4 ms·

The best thing Mcdonalds could do is to simplify their ingredient lists such that anyone could read them and see that they were composed of boring obvious ingre

The best thing Mcdonalds could do is to simplify their ingredient lists such that anyone could read them and see that they were composed of boring obvious ingredients. For example, if their fries contained just potatoes, salt and some cooking oil that wasn't canola or cottonseed oil and they advertised it, I'd buy them again. If they wanted to be revolutionary, they could go for certified non-gmo. The world needs boring simple obvious cheap food. People are sick of all the questionable food additive innovation of the last few decades.

Roritharr 12y ago
Whats wrong with GMO Potatoes/Fries?
- bluejellybean 12y ago
  There is a fear around anything GMO. Regardless of the actual health effects, it acts as a selling point in the same way 'organic' does.
- dvh 12y ago
  Reason 1: 1. Company creates GMO. 2. Company visit farmers and make them offer. 3. Farmer don't want to buy for whatever reason. 4. Company buys land near farmer, plant GMO and wait for bees to transfer genes to farmer 5. Company sue farmer for copyright infringement. 6. Farmer cannot afford lawyers, went bankrupt. 7. Company offer to drop the case if farmer buys their GMO. 8. Farmer eventually lost the land, company buys it, plant their GMO. Reason 2: 1. Company want to improve plant, they have 2 choices: a) make it more resistant to pest b) make it more resistant to pesticide 2. Company chose b), then (allow farmers to) dump copious amount of pesticides on crop killing everything nearby. 3. Poisonous monoculture crop, bees are starving.
  - Roritharr 12y ago
    Reason 1 is a legal issue in the US, this is not something i've ever seen happening in Europe. Reason 2 sounds possible, but a bad decision of the Farmer. Once again not a thing i've heard happening in Europe, because it simply isn't cost efficient to do so. But what we certainly have is Organic Farmers having to resort to copious amounts of less effective but "organic" pesticides.
    - rdsnsca 12y ago
      Reason 1 also happens in Canada .
  - tedunangst 12y ago
    Never happened.
DanBC 12y ago
What's wrong with canola oil? Also, you're kind of missing the point that skinny fries without potato skin are low on the list of healthy ways to eat a potato.
- narrator 12y ago
  Canola contains small amounts of eurcic acid, which is bad for heart health and 80% of it is gmo and thus treated with tons of glyphosphate before harvest. Glyphosphate is classified as a possible carcinogen by the world health organization. Gmo varieties are engineered to resist glyphosphate so the farmer can apply more of it.
  - ceejayoz 12y ago
    > Glyphosphate is classified as a possible carcinogen by the world health organization. So's coffee. Meanwhile, sunlight and estrogen are known carcinogens, but we don't hide in dark caves and cut out ovaries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erucic_acid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erucic_acid indicates "the dietary intake of erucic acid by an individual consuming at the average level is well below the PTDI, therefore, there is no cause for concern in terms of public health and safety". This is the sort of scientific illiteracy that lets people like Food Babe scaremonger over what's in a pumpkin spice latte.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    GMOs are resistant to glyphosate so the farmer can apply less of it, but do so earlier in the crop cycle. Glyphosate got a 2A rating from the IARC. That's a rating that has importance for people working with the chemicals - it's an industrial exposure rating relevant to people who spray their crops. It has no relevance to you as a consumer of canola oil. The dose of glyphosate you'd get from canola oil is tiny. Do you have a credible source for your eurcic acid claim? Canola oil contains by definition less than 2% its total fatty acids as erucic acid. We think harm occurs in the 750 mg per kg range. (So an average adult weighing 60 kg needs to eat 45 gr of erucic acid per day, and erucic acid is just 2% of canola oil so you'd have to eat 2 kg of canola oil per day to get that much erucic acid) We adjust that down by a factor of one hundred just because, so a safe daily dose is 7.5 mg. that means a person has to eat 375 mg of canola oil per day to reach this dose which is a hundred times smaller than the smallest dose we see harm in animal experiments - and for this small dose you need to use infant pigs, otherwise the risky dose is higher. By European law the amount of erucic acid must be less than 5%. US FDA rules say that canola oil must be less than 2% Erucic acid.
dmm 12y ago
McDonalds doesn't sell GMO potatoes. http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/11/15/3487642_mcdonalds-rejects-simplots-gmo.html http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/11/15/3487642_mcdonalds-r...
cowsandmilk 12y ago
McDonalds Ingredients for a hamburger: Hamburger: 100% BEEF PATTY, REGULAR BUN, KETCHUP, MUSTARD, PICKLE SLICES, ONIONS That list seems pretty simple. I'm still not going to McDonald's to buy a hamburger. Maybe you object to what makes up the ketchup, mustard, etc? Source: http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/usnutritionexchange/ingredientslist.pdf http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/usnutritionexchange/ingredien...
- deepvibrations 12y ago
  Err, yeah..but lets take the 'regular bun' for example- in that you have: Ingredients: Enriched Flour (Bleached Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup and/or Sugar, Yeast, Soybean Oil and/or Canola Oil, Contains 2% or Less: Salt, Wheat Gluten, Calcium Sulfate, Calcium Carbonate, Ammonium Sulfate, Ammonium Chloride, Dough Conditioners (May Contain One or More of: Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, DATEM, Ascorbic Acid, Azodicarbonamide, Mono and Diglycerides, Ethoxylated Monoglycerides, Monocalcium Phosphate, Enzymes, Guar Gum, Calcium Peroxide), Sorbic Acid (Preservative), Calcium Propionate and/or Sodium Propionate (Preservatives), Soy Lecithin, Sesame Seed. Looking at that, I think narrator has a good point!
  - kidsthesedays 12y ago
    Unless you make your bread from scratch this is what supermarket bread is like too.
    - rmxt 12y ago
      I don't mean to fear-monger, but at least I can read and mentally visualize all of the ingredients in some supermarket breads. See here: http://www.womenandweight.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/pepperidgefarm2.jpg http://www.womenandweight.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/pep... I don't know what any of these are: Ammonium Sulfate, Ammonium Chloride, Dough Conditioners (May Contain One or More of: Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, DATEM, Ascorbic Acid, Azodicarbonamide, Mono and Diglycerides, Ethoxylated Monoglycerides, Monocalcium Phosphate, Enzymes, Guar Gum, Calcium Peroxide), Sorbic Acid (Preservative), Calcium Propionate and/or Sodium Propionate (Preservatives) Please note, I'm not trying to go all "dihydrogen monoxide" here, because I do know and understand that modern food, and as a result modern global health, processes rely on chemicals with names like the above ingredients. Also, maybe more viscerally, I'd wager that the McDonald's bun is one of those food items that has an unrefrigerated shelf life approaching infinity. (/s?). To think that something that even bacteria and molds won't be able to eat and break down is going to enter my body as sustenance...that's a little unsettling. At least with the supermarket bread I've posted, it probably won't last more than a week or two on the kitchen counter. In my uneducated opinion, that probably means that things like that won't linger around in my body too long to cause any lasting impacts, good or bad.
mason240 12y ago
>If they wanted to be revolutionary, they could go for certified non-gmo You meant anti-science, right?

