Comment by devinhelton | Hacker News Reader

Comment by devinhelton | Hacker News Reader

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That is why McDonalds undergoes the painstaking process of sanitizing their meat with an ammonia wash (prompted by the 90's nationwide beef e-coli outbreaks that resulted in serious litigation against popular burger joints), then adding in artificial flavorings back in to make it taste like a burger again (furthermore this is how McDonalds achieves that "miraculous" feat often described here when this topic comes up of having their burgers taste the same and have the same consistent product everywhere for over 20 years).

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. "

McDonald's even did a promotional video with Grant from MythBusters about their chicken nuggets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X1K9YukRlg

Full disclaimer: Info coming from a variety of sources: some documentaries which I know have their own inaccuracies, some my own personal experience in food service, and specifically working at McDonalds, and some having an ex-girlfriend of 3 years who was the district manager of another international large fast food burger chain, so by chance that gleaned me a lot of insight into the inner workings of fast food burger chains (he was previously a DM of several Golden Arches)

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.

On their ingredients page ( https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/product/hamburger.html ) it says that the patty consists of:

"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.

USDA has a pretty wide definition for what constitutes as ground beef[1]:

> 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...

McDonalds does in fact use 100% USDA-inspected beef, with "no fillers, additives, or preservatives", and explicitly does not use mechanically separated meat. It's not "organic", but then, most beef isn't.

Then I am happy to say I am happy for their recent changes, this certainly wasn’t the case a few years ago when I wrote them off, and even more not the case 10 years ago when I was still in the industry. I think it should be promoted as an example that consumer pressure and expectations can cause companies to change for the better.

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.

I'm not saying you shouldn't write them off. McDonalds fries are solid, but everything else there is terrible. And fast food is in general bad, and I don't want to be coming off like I'm saying that people should eat more of it.

McDonalds is great. Especially the breakfast menu items: egg McMuffin, chicken biscuit, etc. nuggets are solid too.

The ammonia (when it was present) was present in such small amounts that it couldn't conceivably have altered the flavor, and they were never using "chemical food flavoring." The only change they've made recently is using fresh instead of frozen for a few products. It has always been just beef.

Only the quarter pounder is fresh beef. The rest is frozen. If you look at places that review fast food, they unanimously applauded the fresh beef quarter pounder - they did have a discernible difference in quality.

They haven't used ammonia wash or "lean beef trimmings" since around 2011.

The ammonia is a bad scene, but the idea of using TG to repurpose "trimmings" isn't something we should be demonizing; if you're going to kill animals to feed people, you should be maximizing the yield (of muscle protein, that is). This is just an extension of the idea that if you're going to eat pork chops, you shouldn't be grossed out by the idea of eating offal; however ecologically irresponsible it is to eat meat at all, it must be more irresponsible to waste it because it squicks you out to eat anything but a loin chop.

(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.)

I am totally with you on this one. I feel similar about GMOs. The business behind GMOs isn't always the greatest, but we need all the help we can get.

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