Is this rumor true about McDonald's hamburgers?

I used to like McDonalds but I think they have become absolute crap. In my opinion they have traded places with Hardees. If you want a good burger you go to Hardees. If you want a cheap burger you go to McDonalds.

Originally posted by Indy
I used to like McDonalds but I think they have become absolute crap. In my opinion they have traded places with Hardees. If you want a good burger you go to Hardees. If you want a cheap burger you go to McDonalds.

If you want a good cardiologist, go to either.

Originally posted by Mirthful Me
The most important aspect of "Mystery Meat", is that it should remain a mystery if you are consuming the aforementioned enigma.

So true, so true! Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more!

Suffice it to say that if a consumer was shown a pile of what went into McDonald's hamburgers versus what does into a typical hotdog, those hamburgers would start looking a whole lot better.

For my part, I'm a fan of potted meat, knowing full well what goes into that irresistable pink goo. Glandelicious!


Edit: Lily guilding.

[edit on 7/30/2004 by Majic]

Has anyone ever had beef tongue?

MMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!

a delicacy!


If you've ever eaten at a real taqueria (like this one) you would see that some beef head and beef brains are also commonly eaten.

Wow, after reading this around breakfast time I'm ready to skip eating the rest of the day....

The thing that get added to processed foods like McD's and all the other chain restaurant foods is MSG, under one or more of it's many names. (Even foods that claim to be "MSG" free might be using the same product under other names.) MSG is an excitotoxin and stimulates the appetite, making you eat more and more. Do a Google search for MSG, you might be surprised at what you find. I'm pretty sure the extender added to McD's burger "meat" is probably soy protein, and if you've done any real research into soy you'll find it's sure not the wonder product the food industry wants you to think it is.

Originally posted by ThunderCloud
Here's a corollary question: Why don't the other fast food burger chains -- -- get the same kind of bad press that McDonald's does?

Cuz' McDonalds stinks. Burger King has the best burgers.
Wendys used to, but since Dave Thomas died, they have
really cut back and now they are puny and stink.

Whatever the ingredients, this food is contributing to American's overweight problem; red meat is attributed to most colon cancer cases; from the Health Affairs Journal

The McLawsuit:
The Fast-Food Industry And Legal Accountability For Obesity
Michelle M. Mello, Eric B. Rimm and David M. Studdert

Recent litigation brought by a group of overweight children against the McDonald’s Corporation that seeks compensation for obesity-related health problems has provoked an intense public response. Many have derided this lawsuit as representing the worst excesses of the tort liability system, while others have drawn parallels to tobacco litigation. Fast-food litigation raises the question of where accountability for the economic and public health consequences of obesity properly rests. In this paper we consider the reasonableness of the claims against fast-food companies and discuss several social effects that the litigation may have irrespective of its outcome in court.

that's the least of your McWorries...

reply to post by never_tell


Ah, n_t -- what's up?

How about this one:

The McBloodline Nwo and this:

"Burger King cooks up New World Order."

[edit on 19-11-2007 by anhinga]

reply to post by anhinga


that's a great one!... some might think that unbelievable, not me!

in the larger "fast food" picture, it only stands to reason the NWO would like a "bite" of the "burger"... what a great chemical delivery system! can you say "saltpeter"? ok, maybe it's just speculation.. afterall, what's in that 'secret sauce"? Morgan Spurlock's "Super Size Me" did a great service to the world by exposing some of the "limits" of an all fast food diet... I was disappointed he didn't touch on the real global impact of the industry... destroying rainforest, feed the world's grain to cows while humans starve... too bad it was just about "fattening up america for the slaughter"!

reply to post by never_tell


What's sad to see in the cities of the U.S. (and now BK spreads w/ the rest of the globalized trash around the world) is people w/ 'good metabolism' eat this day after day -- there's always packed for all meals! Why is convenience gripping the fast-pace U.S. diet? Do people care about the waste they're putting in themselves? A couple of stats:

www.etalkinghead.com...