Roritharr 12y ago

Whats wrong with GMO Potatoes/Fries?

bluejellybean 12y ago
There is a fear around anything GMO. Regardless of the actual health effects, it acts as a selling point in the same way 'organic' does.
dvh 12y ago
Reason 1: 1. Company creates GMO. 2. Company visit farmers and make them offer. 3. Farmer don't want to buy for whatever reason. 4. Company buys land near farmer, plant GMO and wait for bees to transfer genes to farmer 5. Company sue farmer for copyright infringement. 6. Farmer cannot afford lawyers, went bankrupt. 7. Company offer to drop the case if farmer buys their GMO. 8. Farmer eventually lost the land, company buys it, plant their GMO. Reason 2: 1. Company want to improve plant, they have 2 choices: a) make it more resistant to pest b) make it more resistant to pesticide 2. Company chose b), then (allow farmers to) dump copious amount of pesticides on crop killing everything nearby. 3. Poisonous monoculture crop, bees are starving.
- Roritharr 12y ago
  Reason 1 is a legal issue in the US, this is not something i've ever seen happening in Europe. Reason 2 sounds possible, but a bad decision of the Farmer. Once again not a thing i've heard happening in Europe, because it simply isn't cost efficient to do so. But what we certainly have is Organic Farmers having to resort to copious amounts of less effective but "organic" pesticides.
  - rdsnsca 12y ago
    Reason 1 also happens in Canada .
- tedunangst 12y ago
  Never happened.

