So what does a fast food chain do with the “unmarketable parts of the animal?” Those pesky bits of heart, brain and stomach that end up on the, um, cutting room floor? It would be a shame to waste any of that goodness. If you’re McDonald’s you create the popular if puzzling McRib sandwich!
While everyone knows there aren’t any ribs in the McRib, few people who consume the sandwich probably realize that there are lots of other ingredients. Yes, it has pork and onions, salt and water. But it also contains ammonium sulfate (an inorganic salt most commonly used in fertilizer), polysorbate 80 (an emulsifier) along with 68 (sixty-eight!!) other ingredients (the bun itself has 34. Isn’t bread made with just flour, water, yeast and salt?). The most disturbing ingredient is azodicarbonamide. What’s that? It’s a bleaching agent used in the manufacturing of foamed plastics like yoga mats and the soles of shoes. Makes you want to tie on that bib and chow down. If knowing that the overworked mat at the gym and the sandwich you ate at lunch have a creepy connection doesn’t turn you off, or that the Humane Society of the United States filed a lawsuit against McDonald’s pork producer (Smithfield Farms) for cruel and inhumane living conditions of their swine isn’t enough to dissuade you, perhaps you’ll be turned off by the thought of consuming 500 wasted calories and a heart-damaging 26 grams of fat.
