McDonald’s secret hamburger ingredient

You wouldn’t think that English chef Jamie Oliver and I have much in common. (Other than our devastatingly good looks, of course.) But, it appears that in recent years we do.

Jamie Oliver has become a strong advocate for children’s health. And as some of you may know, my first book was called Feed Your Kids Well.

Unfortunately, Jamie’s first attempt at tackling childhood obesity in the United States made him fly back across the pond so quickly even my hair stood on end. Because America, or at least the town in rural West Virginia he tried to change just wouldn’t give up their bad habits.

So he may not have made much headway in that respect. But, I must give him credit for persuading one of the biggest and most dangerous fast food chains in the world to change their burger recipe.

That’s right. The golden arches. Mickey D’s. He took them down!

McDonald’s agreed to alter the ingredients of their hamburger after Jamie exposed their current recipe. Which contained an ingredient that can really only be called “pink slime.”

Technically speaking, the slime is something called ammonium hydroxide. Which is ammonia mixed with water.

Ammonia? Really?!

It turns out McDonald’s was using this stuff to convert fatty beef “offcuts” into beef filler for its burgers in the USA.

Whatever happened to a burger being just plain ground beef?

Interesting how health authorities in the UK and Ireland refused to allow this goo in their food. But not here in the U.S.

Nope. They didn’t make a peep until after McDonald’s announced it would stop using the pink slime. Then a representative from the USDA came out of the woodwork to say, “I do not consider the stuff to be ground beef and I consider allowing it in ground beef to be a form of fraudulent labeling.”

So, I have two questions:

1. Why didn’t the USDA say anything before?
2. What is McDonald’s using now as a filler?

Please think about that last one the next time you get the urge to hit the drive thru. You and your family deserve better!