If we told you that ordering food at McDonalds is unhealthy, would you be surprised? Chances are good that you would not be surprised, mostly because you are all smart and intelligent people who know that fast food is typically unhealthy food. While many fast food restaurants, McDonalds included, have made changes in the past few years to their styles of cooking and their menus, they’re still not healthy restaurants. The food in places such as this is not considered healthy. It’s not good for you, it’s not good for me, and it’s not going to make you feel very good about yourself. In fact, there are a few things about McDonalds nutrition we know for certain. For one, the nutrition information is listed clearly on the McDonalds menu so you can see that just about everything you’re ordering is bad for you. And secondly, we’ve all seen the studies as to how much eating fast food can negatively affect your health in ways that take years to fix. So now that you know McDonalds is not healthy for you, we thought we’d share some of the fast food giant’s health and nutrition information with you. Only we’re not sharing what’s already on the menu. We’re sharing a few things that might make you think twice about eating here too often (because your health should be most important to you).
TBHQ in 18 Menu Items
This is a chemical that’s used in many things, including 18 different items you might find on the McDonalds menu. This chemical is described, if you look it up, as lethal. However, the FDA has approved the use of this chemical in some of the items on the McDonalds menu because they’ve been described as GRAS. This stands for generally regarded as safe. However, it’s not always considered safe and ingesting too much of it at one time could actually, literally kill you. Not later in life when you’re obese and your health is failing thanks to your poor diet; it could actually kill you right this second.
Eggs are Pre-Made
According to the restaurant, there are some places in which the eggs used to make your favorite breakfast dishes are pre-made, packaged, shipped and delivered. And there are some eggs that are made fresh in the store when you order your food to go. Either way, you just never know when you are consuming a freshly cooked egg or one that was cooked weeks ago and then packaged, shipped, stored and then reheated. So think about that the next time you want a healthy breakfast with an egg included. You might be eating one of the oldest eggs ever to exist. You wouldn’t scramble yours and then save them for a few weeks, would you? Probably not.
What about Those Eggs?
To be honest, I don’t care where my eggs come from as long as they’re in good shape. However, some people have much more in-depth opinions about where their food, especially their eggs, comes from. For many people, the idea of eating eggs only produced by free-range or organic chickens is very important. For others (like myself) the term free-range is meaningless. If you have been under the misconception that McDonalds uses free-range chicken eggs only, like many have been, you are mistaken. The company freely admits that to keep menu prices low, they use only caged chicken eggs because they are the cheapest. However, some individual franchises might choose to purchase organic and/or free-range produced eggs. It’s different everywhere.
Your Meat is Not Fresh
When you order a burger from McDonalds and ask for it ‘fresh’ as many people do, you’re still not getting actual fresh food. You’re getting something that was taken from the freezer and slapped on the grill for a few seconds to warm it up. This saves you from eating something that’s been sitting beneath a warming bin for some time, but it’s still not fresh. The restaurant admittedly uses meat that is packaged and frozen for weeks at a time before it is cooked. It is not cooked fresh to order at any restaurant; it is all cooked as it is opened and prepared for the day ahead.
Pink Slime
We’ve all seen the advertisements and the news items about the pink slime or the pink sludge that’s used to make McDonald’s chicken nuggets. And whether or not you choose to believe this as true is up to you. Some believe that it is true. Others believe that it is not. McDonalds told Business Insider than their nuggets are not made from this material and that this is not something they use to make their chicken nuggets. They claim that their food is completely natural chicken product and no slime has been added to anything to make the flavor more intense, to make them look perfect or to make them last longer once they’ve been cooked and served to their customers.
Anti-Foaming Chemicals in Oil
The company has admitted that the oil they use to fry their foods contains an anti-foaming ingredient that makes it difficult for the oil to pop and get all over their restaurants and their workers. While this seems like something that’s kind of nice to have, you should understand that this chemical is also used in many household products, including makeup and other cosmetic care items. So you’re essentially putting the same stuff in your body that’s used in your makeup, your wall putty and even the caulk around your bathtubs. That’s really, really gross.
McDonalds nutrition information is available online, on the menu and in any restaurant location. However, the information you’re being provided with here is actually information that tells you only how many calories you’re consuming if you order a specific item of a specific size. This does not tell you what is in your food, where it comes from or how it is made, which is a big problem for some who want to eat fast food. Others might not care, because the fries are delicious, but some people want to know what they are putting into their bodies.
Photo by Jamie Rector/Getty Images
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