, sodium benzoate, beet powder, and caramel coloring, none of which apparently qualify under the catch-all “spices” listed as an ingredient. The McRib Bun is a whole lot of enriched flour, high fructose corn syrup, about a dozen oils, binding agents, preservatives, and modified soys.

While McDonald’s has to load their food up with preservatives and additives for obvious reasons—so as to ensure consistency and to ensure they don’t get sued by someone who gets a spoiled McRib—it’s alarming to think in terms of the mass production here, and if a picture says a thousand words, Davies’ Happy Meal photo can be boiled down to three: “Don’t eat this.” 

Andrew Hall is a guest blogger for My Dog Ate My Blog and maintains a list of online degrees for Guide to Online Schools.

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