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Jamie Oliver Proves McDonald’s Burgers “Unfit for human consumption”
- jamesaguilar 13y agoMisleading title. The pre-treatment meat was unfit for human consumption.
- coldtea 13y agoAnd washing it with dangerous chemicals make it "fit"?
- jamesaguilar 13y agoAmmonium hydroxide is not a dangerous chemical. It is generally regarded as safe by the FDA (that's the FDA's lowest level of regulation, along with chemicals like sodium chloride and dihydrogen oxide).
- hellrich 13y agoThousands die each year due to dihydrogen oxide. It may be safe to ingest, yet if you inhale it there's little hope...
- coldtea 13y agoHow much of what FDA approves is due to lobbying and lowering of standards? Of the kind that no FDA guy would like to feed his children with those if he had an alternative?
- jamesaguilar 13y agoDon't know. You could ask this question about any chemical. That doesn't make it actually dangerous.
- DanBC 13y agoTo support what other people are saying about this chemical: (http://www.foodinsight.org/Resources/Detail.aspx?topic=Questions_and_Answers_about_Ammonium_Hydroxide_Use_in_Food_Production http://www.foodinsight.org/Resources/Detail.aspx?topic=Quest...) Avoiding this chemical may be trickier than avoiding McD's burgers: (http://www.beefproducts.com/ammonium_hydroxide.php http://www.beefproducts.com/ammonium_hydroxide.php)
- digitalengineer 13y ago> Most disturbing of all is the horrifying fact that because ammonium hydroxide is considered part of the “component in a production procedure” by the USDA, consumers may not know when the chemical is in their food. I can understand McDonalds goes for the maximum profit. You get what you pay for. But I (naively) thought every company would be required by law to at the very least tell their clients when there's chemicals in the bloody food. That's the part of this I can't understand.
- coldtea 13y ago>I can understand McDonalds goes for the maximum profit. Well, I for one, can't understand it. Maybe I'm not indoctrinated in the free market enough, but basic human decency, and creating a quality product is among things I value.
- corin_ 13y agoAmmonium hydroxide is classed by the FDA as "generally recognized as safe", so while I certainly side with the argument that they should be required to disclose this, and I understand that some people may prefer to avoid it, I don't think that it's particularly immoral to do this as a way of offering customers cheap food. In fact I'd argue that it's more immoral of them to be helping people become obese than doing this.
- digitalengineer 13y agoBut in Europe McDonalds does not use this procedure. Can't be the philosophy stopping them, so must be the law. The Dutch website even states in a big bold font that they don't do use Ammonium hydroxide. 'Never have, never will'. http://www.mcdonalds.nl/meerweten/kwaliteit-voeding/ http://www.mcdonalds.nl/meerweten/kwaliteit-voeding/
- corin_ 13y agoIf they state "never have, never will" it's unlikely to be the law, otherwise they wouldn't need to say that. More likely is that the marketing win is bigger than the increase in cost and/or the belief that less people would eat there if they used it.
- corin_ 13y ago> On the official website of McDonald’s, the company claims that their meat is cheap because, while serving many people every day, they are able to buy from their suppliers at a lower price, and offer the best quality products. But if “pink slime” was really the “best quality” that McDonalds can muster in the US, then why were they able do better in Latin America and Europe? More to the point, why can they apparently do better now in the United States? Is the author genuinely confused, or even under the impression that anyone might be confused, by that statement from McDonalds, into thinking that the meat they use is the absolutely very best meat possibly available? That when you're paying $1 for a burger, you probably aren't getting quite the same quality as when you buy a nice fillet in a good restaurant, and that "best quality" was not only standard marketing hyperbole, but also was a reference within the context of their goal of being better than their rivals?
- DanBC 13y agoMcD's use a low quality product in one country. This isn't just "not best quality", it is very low quality meat. UK advertising laws have the concept of "Legal, Decent, Honest, and Truthful", I don't know what it's like in the US. But calling the worst quality level of meat available from a carcass "best quality" seems deceitful. These ingredients have terms in the UK, but there are loopholes and these are exploited sometimes. Mechanically recovered meat used in Sausages (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21530861 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21530861) (Something called a "sausage" in England needs to have certain quantity of meat, where both the quantity of meat and the meaning of meat are defined in law) (https://www.gov.uk/food-standards-labelling-durability-and-composition#meat-products https://www.gov.uk/food-standards-labelling-durability-and-c...)
