Visakha

If you’ve been following my “Not Lovin’ It” series on ingredients in McDonald’s foods, you’ve already seen some disgusting and shocking ingredients in McNuggets and French fries. Many people contacted me to ask “what’s in those burgers?” I have to admit, even though I haven’t eaten a McDonald’s burger in many years, I too have wondered what’s in them.  Before I share information from McDonald’s own ingredient lists, let’s consider the processing of their burgers.

There’s been a tremendous amount of controversy over McDonald’s burgers since celebrity chef Jamie Oliver demonstrated how meat scraps and sinew are spun in a centrifuge and “washed” with ammonium hydroxide, which has also become known as ”Pink Slime.“ This chemical is used in fertilizers and cleaning products.  According to Oliver it is used in 70 percent of ground beef in the United States but does not require inclusion on ingredient lists because the US Department of Agriculture classifies it as a “process” not an “ingredient” even though residues of this process are left behind in the meat consumed. He says, ”Basically, we‘re taking a product that would be sold in the cheapest way for dogs, and after this process, is being given to human beings.”

Recently, McDonald’s announced that “we made a decision to discontinue the use of ammonia-treated beef in our hamburgers.” But, there is no way to know if it is still in use at McDonald’s, other than to trust McDonald’s to do what it says.  As an aside, McDonald’s reportedly never used pink slime-treated beef in the UK and Ireland, but was comfortable including it in North American burgers.

Before you decide whether you want to trust McDonald’s let’s take a look at ingredients in their burgers (according to the company’s own website) along with some information I’d like to share about these ingredients.

Here are the burger ingredients:  .............