To think McDonald's isn't actually That bad...it's not cardboard and cows ears as people seem to think?

[WittiestUsernameEver]

Looking at the ingredients in most of it, it's fine??

They use organic milk, free range eggs, burgers are meat and salt, probably better quality stuff than the likes of Harvester burgers etc.

People talk about it like you're feeding your kids arsenic, rats piss and pig shit...

Apparently he was an alcoholic and didn't disclose it at the time of the documentary so the whole thing was BS. The doctor was stumped how bad his liver was. But am sure he knew he was being lied to-doubt you can fool a doctor that you're not an alcoholic and blame it all on a months worth of junk food!

Also the change in numbers was rapid, he started the experiment with healthy numbers, altered his diet and ended up with huge changes.

The moral meaning of 'bad' is only one meaning, and not the one most people mean when they refer to 'bad food'.

Bad just means not of the required standard, and food can certainly be considered in that way.

Yes and obviously I am not talking about if it is from a natural product e.g. egg. It often isn’t natural though. That is also exactly why I avoid foods labelled low fat as the fat is often replaced with these other ingredients which usually are not natural at all (and obviously sugar which isn’t UPF but still I’d avoid in that case). There are many food items in the supermarkets that if you were to just look at the ingredients list you would have no idea telling what the actual product was. We can agree to disagree that there are no bad foods! I’d you look up the ingredients of Aldi cinnamon buns I think that is an example. Tonnes of ingredients that are barely recognisable.

Tonnes are barely recognisable? Out of about 45(!) ingredients in those cinnamon buns, there's only a couple that I couldn't say off the top of my head roughly what they are and why they might be in the recipe: the sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate, and the mono- and diacetyl tartaric acid esters of mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids. I suppose some people might also be unfamiliar with the (separately-listed) mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, though it does tell you that it's an emulsifier, and many people might be able to guess from the name what kind of thing it might be. The flavourings are also unlisted, just "flavourings".

You might not want to eat it, but I'm sure you know what the vast majority of the ingredients are.

Well that was an example of food I consider ‘bad’ in that it’s got a number of unrecognisable ingredients, clearly UPF and the number and type of ingredients all just put me right off when I actually looked at the list as I used to buy them every week and haven’t since!

Yeah I agree they're very highly processed, and probably have several ingredients in them that would be detrimental to most people's health if they made up a significant portion of their diet (from whatever source). I just don't think that two or maybe three out of over 40 counts as a lot or tonnes — though maybe most people don't have to read as many food labels as I do (not through choice ) so more of the ingredients will be unfamiliar.

I'm not sure that recognisability is a reliable indicator of healthiness, tho. For one thing, it depends very much on the individual e.g. I recognise ascorbic acid as vitamin C, an antioxidant that can help stop fruit going brown and also a flour improver that I've added to my own homemade bread in the past, while the person next to me might not happen to recognise it. It's not going to be magically less healthy for them than for me.

The buns do look a bit shit tho. They're probably delicious

They are amazing 🫣 I’ve made my own a few times since but I try not to too often as I’d be the size of a house!

Ah, yes, that 0.1g if salt difference makes it soooo much worse... 🙄

...so? That's less than half the RDA. And eaten occasionally and around other meals is fine.

It's not 8g of salt, 3500 calories and 100g of fat... It's a burger and chips... It's inherently not low fat etc.

Home baking is so fucking dangerous. It would obviously be terribly inefficient and wasteful to buy full packets of ingredients and get out all the kit and run the oven and do all that washing-up if you didn't do a decent-sized batch of <whatever>. And as home baking goes stale so quickly and it would be even more wasteful to let that happen, they probably need eating up quickly, right? And things are so delicious when they're freshly-baked to your own personal preferences…

…and then you've eaten two dozen blueberry and lemon muffins.

Did y'all see that that teacher Marvin?) Who lost weight successfully eating only mcdonalds food has died. Saw this after this thread was created.

