So, this mean that McDonalds is as healthy as the burgers I make at home? I was ... (2024)

> So, this mean that McDonalds is as healthy as the burgers I make at home?

Sure, as long as you use similar ingredients.

> I was under the impression that their food is loaded with sugar and strange additives.

It's not. The beef patty really is just beef. The bun is white bread, just like you can buy at the grocery store. And the condiments are self-evident. It's just that that they've nailed the production process so precisely that what you get tastes almost exactly the same, every time.

A lot of people have this warped, black and white view of "healthy" and "unhealthy", but the reality is that it's a spectrum, and you can get reasonably healthy food at McDonalds but eat like crap at home.

McDonalds lists the ingredients in their foods here:https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/about-our-food/nutrition-...

Their hamburger doesn't look any different than what I would make at home. I don't have any grocery store bought buns in front of me, but I assume it would have similar ingredients. The pickles are not the most natural, but once again, it's not much different than what I would buy in a grocery store.

The biggest difference for me personally is that I would usually make a salad or another vegetable along with homemade burgers and fries, but it wouldn't even cross my mind to order that at McDonald's. I suppose I bring that on myself.

Regular Bun: Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Sugar, Yeast, Soybean Oil, Contains 2% or Less: Salt, Wheat Gluten, Potato Flour, May Contain One or More Dough Conditioners (DATEM, Ascorbic Acid, Mono and Diglycerides, Enzymes), Vinegar.

100% Beef Patty: 100% Pure Usda Inspected Beef; No Fillers, No Extenders.Prepared With Grill Seasoning (salt, Black Pepper).

Ketchup: Tomato Concentrate from Red Ripe Tomatoes, Distilled Vinegar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Water, Salt, Natural Flavors.

Pickle Slices: Cucumbers, Water, Distilled Vinegar, Salt, Calcium Chloride, Alum, Potassium Sorbate (Preservative), Natural Flavors, Polysorbate 80, Extractives of Turmeric (Color).

Onions: Onions.

Mustard: Distilled Vinegar, Water, Mustard Seed, Salt, Turmeric, Paprika, Spice Extractive.

And here we get at the root of the problem with the North American diet... The fact that people think an ingredient list like this is acceptable or 'not that bad' is a problem.

The 'white bread' ingredient list looks nothing like real bread. Sugar? Oil? These are ingredients in muffins and cakes, not bread. The wheat they use has been processed to the point that a few key vitamins have to be added back just to make it legal again.

The ketchup and pickles are basically jam and sliced candy, there's so much sugar in them.

Not to mention the salt levels in everything.

If you eat low quality white bread and cheap condiments with every meal, you might as well have a candy bar and a bag of chips instead. But we've normalized it, we think we're eating home cooked food each time we reach for a plastic bottle or bag.

I also want to point out that "100% Pure USDA inspected beef with no fillers or extenders" doesn't mean what it sounds like. What this doesn't list are all the things that are allowed to be in your cheap, factory farmed beef and still be called 100% pure beef, like ammonia-treated lean highly textured beef (LFTB or 'pink slime': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_slime), HGH, antibiotics, etc.

By all means go out and enjoy some junk once in a while, but we've gotta stop normalizing ultra-processed foods in our homes.

> The bun is white bread, just like you can buy at the grocery store

> Regular Bun: Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Sugar, Yeast, Soybean Oil, Contains 2% or Less: Salt, Wheat Gluten, Potato Flour, May Contain One or More Dough Conditioners (DATEM, Ascorbic Acid, Mono and Diglycerides, Enzymes), Vinegar.

Each to their own!

> You can get reasonably healthy food at McDonald's

... Seriously? Do they even sell vegetables beyond the burger dressing?

I just checked some hamburger buns that I bought from my local grocery store. They were in the middle price range.

Enriched flour (wheat flour, barley malt, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, potato flakes, yeast, wheat gluten, sugar, 2% or less of: salt, soybean oil, soy flour, sodium stearoyl lactylate, corn flour, extratives of paprika and turmeric, calcium propionate, calcium sulfate, ammonium sulfate, sucralose, natural and artificial flavor, ascorbic acid, enzymes

So not much better than the McDonald’s buns, and maybe a little worse. I’m guessing that the above ingredients are all required for a hamburger bun that is both shelf stable and cheap.

I’m not sure what the takeaway of that is. Maybe I should get the more expensive and presumably more natural buns? Either way, the McDonald’s buns aren’t any worse than what most people are eating at home.

The only bread I've bought in a long time is supermarket (ciabatta) rolls:

> fortified wheat flour (wheat flour, calcium carbonate, iron, niacin, thiamin), water, extra virgin olive oil (2%), fermented wheat flour, malted wheat flour, salt, yeast

They're not the cheapest of course, but hardly some absurd luxury at 33.8p each, they're a lot nicer than squidgy cheap rolls that are unlike anything you could reproduce at home or see a baker produce, and have pretty much the same ingredients list you'd use at home, if you used commercial yeast and bothered with three different flours.

And there's no selection bias or anything - I haven't looked at the ingredients list before, that's not why I buy them. I buy them because they're nice enough and so far I haven't bothered to bake rolls, mainly because my demand for them is more erratic than slice[able] bread.

And that's what makes them bad. I've always thought 'processed' was a pretty vague marketing term. A lot like people talking about 'chemicals'.

Yeah, modern food is terrible.