- corin_ 13y agoHow do you define "quality" when talking about McDonalds food? If their burgers taste better than their rivals (subjective, of course) then aren't they the best?
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
- digitalengineer 13y agoReminds me of the Ammonia the tobacco industry started adding to cigarettes. Not to kill germs but to increase the amount of nicotine contained in the vapor smokers inhale. That cost them quite a lot of money (after 30 years). I'd say obesity is becoming just as dangerous as smoking... http://www.cnn.com/US/9802/04/minnesota.tobacco/ http://www.cnn.com/US/9802/04/minnesota.tobacco/
- Lazare 13y agoMisleading title. What Jamie Oliver has done is note that McDonald burgers in the US are not fit for human consumption until they've been processed. But he missed a much bigger scoop! The same is true of McDonald's burgers in every country! In fact, burgers from every chain aren't fit for human consumption without processing (at a minimum, cooking). Hell, without at least some processing, the burger would still be walking around going "moo" and emitting greenhouse gasses. So the issue isn't "you can't eat it until it's been processed"; that's a given. The question is "what processing is okay", and in particular, "is using ammonium hydroxide safe". And according to the FDA, the UN, the WHO, and most EU countries, it is: http://www.foodinsight.org/Resources/Detail.aspx?topic=Questions_and_Answers_about_Ammonium_Hydroxide_Use_in_food_production http://www.foodinsight.org/Resources/Detail.aspx?topic=Quest... And that seems to pretty much cover it. "The food industry uses ammonium hydroxide as an anti-microbial agent in meats, which has allowed McDonald’s to use otherwise “inedible meat.”" True, but they also use cooking, which also allows the consumption of otherwise "inedible meat". Is cooking safe? Science says yes. Is ammonium hydroxide safe? Science, again, says yes. Edit: Also, if we're going to go off of "it sounds scary, it must be bad", all burgers contains sodium chloride, and chlorine is a very toxic, dangerous gas! It will kill you if you breathe it! That's the real scandal! The truth is out there! Fight Big Chlorine!
- jasonwatkinspdx 13y ago> In fact, burgers from every chain aren't fit for human consumption without processing (at a minimum, cooking) Freshly butchered beef is safe to eat raw so long as the butcher used basic hygiene. People have been eating raw meat for ages. Look at any of the cuisines from Europe through the Levant. They all have traditional raw meat dishes with histories as old as agriculture. In general it's quite tasty, much the same was sushi is. Raw lamb however, I would say is a taste I've not acquired. Anyhow, even if McD's patties are perfectly safe, there is still a point to be made about what we're trading away with factory processing vs more traditional labor intensive methods.
- ErikHuisman 13y agoNobody wants a quick €26.95,- burger for lunch.. McD burgers aren't high end because consumers don't expect high end going to a fast food joint.
- croisillon 13y agoStrange source, somehow? Anyway there is no time mention but it looks like McDonald's solved the issue at least two years ago?
- sambeau 13y agoMy knowledge of modern chemistry (and chemical manufacture) is a little sketchy but, at a crude level, isn't this just taking unfit meat, soaking it in piss and then passing it off as safe?
- kintamanimatt 13y agoNo.
- sambeau 13y agoWhy? Until recently Ammonia was extracted from Urine and rotten vegetables was it not?
- kintamanimatt 13y agoUrine contains a lot of things, urea being one. Urea can be broken down into ammonia, but ammonia isn't ammonium hydroxide any more than sodium chloride is chlorine. They're not washing the meat with piss by any measure.
- brg 13y agoFor any ChemE out there, is ammonium hydroxide a stable chemical compound? Or does it revert quickly to an inert form in the presence of air, water, and light? The question arises from analogy with chlorine. To remove chlorine from tap water, all that is needed is to let a glass sit on the counter for a while.