Do you know why people think it's bad meat compared to the supermarket? Is it just the general attitude society has developed towards fast-food and big business?
I don't mind KFC but Taco Bell meat always seemed a bit...off and low quality.
I don't mind KFC but Taco Bell meat always seemed a bit...off and low quality.
Tl:dr; yes it is true, inputs are the same as what you get in the store, but the outputs are vastly different. You have to factor in additives and preservation process. There really is a simple "sniff" test/heuristic I have developed after my decades in food service, and it's not really a secret, but seems like some aren't in on it, and it goes like this: If it goes bad, it's good, if it doesn't go bad, it isn't good. (Good is obviously subjective here, so my criteria is obviously "real" food in the sense that it is minimally processed and preserved and minimal chemical additives)
A neighborhood sushi place has an even bigger problem with spoilage than a friend chicken shack, but, for pretty intuitive reasons (I think?), I'd trust any well established sushi place with ahi and salmon than I would my own fridge.
Further: while fast food input costs are the highest single line item in their cost breakdowns, they don't come close to dominating, and labor plus rent dwarfs inputs even before you factor in franchise fees, marketing, and other expenses.
FYI, in the US it is common to mummify fish with carbon monoxide. It preserves the fish's color despite age. The best way to stop oxidation is to add a reducing agent!
I don't think CO is a problem, but it is a hack restaurants use that consumers are unlikely to be aware of which masks the visual indications of freshness.
For what it is worth, McDonald's says on their web site that this is not true. So either you are mistaken or McDonald's is committing fraud. Do you have a source for your claim?
From the McD's web site ( https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/about-our-food/our-food-y... ):
"Every one of our burgers is made with 100% pure beef and cooked and prepared with salt, pepper and nothing else—no fillers, no additives, no preservatives."
"Do you use so-called 'pink slime' in your burgers or beef treated with ammonia?"
"Nope. Our beef patties are made from 100% pure beef. Nothing else is added. No fillers, no additives and no preservatives.
"Some consumers may be familiar with the practice of using lean, finely textured beef sometimes treated with ammonia, which is referred to by some as “pink slime.” We do not use this. "
I haven't read this page recently (it certainly has changed much), but on skimming through, none of the terminology McDonalds uses on their website are meaningful in the sense that the standards there is no official definition and could not be distinguished between similar competitors that make similar claims besides simply what they say, and, more importantly, there is no regulated term between what constitutes beef being “pure” or “not pure” or otherwise put. It’s just some “thing” they say about their beef and we have to take them up on their word. Now if they said “we use USDA organic ground beef” that might have some teeth. It’s the same thing between a bag of candy telling you they no longer use artificial flavors and now use “natural” flavors.
Now the question of do I believe they have changed? Possibly. Do the burgers taste different? No, so common sense tells me you don’t drastically change your process like this and still get the same tasting burger from 20 years ago.
But I will actually do something uncommon here and admit I could be wrong, and have an outdated understanding of their process.
I will say I remain skeptical on exactly how they can go from the ammonia wash + chemical food flavoring process to using fresh beef and not have any discernible difference in taste or food safety, but kudos to them.
(TG'd meat was a faddish fine dining trend a few years back, and it's pretty neat; for instance, you can make a solid, ribeye-like slab of skirt steak by "gluing" layers of skirt together, which is pretty delicious. It's also a technique that's been used in sausagemaking for a long time.)
"100% Beef Patty. Ingredients: 100% Pure USDA Inspected Beef; No Fillers, No Extenders. Prepared with Grill Seasoning (Salt, Black Pepper)."
That seems pretty clear to me. USDA defines beef as flesh of cattle. If there is anything but "flesh of cattle" in the patty, McDonald's is committing fraud.
> After a months-long evaluation, the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) determined in December that BPI’s signature product—the offering famously called “pink slime” in an ABC News exposé that got the network in a lot of trouble—can be labeled “ground beef.” Legally speaking, it’s now no different from ordinary hamburger, and could even be sold directly to the public.
[1] https://newfoodeconomy.org/bpi-pink-slime-ground-beef-usda-r...
Freezing is hugely deleterious to ground beef quality. It changes the texture irrevocably. The two major differences between fast food burgers and fast casual burgers are frozen/fresh and cooked in advance/cooked to order. All the more expensive, more lauded burgers like Five Guys, Shake Shack, In 'n' Out, etc are fresh beef. McDonald's launched a fresh beef quarter pounder to universally positive reviews.
[Former Yum! engineer]
It's a food-safety and labeling term, not indicative of the relative quality of what's inside and doesn't, alone, mean that the ground beef sold by Taco Bell is or isn't excellent or crappy.