Jamie Oliver Proves McDonald’s Burgers “Unfit for human consumption”
politicalblindspot.com
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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=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!
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.
Ho ho ho.
Only he made a valid point, that they use the scrummiest parts they find, that would not be acceptable to pass hygiene tests or be served without chemical treatment, and you just made a not very good joke by taking the "unprocessed" thing out of very specific "processing" context he mentions.
>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
OK then, that settles it. Because state agencies are not known to have approved tons of carcinogenic and harmful chemicals for everyday food use because powerful interests lobby for their use in order to lower their costs...
I mean, it's not like cigarettes aren't also approved and allowed to be sold (without any warning and with "studies" proving them safe, 3-4 decades back).
Or like the FDA approves Coke and Pepsi, products that are known to contribute to obesity, diabetes and several other adverse effects, just because there is a multi-billion industry to be made out of them.
If I'm allowed to be cynical, that the FDA approves something, only tells us that it's not a poison with immmediate effects, nothing much more...
...but you don't mention anything better. There's no "and therefore we should trust..." clause in your argument. Here's some obvious options:
* Everything is legal (from arsenic onwards)
* Everything is illegal (from dihydrogen monoxide onwards)
* National regulators make the rules.
* Privatized regulators compete to certify food safe.
* ....?
The only system we have claims that ammonium hydroxide is safe. You say you don't trust that system, and I'm certainly not saying you're wrong not to. But what claims can you point to that it is not safe that don't fall by the same logic?
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?
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) (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-c...)
If they are using the absolute worst cut of meat, bleaching it and flavouring it to taste good, the food might be considered "best quality" in terms of taste, but the meat cannot be considered "best quality".
Conversely, the wholly fictional "Kobe beef jerky" kickstarter scam would have been mediocre (if not poor) quality jerky, but (arguably at least) best quality meat, had it existed.
In that case my comment is an argument for your point of view, not against it.
Using meat from Aberdeen Angus beef cows, and using nice cuts of steak, and mincing it, would result in a high quality product.
Using meat from old dairy cows, mechanically recovered from the carcass after everything else has been used, results in a lower quality product.
I think taste is not relevant to quality. They're not saying "tastier than the rival products".
That's an extraordinarily strange definition of quality. By your definition quality is completely useless and means nothing except "more expensive".
So you basically think people should spend more money for the sake of spending more money? (Why not just send it to me instead?)
But of course in the real world quality does have an effect on taste (or nutrition).
Something can be very tasty and very poor quality. Add enough salt, fat, sugar, and spices and the worst quality 'pink slime' is tasty.
But a filet mignon is expensive, tender, usually high quality cut of meat that isn't particularly tasty. It doesn't have much fat and isn't weight bearing which affects the taste.
Then why buy it? What do you gain by spending extra on it?
Quality is not dependent on taste - nutrition is what food is for, not pleasant sensations. A banana is better quality food than Conglomocorp's banana-flavoured-yoghurt-covered chocolate sticks, even though the latter is far more delicious.
The cereal waste - if it complies with safety standards and people want to buy it, then let them.
If you decide to ban anything that could be bad for people who are gullible, stupid and naive then you're not going to have much left that's allowed.
I don't believe anyone reads "our products are the best" and thinks "that means they're healthy". If you want to be upset about something, how about the fact that they let people think of their salads as a healthy choice while pumping calories into the dressings?
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.
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.
I don't think their intent is to "offer customers cheap food" (as if they could care less). They just use those techniques to increase their margins.
No, that's not fine for me. Basic human decency doesn't stop at the middle class.
Why should poor people eat a subpar and dangerous food just because a chain wants to maximize their profits? Are they less human?
Einstein contributions to science might be more valuable than a homeless drunks, but the homeless drunk is just as valuable a life as anybody's.
(Not to mention, if we're looking at the "total cost of ownership" so to speak, the homeless drunk's theories weren't used in making stuff used to kill 250000 innocent people and that can wipe out the whole earth several times).
There's always chemicals in the food. That's what food is made of.
So not "when there's chemicals" (because the answer is always), but rather which chemicals, for example flour, salt, sugar, water, etc.
But practically speaking they don't - for example a mold release (oil) doesn't have to be disclosed. I don't like that law, but it is the law.
PS. If you are one of those who use "chemicals" as a shorthand for "dangerous chemicals" then ammonium hydroxide would not count because it's not a dangerous chemical.
Not very useful pedantic correction. He doesn't mean flour, salt, sugar etc.
He means artificial sweeteners, preservation chemicals, additives, etc.
Stuff people have not traditionally eaten for evolution-spanning years to be adapted to them, and are only used to maximize profit.
Then say so (although additive is a meaningless word - don't say that).
> Stuff people have not traditionally eaten for evolution-spanning years to be adapted to them, and are only used to maximize profit.
That's your definition. Other people don't define it that that way. I've heard definitions ranging from "dangerous" to "not natural", to "using the chemical name of something".
And your definition excludes sugar (sucrose) and corn (since they are both new), and includes sugar of lead (which has been eaten throughout history despite being toxic), so it's not a helpful definition.
What about Sodium acetate? How would you rank that? Chemical, or non chemical?
Plus if you are concerned about "maximizing profit" then don't eat wheat - modern dwarf wheat was invented to maximize profit. Then again everything people sell is done to maximize profit......
Your definition is useless and you know it. If you are concerned with a particular type of ingredient say so directly. I have great concern over preservatives and artificial food colors - but I don't call them "chemicals" since that means everything and anything.
I'm pragmatic. I don't care about having a perfect definition. I'm not writing a dictionary entry -- and some things are inherently fussy anyway.
People know what I'm talking about: any kind of stuff added to food that doesn't belong to it in the first place (the way flour and salt belong in bread and beef belongs in meatballs).
Stuff that serves no nutritional value, and is only used to: give them more enticing color, preserve them for longer periods, have them be able to survive frozen, enable lower quality or throw-away animal parts reused, make them more addictive to consumers, make them cheaper, etc.
>Then again everything people sell is done to maximize profit......
In some kind of hell, maybe. In the real world there do exist people that take pride in their work, and who wouldn't fuck with the food they serve to "maximize profit", even if it means they wont get as much money as they could.
You know, the kind of people that refuse to let their famous restaurant turn into a nation-wide chain, despite the offers, cooks that insist on using the most fresh ingredients, etc.
So...no salt, pretty much no sugar, no smoked meats or cheeses, no cured bacon or smallgoods, no pickles, no jams, jellies, or preserves, no applesauce? After all, those techniques are purely used to "preserve [the food] for longer periods prior to the advent of cheap, universal refrigeration. (And historically, there were no "throw-away" animal parts; we ate everything including the brain, eyes, and lungs. So I'm not really sure what point that's meant to make.)
Your "pragmatic definition" of food additives seems to be "stuff that seems weird to coldtea". That may be pragmatic, but it's not useful.
Of the kind that no FDA guy would like to feed his children with those if he had an alternative?
Avoiding this chemical may be trickier than avoiding McD's burgers: (http://www.beefproducts.com/ammonium_hydroxide.php)
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.
Until recently Ammonia was extracted from Urine and rotten vegetables was it not?