DanBC 12y ago

What's wrong with canola oil? Also, you're kind of missing the point that skinny fries without potato skin are low on the list of healthy ways to eat a potato.

narrator 12y ago
Canola contains small amounts of eurcic acid, which is bad for heart health and 80% of it is gmo and thus treated with tons of glyphosphate before harvest. Glyphosphate is classified as a possible carcinogen by the world health organization. Gmo varieties are engineered to resist glyphosphate so the farmer can apply more of it.
- ceejayoz 12y ago
  > Glyphosphate is classified as a possible carcinogen by the world health organization. So's coffee. Meanwhile, sunlight and estrogen are known carcinogens, but we don't hide in dark caves and cut out ovaries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erucic_acid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erucic_acid indicates "the dietary intake of erucic acid by an individual consuming at the average level is well below the PTDI, therefore, there is no cause for concern in terms of public health and safety". This is the sort of scientific illiteracy that lets people like Food Babe scaremonger over what's in a pumpkin spice latte.
- DanBC 12y ago
  GMOs are resistant to glyphosate so the farmer can apply less of it, but do so earlier in the crop cycle. Glyphosate got a 2A rating from the IARC. That's a rating that has importance for people working with the chemicals - it's an industrial exposure rating relevant to people who spray their crops. It has no relevance to you as a consumer of canola oil. The dose of glyphosate you'd get from canola oil is tiny. Do you have a credible source for your eurcic acid claim? Canola oil contains by definition less than 2% its total fatty acids as erucic acid. We think harm occurs in the 750 mg per kg range. (So an average adult weighing 60 kg needs to eat 45 gr of erucic acid per day, and erucic acid is just 2% of canola oil so you'd have to eat 2 kg of canola oil per day to get that much erucic acid) We adjust that down by a factor of one hundred just because, so a safe daily dose is 7.5 mg. that means a person has to eat 375 mg of canola oil per day to reach this dose which is a hundred times smaller than the smallest dose we see harm in animal experiments - and for this small dose you need to use infant pigs, otherwise the risky dose is higher. By European law the amount of erucic acid must be less than 5%. US FDA rules say that canola oil must be less than 2% Erucic acid.

dmm 12y ago

McDonalds doesn't sell GMO potatoes. http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/11/15/3487642_mcdonalds-rejects-simplots-gmo.html http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/11/15/3487642_mcdonalds-r...

cowsandmilk 12y ago

McDonalds Ingredients for a hamburger: Hamburger: 100% BEEF PATTY, REGULAR BUN, KETCHUP, MUSTARD, PICKLE SLICES, ONIONS That list seems pretty simple. I'm still not going to McDonald's to buy a hamburger. Maybe you object to what makes up the ketchup, mustard, etc? Source: http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/usnutritionexchange/ingredientslist.pdf http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/usnutritionexchange/ingredien...

deepvibrations 12y ago
Err, yeah..but lets take the 'regular bun' for example- in that you have: Ingredients: Enriched Flour (Bleached Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup and/or Sugar, Yeast, Soybean Oil and/or Canola Oil, Contains 2% or Less: Salt, Wheat Gluten, Calcium Sulfate, Calcium Carbonate, Ammonium Sulfate, Ammonium Chloride, Dough Conditioners (May Contain One or More of: Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, DATEM, Ascorbic Acid, Azodicarbonamide, Mono and Diglycerides, Ethoxylated Monoglycerides, Monocalcium Phosphate, Enzymes, Guar Gum, Calcium Peroxide), Sorbic Acid (Preservative), Calcium Propionate and/or Sodium Propionate (Preservatives), Soy Lecithin, Sesame Seed. Looking at that, I think narrator has a good point!
- kidsthesedays 12y ago
  Unless you make your bread from scratch this is what supermarket bread is like too.
  - rmxt 12y ago
    I don't mean to fear-monger, but at least I can read and mentally visualize all of the ingredients in some supermarket breads. See here: http://www.womenandweight.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/pepperidgefarm2.jpg http://www.womenandweight.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/pep... I don't know what any of these are: Ammonium Sulfate, Ammonium Chloride, Dough Conditioners (May Contain One or More of: Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, DATEM, Ascorbic Acid, Azodicarbonamide, Mono and Diglycerides, Ethoxylated Monoglycerides, Monocalcium Phosphate, Enzymes, Guar Gum, Calcium Peroxide), Sorbic Acid (Preservative), Calcium Propionate and/or Sodium Propionate (Preservatives) Please note, I'm not trying to go all "dihydrogen monoxide" here, because I do know and understand that modern food, and as a result modern global health, processes rely on chemicals with names like the above ingredients. Also, maybe more viscerally, I'd wager that the McDonald's bun is one of those food items that has an unrefrigerated shelf life approaching infinity. (/s?). To think that something that even bacteria and molds won't be able to eat and break down is going to enter my body as sustenance...that's a little unsettling. At least with the supermarket bread I've posted, it probably won't last more than a week or two on the kitchen counter. In my uneducated opinion, that probably means that things like that won't linger around in my body too long to cause any lasting impacts, good or bad.

mason240 12y ago

>If they wanted to be revolutionary, they could go for certified non-gmo You meant anti-science, right?