What’s Really in a Big Mac? : McDonald’s Lists Food Ingredients
For the first time, McDonald’s Corp. will distribute booklets telling fast-food fans what’s in its restaurant fare, officials said Monday.
The world’s largest fast-food restaurant chain has spent more than $1 million researching and developing the illustrated 37-page booklet, said Ed Rensi, president of McDonald’s USA, based in Oak Brook, Ill.
The company will provide 100 booklets, covering everything from its 100% beef burgers to Big Mac sauce with 126 calories, to each of the more than 7,500 McDonald’s restaurants nationwide for distribution starting Aug. 15.
“It’s our attempt at making nutrition understandable,” Rensi said in a telephone interview. “It’s a good marketing program. It’s a good way to sell our story. . . . We’re proud of our food. We’re proud to publish this information.”
Customers Must Request Booklet
Customers will have to request the booklet. And after the initial 100 booklets are given out, the company’s franchises would have to buy additional copies from the corporation, spokeswoman Terri Capatosto said. She said a price hasn’t been set.
The first 10 pages of the booklet describe ingredients, explaining, for example, that a cheeseburger includes catsup, mustard, pickles, onions, salt and pepper.
The rest of the booklet contains specific “label declarations” describing the ingredients in a beef patty and listing the companies from which McDonald’s buys its meat.
These listings include the number of calories in each ingredient, such as five calories in a pickle slice and 126 calories in a serving of Big Mac sauce. But to find out how many calories are in one Big Mac (570), the customer would have to add the calories listed for each ingredient used.
Some nutrition advocates criticized the booklet on Monday.
“The concept of it is terrific,” said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington.
But, he said, “they really hide the ingredients behind a fog of euphemisms, exaggerations and self-serving propaganda.”
He cited, for example, a hamburger bun description: “Enriched wheat flour is the main ingredient in our buns--no surprise--but did you know that McDonald’s requires its bakers to purchase the flour enriched with essential vitamins and minerals?”
While the booklet tells consumers that McDonald’s uses boneless chicken breasts and thighs in its McNuggets, it doesn’t say how much salt or cholesterol is in each serving, although consumers can request that information from the company’s headquarters. Even so, the omission disappointed one nutritional expert.
“It’s unfortunate that the more critical information on sodium, cholesterol and unsaturated fats is more difficult to come by,” said Dr. C. Wayne Callaway, director of the Center for Clinical Nutrition at George Washington University Medical Center in Washington.
“In the absence of that information, it sounds as if what they’re making available might be more promotional than informational,” he said.
Rensi disagreed, saying most consumers don’t need such detailed information.
“This booklet is for the general public,” Rensi said. “The normal person on the street, like you and me, they don’t need all that other stuff. In fact, it complicates the issue.”
The booklet says McDonald’s uses 100% beef in its burgers with “no additives, no fillers, no extenders.” It uses American cheese bought from such major suppliers as Glenview, Ill.-based Kraft Inc. and chicken from such brand-name companies as Tyson Foods of Springdale, Ark.
It also says that a regular serving of french fries has 220 calories, that Filet-O-Fish sandwiches are made from North Atlantic cod fish and that its bacon has smoke flavoring added.
In a test distribution of the booklet in New York state, Rensi said, customers liked it.
“They like the idea that we use Tyson chicken,” he said. “They like the idea that we use Hunt’s catsup. They like the idea that we use only fresh eggs--not powdered eggs. It just reassures our customers, and we’re delighted about that.”
