3 ms·

This quote is just absurd: "Flies ignore a Happy Meal and microbes don’t decompose it, then your child’s body can’t properly metabolize it either." Wrong wrong

This quote is just absurd: "Flies ignore a Happy Meal and microbes don’t decompose it, then your child’s body can’t properly metabolize it either." Wrong wrong wrong. If this assertion is true, then people won't get fat eating junk food. But no, let us make a obscenely wrong jump in logic to support our biases. And she didn't say how she stored it. In the shade? In direct sunlight? Was the food still wrapped in packging or directly exposed to the flies in the air?

Retric 17y ago
Weight gain is just a question of energy extraction and it's != extracting a foods full nutritional value. The human body uses microbes to digest food. However, we also masticate and use strong acids etc. Depending on the type of preservatives used it may negatively impact the body's use of microbes which would be a serious problem. EX: I don't think they use antibiotics to preserve food, however if they did it would prose a problem to complete digestion.
- pierrefar 17y ago
  What the original post said is metabolism, which is the broadest term she could have used and does not make the distinction you rightly make. So yes, I agree with you. I don't think they use antibiotics to preserve the food. That would put them in a ton of regulatory hot water that I don't think $0.99 products cooked in McKitchens can support.
electromagnetic 17y ago
Agreed, it's complete nonsense. Specifically McDonalds is world renowned for having the saltiest fries on the planet, and salt is one of the worlds best preservatives. Frying a food also creates a barrier, the core is heated well beyond the point any microbe is capable of surviving and the natural porosity of the potato is sealed with oil that itself doesn't decompose. Essentially a McDonalds fry is sanitized on the inside, sealed and coated with enough salt that microbes won't develop on the surface. Salt is used in antimicrobial rinses for mouth infections and is regularly recommended by dentists and doctors for oral issues, so somehow a food preservative known and used for as long as human civilization appears to remember is now synonymous with inediblity? The burger again is made with highly salted meat and is fried not grilled, which has the same effect as with the fries. Not to mention protein and fat has a much longer decomposition cycle than carbohydrates. Simply put it isn't anything to do with the edibility of McDonalds foods its a testament to the preservatives used in their main consumables. I'm sorry, there's hardtack in museum pieces that have been fully unpreserved and stored to the open environment for going on a century that would still be edible and fully digestible - and it's mostly carbohydrates! The McDonalds food would not still be suitable for human consumption, if it was the author should have eaten it. The bread doesn't look dehydrated it looks like its probably saturated with penicillium, which likely aided in the preservation of the meat it encases. Again the meat is highly discoloured compared to the original photo (golden brown originally to a near black) and has also shrunk considerably (in the original it is to the edges of the bun, in the new photograph it is considerably smaller than a shrunken bun). The fries also are considerably dehydrated, which again only has a preservative effect. Exceptional use of a combination of preservatives does not mean a food is inedible or non-nutritious. As for their assertion that flies wouldn't touch it, that is likely a combination of two reasons. The first they attest that it had no odor, which is a key navigation system for flies to reach food (like flies to cow shit isn't a saying because cow shit is odorless, you can smell most from half a field away). The second reason is that insects, especially their larvae, are relatively unprotected against the environment and any becoming in contact with the salt would rapidly have succumbed to salt poisoning. If they wanted to argue that nothing other than humans are foolish enough to eat these products then they obviously have never left a city. When virtually every city in England has signs posted everywhere against not feeding the pigeons/seagulls isn't because people are feeding them bread or a nice piece of sirloin steak, no they're being fed fries. Go to any coastal city in England and you'll see entire flocks of seagulls fighting over leftover fries from fish and chip shops. These animals wouldn't be thriving to the order of thousands over inedible and indigestible foods. The author obviously wants to sell a book about nutrition for infants and is trying to do so by arguing that feeding your child a Happy Meal is bad for the health. However a Happy Meal isn't bad for your babies health, it isn't poisonous and it isn't going to kill them, perhaps its not nutritionally the best you can supply for your child but then neither is Kraft Dinner, hot dogs, bacon or any other of a long list of foods that children are routinely given that aren't nutritionally ideal. Excessive quantities of anything is harmful, including supposedly healthy foods. Polyunsaturated fats whilst apparently heart and brain healthy have been linked with marked increases in skin cancer when not consumed in proper quantities (IE when not from eating actual fish). The holy grail like treatment of polyunsaturated fats led directly to a monumental increase in trans fats when it began being used and advertised as a healthier baking/frying medium when the healthiest is actually saturated fat as it is heat stable. Companies are now returning to saturated fats to remove the trans fats that the misguided health Nazis introduced into our diets as being HEALTHY for us. They swapped a fat with a minor link to heart disease with a fat with a major link with heart disease. Simply put: Eat the burger or don't fucking buy it.
- die_sekte 17y ago
  Your post is great, except for the last paragraph which is completely bullshit. Trans fats occur in meat and milk and in hydrogenated polyunsaturated fats. Which means that natural polyunsaturated fats are trans fat free. Also, I cannot find any credible sources that show that polyunsaturated fats increase the risk of skin cancer. Also most polysaturated fats are heat stable enough: sunflower and canola oil begin to break down only above 210°C, which is stable enough for most uses (including baking, frying and deep-frying). Do you have any credible information backing up your points?