�Every day in the United States, roughly 200,000 people are sickened by a foodborne disease, 900 are hospitalized, and fourteen die. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than a quarter of American population suffers a bout of food poisoning each year. Most of these cases are never reported to authorities or properly diagnosed. The widespread outbreaks that are detected and identified represent a small fraction of the number that actually occurs. And there is a strong evidence not only that incidence of food-related illness has risen in the past few decades, but also that the lasting health consequences of such illnesses are far more serious that was previously believed.� (pg.195 �An ideal system for new pathogens�, Fast Food Nation. Schlosser).

I work very closely with the McDonald's people, and I can tell you for fact that McDonald's doesn't make their own patties.

They buy them from another company.

The fries come from McCain's, and the buns are baked by a third party bakery.

EDIT TO ADD:

From the McDonald's website:

We're committed to providing quality food to our customers every time they visit our restaurants. It's our top priority. That's why all our hamburgers are made with only 100% pure beef - no additives or fillers - from federally inspected plants that are fully approved by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

Now, if there are worms and eyeballs in the patties and there is health risks, we should have a problem with our food inspection agencies.


[edit on 19-11-2007 by Enrikez]

reply to post by Enrikez


Thanks for the 'inside' info -- a true ATS moment! With this, I don't trust anything w/ this word, 'federal' in it -- some more stats, "chicken McNuggets":

But perhaps the most alarming ingredient in a Chicken McNugget is tertiary butylhydroquinone, or TBHQ, an antioxidant derived from petroleum that is either sprayed directly on the nugget or the inside of the box it comes in to "help preserve freshness." According to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, TBHQ is a form of butane (i.e. lighter fluid) the FDA allows processors to use sparingly in our food: It can comprise no more than 0.02 percent of the oil in a nugget. Which is probably just as well, considering that ingesting a single gram of TBHQ can cause "nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse." Ingesting five grams of TBHQ can kill.”

www.modestofamous.com...

And the science community at-large claims, "we don't know the reason behind cardiac arrest." Fatty foods? Sure, laced w/ poison.



[edit on 19-11-2007 by anhinga]

Lopez Foods provides McDonald's hamburger meat here in Okie City. I suspect they have a whole network of private contractors for meat. I had a neighbor who worked for Lopez who told me that McDonald's has very high standards for the beef they are provided.

I remember back in the early 1980s there was a small scandal about a fast food outfit or two (not McDonald's, I think) getting Kangaroo meat from Australia and passing it off as beef. Now, my Aussie friends told me that it wouldn't bother them in the least, but some of us yanks pitched a fit. I think some clever bloke in Australia wrote a song about it back then, called "Who put the 'Roo in the stew" or something like that. Perhaps one of our Australian members can comment. Funny stuff.

This story will confirm.


Roo for Beef? New York Times



[edit on 11/19/2007 by TheAvenger]

reply to post by anhinga


why do people opt for "fast food"? I think george Bush put it best when once responding to a supporter at some Rally after she told him she worked 3 jobs! He smiled at her and said (and i paraphrase... watching him too often rots my brain) "isn't that great. That's so American." as if being so poor you have no time other than to work, was a good thing! man...

and of course, there's the cost of real food at the grocery store... still cheaper to feed a family of 4 at McDonalds... especially if they all weigh 200kg each!

Anybody ever eat White Castle (aka, belly-bombs or sliders)? Now you're talking mystery meat. I used to shoot a couple dozen into my 500 lb landlords mouth with a slingshot and chase it with a gallon of radiator flush. Call out the toxic waste crew!

reply to post by never_tell


Lol, yet again....

