Real Big Mac ingredients expose the truth behind ‘MuckDonalds’
Published: January 19, 2021
Back in the good old 70’s, it was considered a treat to visit McDonalds for a Big Mac. It was an occasion in itself. The food tasted good, the surroundings were clean and pleasingly ultra-modern, and the service was, of course, fast.
Unless you were a vegetarian, everything seemed totally above board; we had no reason to mistrust the food industry. Fast and processed foods were there to make our lives better, giving us more free time to watch The Six Million Dollar Man or play Space Invaders.
What was once an occasional visit, is now for some a daily occurrence, and what were once – we assume – ‘real’ ingredients, have now become something far more sinister.
Big Mac? Big Smack more like.
The Big Mac may well be an icon of that period and one that has endured, but like the flared collars and denims of the era, the real ingredients seem almost obsolete now. And as the ingredients have degenerated, so our health has crumbled too.
Forty years on and the impact of fast and processed foods is visible in our flared waistlines and in the industrious doctors’ waiting rooms across the country where we complain of aches, pains and far more truculent illnesses.
Mackey D’s (the affectionate term for McDonalds - the equivalent of calling Charles Manson ‘Chuckie M.’) website contains a laughable section on nutrition.
The 100% pure beef patty they purport the Big Mac to contain could indeed be 100% beef, but which parts of the cow does it consist of, and did it spend its ‘life’ in conditions of abject misery? How nutritious are the body parts of animals ‘raised’ in these facilities and subjected to what amounts to torture; pumped full of chemicals and hormones; and fed the remains of other animals?
Moving on to the bun: according to British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver to make bread you require flour, water, yeast, sugar and sea salt.
According to the “registered dieticians” (presumably headed by Homer Simpson) at McDonald’s to make a Big Mac bun you also require the following concoction:
- high fructose corn syrup
- soybean oil and/or partially hydrogenated soybean oil
- calcium carbonate
- calcium sulfate
- ammonium sulfate
- ammonium chloride
- sodium stearoyl lactylate
- ascorbic acid
- azodicarbonamide
- mono- and diglycerides
- ethoxylated monoglycerides
- monocalcium phosphate
- calcium peroxide
- calcium propionate (preservative)
- sodium propionate
All of which you can find growing in your backyard of course. Apparently, the sesame seeds are real though (but probably GM).
The Big Mac sauce contains another role call of natural wonders such as more high fructose corn syrup, polysorbate 80 (which damages fertility), potassium sorbate, propylene glycol alginate (may inhibit the nutrients of food it is mixed with – so not a problem in this case), and vegetable protein.
Vegetable protein sounds benign doesn’t it? It’s got ‘vegetable’ and ‘protein’ in the title and what could be more healthy than that? We all need vegetables and protein, right? Well that’s what we are supposed to think. You may also know it by its more pernicious name of monosodium glutamate. Yes, good ol’ MSG. Everyone’s favourite excitotoxin – the chemical transmitter that excites brain cells to death and precipitates neurological disorders is a big player in the Big Mac.
Given that the Oxford Dictionary, defines ‘food’ as any nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink, or that plants absorb in order to maintain life and growth, it’s risible that McDonalds can even mention the word ‘food’ on their website, or sell the Big Mac as quality fare.
As a nation and as a species we need to eliminate processed faux food and pay more attention to the often carefully worded and misleading claims on labels, websites and sales literature of these industry monsters. For our own sake. Every time we buy a Big Mac, we are condoning cruelty to animals, including ourselves.
Obesity in the US is at epidemic proportions. According to Eric Schlosser in his book Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, obesity claims 300,000 lives a year. Not as many lives as genocidal Addy H or Gengy K, but a reasonable number all the same.
If visits to the golden arches were limited to once a month or less, then the damage we were doing to our bodies, the bodies of our children and animal life would be greatly reduced, but at the rate we are headed, the only golden arches we will see, will be formed by daffodils placed above our graves. Genetically mummified. Amen.
Please tell us your feelings about McDonalds and their misleading health information regarding the Big Mac by leaving a comment.
Why not drop the fast food and switch to a veggie diet, drink a smoothie for breakfast, trim down with some yoga, enjoy some chocolate and have a detox once in a while.
images: collegeboredom.com, flickr.com
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Pimpkin
19. Jan, 2011
Monosodium glutamate isn’t as bad as you think. Only a small number of people display intolerances to it, and almost everybody has been consuming it from birth because it is found in breast milk. So if it makes your mother’s boobs taste delicious, why shouldn’t it make anything else you eat taste delicious too?
GM food must be labelled as being GM by law.
When I was younger I worked at McDonalds. I worked there for a full year. Nobody is forcing people to eat them, they do offer salads and other healthy alternatives.
The rest of the additives you mentioned are also not as carcinogenic, or toxic as you are purporting. In fact, most of them are shelf-life extenders or preservatives. Without them, the bread would not last quite so long and you would be complaining at the price of the burger rather than the ingredients.
I am a big believer in voting with your feet: if you don’t like it, don’t eat it. (and if you think you’re getting fat, start getting some exercise!!). Just stop whining ‘cos nobody cares.
MSG lies
19. Jan, 2011
Er, Pimpkin…
Let me start by saying you’re misguided. Breast milk contains “Glutamate”, not “mono-sodium glutamate”. You might want to do some homework there.
Many people who are starting to take better care of their health are trying to find nutritional information concerning foods they may have consumed, or still do consume, so this article is actually pretty helpful.
McDonalds food, including salads, is full of sugar and fructose syrup. It is widely known that their meat is non-organic and the cows and chickens are corn fed, pumped up with hormones to swell their meat yield, and treated incredibly badly.
They are also supplied with corn products grown using Monsanto GM corn. The ingredients on a Big Mac are not listed so you don’t actually know what you’re getting without doing some research.
The bottom line is this; people like you are the reason obesity is so bad in the USA. You manipulate, misinform and defend a culture which is literally killing people.
That makes you as irresponsible as the company you’re defending here. Like you say, vote with your feet, but at least make your vote an informed one.
Simpletastes
19. Jan, 2011
Hey Pimpkinghead! MSG isn’t bad? And only a small # of people display symptoms? Spoken like a true Dr. Smock. Seriously, most eaters are totally ignorant of the chemical concoction they’re ingesting conveniently labeled “food.” The processed food companies are built not on serving nutritious food, but food that meets some crazy USDA/FDA guidelines which equate to what an industrial farmer jams down the gullets of cows, pigs and chickens. The only difference between us and them is the animals are slaughtered. They want us to keep coming back and buy their packaged slop.
You'reanidiotPimpkin
19. Jan, 2011
Spoken like the true shill that you are.