I Get It, You're White, You Eat Kale.

I was having a really hard time putting my finger on why it bothers me so much when people bash McDonald’s. I mean, sure, it’s really bad for you, and in general the company makes a profit off of serving poor people in food deserts who are desperate for cheap calories, but what is it that is intrinsically bad about their food?

            So, I went to McDonald’s and bought a Bacon Ranch Salad, which came in at 330 calories, with the dressing. It looked fine. The lettuce was crisp, the bacon bits were real, the cheese was some kind of yellow shredded substance, and the chicken – which I had ordered grilled – looked properly cooked, albeit there were no grill marks on it, so the claim of it being grilled held little water.

            I ate about half of it before I bit into some kind of weird, gristle-fat, substance, which I spat out, and nearly puked because the texture was not of this world. It was spongy and crunchy at the same time; much like a human ear might be if it had been steam pressure cooked, and then sealed in a bag of solution for a week. It was truly one of the most revolting experiences of my life, and you can be sure that I will not be doing it again.

            That being said, I was amazed by how fast friends were to comment on how they would never eat at McDonald’s. The smugness was palpable, and it was clear that so many comments were designed to demonstrate their superiority. I could tell the comments were designed to make the person feel better about their life choices, and something about that rubbed me the wrong way. Sure, it’s fine to endeavor to eat locally and pick organic ingredients, but this wasn’t that. This was something different. This was purely speculative attack upon the ingredients of the salad. Friends said things that suggested the items in my salad were not unlike science experiments gone horribly wrong. As if my salad had been created by Dr. Moreau himself. As if, given half an opportunity, the cherry tomatoes would have sprouted legs and made a break for it, or even worse attacked!

            I have trouble with this because I know a lot about food and the food service industry, and it bugs me because the wholesale dismissal of McDonald’s seems to be less about their food being bad, and more about people making themselves believe the food they eat is better.

            It’s not.

            One of the things I do in my line of work is pay close attention to price volatility of high priced ingredients. For example: last summer – 2013 – the price of beef in the United States went up. Not all cuts of beef, but the ones most people know about: Strip Steak, Prime Rib, Tenderloin, etc… This is because of prolonged drought across the Midwest and throughout large parts of California, which drove up grain prices over the last few years, and all the fast food chains decided, instead of getting caught with their pants down again, to run lots and lots of chicken products. Chicken prices went up a little too, but nothing like beef, so they were hedging against future volatility by pushing consumers towards chicken. Anyone who’s familiar with McDonald’s – and you don’t have to eat there to know about their advertising – will have heard of the McRib. This is another price volatility hedge. Every time beef goes up, they run the McRib, and talk it up as “It’s Back! For a Limited Time Only!” Yea, it’s back for as long as beef prices are up. Last summer was particularly hard, and just rolling out the McRib wasn’t going to cut the mustard, and besides Burger King doesn’t have that option, so all the chains went for chicken.

            What happened?

            Well, the price of chicken went through the room, but not just any chicken. Specifically, what we in the industry call the “Random Breast.” Even more specifically, we call them “Ten Up Randoms,” because what we’re going to get is a forty-pound case of chicken breast, where each breast will weigh no less than ten ounces. In professional kitchens you can order pretty much anything you want. You want a case of perfect 6 oz breast? Sure, not a problem.

            Five ounce, butterflied? Yep.

            Four ounce, portion controlled, individually cryo-vacced? Sure, you can have that.

            Chef and kitchen managers all over the Country order these products every day, but what we mostly order is random ten ups.

            When McDonald’s got in on the game, and all their buddies to boot, chicken prices went up. That, in and of itself, is not that big of a deal, but what is interesting is what we learned from it: that McDonald’s is using the same products every other restaurant in the Country is using.

            I can’t imagine that McDonald’s goes to any trouble to have farmers grow any produce that is different from what the industry calls “conventional,” which just means it is not organic, local, or what have you. It’s the same stuff you buy in a grocery store when you just grab a bag of Dole mixed greens and some carrots, tomatoes, and cukes, without bothering to walk the extra ten feet to the section with the organic items.

            It’s the SAME stuff!

            Yet, in droves, people pile on to talk about how the salad was just as bad as the hamburger, that the product is suspicious, that the company is gross, and all for the sake of making themselves feel better.

            The problem I have with this is that it’s not about what McDonald’s does wrong – and for fuck’s sake, there is plenty to legitimately condemn them for – but rather, it’s about giving oneself a pass on the ingredients already in the refrigerator at home.

            If McDonald’s is really, supper, icky, bad, then it is easy to sleep at night with the knowledge that we have done our part for good eating by staying away from them. Never mind that the salad you have at your favorite locally owned restaurant is the exact same thing, and anyway, it’s the dressings that are the real problem, and the dressing I had today was Newman’s Own. If I whipped out a bottle of that same dressing my naysaying friends would gladly eat it with gusto, and probably commend me for purchasing a product that gives all profits to charity. Newman’s Own is a good company, that is about doing good work, and anyone who supports them is good, right?

So why not McDonald’s? Shouldn’t they be commended for their choice to work with such an ethical company as Newman’s? Of course not, they’re pure evil.

This is about smug dismissal of facts, and ignoring what is really going on with American food. We see a trend towards Whole Foods Markets, and purchasing local, organic, ingredients. I know a lot of people who rejoice because they go to the local farm stand, where they speak with “their farmer,” who they count as a friend. Like they’ve known them from childhood, but I’ve never seen the same famer at their house for cocktails.

So proud these folks are of their positive choices, and oh how they rejoice in putting down those who don’t follow their lead.

            Want to know something else about these friends I mention? They’re all white, college educated, professionals with good incomes, who live in the country, or in super upscale city communities, with fresh markets all around. They condemn the fast food salad because it makes them feel good about themselves, but in a way, they’re also saying, “Look how successful I am.” It’s a fucking status symbol, and if that’s true, then they’re also saying, “Suck it poor people!”

            Think about it: if the ingredients that McDonald’s uses are the same as those found in the vast majority of restaurants and grocery stores, and as such, the ingredients consumed by most of America, to dismiss them as in some way beneath, or foul in nature, is to say that the vast majority of Americans are gross in the choices they make in what they eat. Often times, the person making such outlandish claims about food products doesn’t know sweet fuck all about food, and indeed, they’re insulting themselves.

            I guess what I’m saying is, I get it, you’re white, you eat kale.