... most of these excerpts are from "Fast Food Nation" -- a must read for those skeptical that FF isn't truly bad for you :

A typical artificial strawberry flavor, like the kind found in a Burger King strawberry milk shake, contains the following ingredients: amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, anethol, anisyl formate, benzyl acetate, benzyl isobutyrate, butyric acid, cinnamyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil, diacetyl, dipropyl ketone, ethyl acetate, ethyl amylketone, ethyl butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl heptylate, ethyl lactate, ethyl methyl..., ethyl nitrate, ethyl propionate, ethyl valerate, heliotropin, hydroxyphenyl-2-butanone (10% solution in alcohol), aionone, isobutyl anthranilate, isobutyl butyrate, lemon essential oil, maltol, 4-methyl..., methyl anthranilate, methyl benzoate, methyl cinnamate, methyl heptine carbonate, methyl naphthyl ketone, methyl salicylate... neryl isobutyrate, orris butter, phenethyl alcohol, rose, rum ether, undecalactone, vanillin, and solvent.

www.thirdworldtraveler.com...

How about these places advertise w/ a big WARNING sign, "You are about to eat poisonous, toxic food."

Back to the 'meat' --

A modern processing plant can produce 800,000 pounds of hamburger a day, meat that will be shipped throughout the United States. A single animal infected with E. coli 0157:H7 can contaminate 32,000 pounds of that ground beef

Like the multiple sex partners that helped spread the AIDS epidemic, the huge admixture of animals in most American ground beef plants has played a crucial role in spreading E. coli 0157:H7. A single fast food hamburger now contains meat from dozens or even hundreds of different cattle.

Sinclair described a long list of practices in the meatpacking industry that threatened the health of consumers: the routine slaughter of diseased animals, the use of chemicals such as borax and glycerine to disguise the smell of spoiled beef, the deliberate mislabeling of canned meat, the tendency of workers to urinate and defecate on the kill floor.

On March 31, 1999, the three Court of Appeal justices overruled parts of the original McLibel verdict, supporting the leaflet's assertions that eating McDonald's food can cause heart disease and that workers are treated badly. The court reduced the damages owed by Steel and Morris to about 40,000 pounds. The McDonald's Corp had previously announced that it had no intention of collecting the money and would no longer try to stop London Greenpeace from distributing the leaflet (which by then had been translated into 27 languages). McDonald's was tired of the bad publicity and wanted this case to go away. But Morris & Steel were not yet through with McDonald's. They appealed the Court decision to the British House & sued the police for spying on them. Scotland Yard settled the case out of court, apologizing to the pair and paying them 10,000 pounds in damages. When the House of Lords refused to hear their case, Morris & Steel filed an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights, challenging the validity not only of the verdict, but also of the British libel laws. As of this writing, the McLibel case is entering its twelfth year. After intimidating British critics for years, the McDonald's Corp picked on the wrong two people.

[edit on 19-11-2007 by anhinga]

On the French Fries:

McDonalds has switched exclusively to cooking with vegetable oil.

I'm not sure about the exact contents of the oil, but they no longer use the 'beef oil'

[edit on 19-11-2007 by Enrikez]

reply to post by Enrikez


Thanks for the update, yet potato chips/fries are still questionable:

www.drgreene.org...

Mounting new evidence suggests that they also contain high levels of a toxic chemical called acrylamide. Acrylamide is known to cause DNA damage, which can result in reproductive damage and cancer. It is strictly regulated in drinking water to avoid contamination from the manufacture of plastics, but not in food. When starchy foods are heated to high temperatures, they seem to spontaneously form acrylamide, even though none was present in the raw ingredients.

The WHO expert panel unanimously concluded that the results of these studies are valid. They also unanimously agreed there is a major concern that the levels of acrylamide found in some potato chips and French fries could cause cancer. The amount of acrylamide varies from brand to brand, and between cooking techniques. The Center for Science in the Public Interest has commissioned testing of levels in some US brands. The acrylamide in a large order of fast food fries was at least 300 times the amount allowed by the EPA in a glass of water. One brand studied contained 600 times the EPA amount.

[edit on 19-11-2007 by anhinga]

reply to post by Enrikez


vegetable oil=canola=rape seed=mustard=poison

same stuff they used to gas the troops in ww1... nice stuff

afterall, imagine Monsanto developing a plant that even a bug won't eat and then suggesting it's a healthy alternative.... how gullible do they thing we are?.. wait a minute... doh!