Retric 17y ago

Weight gain is just a question of energy extraction and it's != extracting a foods full nutritional value. The human body uses microbes to digest food. However, we also masticate and use strong acids etc. Depending on the type of preservatives used it may negatively impact the body's use of microbes which would be a serious problem. EX: I don't think they use antibiotics to preserve food, however if they did it would prose a problem to complete digestion.

pierrefar 17y ago
What the original post said is metabolism, which is the broadest term she could have used and does not make the distinction you rightly make. So yes, I agree with you. I don't think they use antibiotics to preserve the food. That would put them in a ton of regulatory hot water that I don't think $0.99 products cooked in McKitchens can support.

electromagnetic 17y ago

Agreed, it's complete nonsense. Specifically McDonalds is world renowned for having the saltiest fries on the planet, and salt is one of the worlds best preservatives. Frying a food also creates a barrier, the core is heated well beyond the point any microbe is capable of surviving and the natural porosity of the potato is sealed with oil that itself doesn't decompose. Essentially a McDonalds fry is sanitized on the inside, sealed and coated with enough salt that microbes won't develop on the surface. Salt is used in antimicrobial rinses for mouth infections and is regularly recommended by dentists and doctors for oral issues, so somehow a food preservative known and used for as long as human civilization appears to remember is now synonymous with inediblity? The burger again is made with highly salted meat and is fried not grilled, which has the same effect as with the fries. Not to mention protein and fat has a much longer decomposition cycle than carbohydrates. Simply put it isn't anything to do with the edibility of McDonalds foods its a testament to the preservatives used in their main consumables. I'm sorry, there's hardtack in museum pieces that have been fully unpreserved and stored to the open environment for going on a century that would still be edible and fully digestible - and it's mostly carbohydrates! The McDonalds food would not still be suitable for human consumption, if it was the author should have eaten it. The bread doesn't look dehydrated it looks like its probably saturated with penicillium, which likely aided in the preservation of the meat it encases. Again the meat is highly discoloured compared to the original photo (golden brown originally to a near black) and has also shrunk considerably (in the original it is to the edges of the bun, in the new photograph it is considerably smaller than a shrunken bun). The fries also are considerably dehydrated, which again only has a preservative effect. Exceptional use of a combination of preservatives does not mean a food is inedible or non-nutritious. As for their assertion that flies wouldn't touch it, that is likely a combination of two reasons. The first they attest that it had no odor, which is a key navigation system for flies to reach food (like flies to cow shit isn't a saying because cow shit is odorless, you can smell most from half a field away). The second reason is that insects, especially their larvae, are relatively unprotected against the environment and any becoming in contact with the salt would rapidly have succumbed to salt poisoning. If they wanted to argue that nothing other than humans are foolish enough to eat these products then they obviously have never left a city. When virtually every city in England has signs posted everywhere against not feeding the pigeons/seagulls isn't because people are feeding them bread or a nice piece of sirloin steak, no they're being fed fries. Go to any coastal city in England and you'll see entire flocks of seagulls fighting over leftover fries from fish and chip shops. These animals wouldn't be thriving to the order of thousands over inedible and indigestible foods. The author obviously wants to sell a book about nutrition for infants and is trying to do so by arguing that feeding your child a Happy Meal is bad for the health. However a Happy Meal isn't bad for your babies health, it isn't poisonous and it isn't going to kill them, perhaps its not nutritionally the best you can supply for your child but then neither is Kraft Dinner, hot dogs, bacon or any other of a long list of foods that children are routinely given that aren't nutritionally ideal. Excessive quantities of anything is harmful, including supposedly healthy foods. Polyunsaturated fats whilst apparently heart and brain healthy have been linked with marked increases in skin cancer when not consumed in proper quantities (IE when not from eating actual fish). The holy grail like treatment of polyunsaturated fats led directly to a monumental increase in trans fats when it began being used and advertised as a healthier baking/frying medium when the healthiest is actually saturated fat as it is heat stable. Companies are now returning to saturated fats to remove the trans fats that the misguided health Nazis introduced into our diets as being HEALTHY for us. They swapped a fat with a minor link to heart disease with a fat with a major link with heart disease. Simply put: Eat the burger or don't fucking buy it.

die_sekte 17y ago
Your post is great, except for the last paragraph which is completely bullshit. Trans fats occur in meat and milk and in hydrogenated polyunsaturated fats. Which means that natural polyunsaturated fats are trans fat free. Also, I cannot find any credible sources that show that polyunsaturated fats increase the risk of skin cancer. Also most polysaturated fats are heat stable enough: sunflower and canola oil begin to break down only above 210°C, which is stable enough for most uses (including baking, frying and deep-frying). Do you have any credible information backing up your points?