Morgan not Marvin sorry.
Google Morgan Spurlock.

I’d expected it to be significantly better to be honest, so it’s not just the 1 gram it’s worse by that’s put it in a different light for me; it’s also all the grams it isn’t better by!

yeah. if that’s the point you’re trying to make i don’t disagree with you.

It’s not healthy but the odd meal here and there won’t kill you. of course it won’t

i don’t know who you think is saying it will

it’s shit quality highly processed food. but yeh, the odd meal won’t kill you.

i get your point that’s it’s not AS shit as some other highly processed food, if that’s the low bar you want to set

Yep. Diets are problematic

you’re massively over complicating healthy eating though. Most people don’t need a dietician

Most of us nowadays need to eat more veg, less sugar, less salt etc etc

of course different people need different amounts of different things. Pretty much everyone knows that don’t they??

nobody needs to eat more fast food, donuts, ready meals, soft drinks etc etc

How is it overcomplicated to say that healthy eating is about what constitutes a healthy diet for a given individual, and that when considering a food for inclusion, it needs to be considered in the context of the whole diet rather than assessed alone?

That's all I'm saying. A healthy diet is one which optimises health. No person on the planet eats a diet which would optimise health for every human being. Genetic and epigenetic factors, developmental factors, immunological factors, sex, age, lifestyle, body size, diseases, etc. are only a handful of the things which affect whether a particular diet optimises health for a particular person.

of course different people need different amounts of different things

That's exactly what I'm saying.

Pretty much everyone knows that don’t they??

Yeah, you would've thought. And yet.

It's fine as the odd meal, really it is. There is a lot of snobbery over McDonald's, always has been.
But the reality is that as the odd meal it's perfectly okay.

We have a McDonald's when we need to do a longer drive down the motorway, coving a meal time. It's the only time we really go. And, on those occasions, it hits the mark!

It would be different if you were going every day. But that's the same for most eating out options tbh.

I can't bear the smell of Subway when you walk past it though. No idea what the smell is but they all have it when you go by. Means I can't face eating anything in there.

I always round my bill up when paying too - the charity that helps fund the Ronald McDonald hospital houses. A colleague stayed in when when their child was undergoing cancer treatment and it was such a relief for them to be close by.

Yes, it’s rank! What exactly causes the smell — I mean, what is it of?

I'd definitely recommend Chris van Tulleken's book. It's fascinating and scarey in equal measure. The companies that produce most of the 'food' we eat are just about profit - and they'll go to any lengths to make money.

I'd just rather not read it tbh. Far more interesting and entertaining books I'd chose first.

I've managed to get to my 50s without the need for obsessing over the latest terminology for processed foods. 🤷‍♀️

As for a business being all about money and profit - well, obviously! That's what most businesses set out to achieve isn't it?! 🙄 It's hardly news that a business wants to make a profit, I certainly don't need a book to tell me that.

I was brought up to believe that most things are fine in moderation.
It's got me to my 50s - and I grew up with the delights of sugar sandwiches and all sorts of stuff 😂 from the 70s and the introduction of microwaves and microwave meals in the 80s.
So I'm sure I'm fine having the own Maccy Ds on a road trip tbh.

I'm really not interested in books that try to claim foodstuffs aren't food.

It’s ultra processed food so far from healthy but what fast food is? 🤷‍♀️ I’m sure it’s fine in moderation.

I dislike McD's because it feels like such empty calories to me. If I ate the same amount of calories elsewhere I'd be so full I couldn't move. When I eat McD's, I'm hungry again an hour later.

Thankfully none of us like it much and the only time we go in is for the odd McFlurry.

The inferred meaning when referring to a particular food as 'bad' is not lost on me but it's still rooted in a moral judgement and often used to shame people and their diet. I can actually imagine the food snobs in this thread sneering and calling maccy's (and, by extension, the people who enjoy it) "not of the required standard".