It seems that there's an entire branch of the US federal government whose responsibility it is to determine what is 'unfit for human consumption' and they have reached the opposite conclusion as you.

So on whose authority are you making this claim?

That's nice. Too bad it's utterly irrelevant as is most of what you say about anything. Whether it's a priority and whether they do it are separate issues entirely. At least you're inadvertently admitting that your argument is nonsense.

Classic Mightybooshian rhetoric. You make some argument about one thing, and then when you find you don't have anything to support it, you say "Oh, well, my actual concern is something completely unrelated."

For some reason, you believe that your determination of a company on the basis of one analysis should somehow carry over to an unrelated argument that also involves that same company. You've determined that multinational corporations are evil because of how they market to children, therefore everything they do must be evil.

I'm curious -- Suppose I burn some applewood at a low temperature to create smoke, then capture that smoke in a liquid, and then used that liquid smoke as an additive to burger meat. Would you object to that burger?

What if I cook a burger over applewood? Is that different?

back at ya, honey!

things must be bad when uke and aaron are on the same team!

It is almost like I agree or disagree with him in accordance to whether I think his views are or are not correct!

I would never try on silly arguments for size or play the devil's advocate just because it is so.much.fun.

Fair enough. Though you should probably look more into dietary supplements, there certainly doubts to the effects of things like multivitamin supplements and so forth. They are provenly better than no alternative (for patients who can't eat normally etc), but through research built up over the last 10-15 years there is actually solid reason to believe they can not replace a well-tuned diet.

I kind of suspect you are thinking of the (relatively prominent) studies that show little benefits of multivitamins in people with healthy diets, I'm not aware of any long term studies that compare taking a multivitamin on a very micronutrient poor diet with a normal micronutrient rich diet, and suspect it would be quite hard to actually measure. We can google scholar it if it is important. The relevance that this point has is that generally people are not on micronutrient poor diets that we can improve their mortality and morbidity by improving their micronutrient intakes with multivitamins. There are exception of course (iron for women, vitamin A can be problematic in children, etc) but by and large even despite the generally horribly nonbalanced diets people have, micronutrients are relatively okay because we have access to tremendous variability these days and even people on **** diets know they should eat some fruits and veggies.

So for Mcdonalds and its ilk, it is very possible to eat it pretty regularly and maintain a micronutrient rich diet. Just as it is with anything. My wife loves to bake, so we eat more flour/oil/sugar mixtures that most people. But it's fine because we also eat a balanced diet that is calorie matched, and balanced in macros (i like my brotein for working out), and is rich in micronutrients to boot without supplementation. My claim isn't that one shouldn't have a varied diet (for the range of micronutrients) that is constricted in its calorie and macro distribution - everyone should - it is that there is nothing special about mcdonalds that prevents this just as there isn't anything special about our calorie high but micronutrient poor cookies and brownies and the like that she bakes.

With all this added smokey flavor stuff you guys are making me hungry for a whopper.

Let me know when you're prepared to enter into a dialogue about the unethical aspects of the fast food industry. Also, it's interesting how often the word 'foodie' is coming up. It's being used almost as if it means 'group of fast food haters who have a snobbish food affections'. Is that what it means?

You've been pwning the argument that you created. I asked you to give me the specific claim that you think you're countering, are you going to do that? Most of your argument is irrelevant, that's why I've not responded to much of it. It's a strawman based on your assumptions about my position, hence my efforts to clarify exactly what you think that my position is. Whatever it is that's causing you to 'lose respect', it's not something I'm doing on purpose, from my perspective, it's you that's being unreasonable and also very patronising and aggressive, LZ has commented on it too, and the one person who agrees with your position on this thread is the person you most like to ride here.

Your argument seems to be 'no matter the nutritional makeup of individual McDs menu items, nothing they contain isn't something that we actually need in our diet' and if I'm right, then that's a puerile argument.

I think that I can defend a general claim of 'unhealthy' wrt to the McDs menu, where my argument is that McDs food has a nutritional makeup (specifically, Fats, Cholesterol, Sodium and Carbs) in proportions that make many of their meals unhealthy choices as part of a well balanced diet, taken individually, they are 'crap' food (for 'crap' read 'junk' if that helps) because of their high calorific, low nutritional value, high fat and salt content. I'm assuming that you won't argue that we should have a well balanced diet?

If you think that argument has legs then say so and I'll back it up with some stats. Here's a random selection taken from the McDs Nutrition Calculator to start:

WHO recommendations on daily sugar intake is that it constitute not more than 10% of your daily calorific intake. So for men and women, on average that's about 200 calories and 250 calories respectively. That's about 50 - 60g of sugar.

Sugar.

Triple Thick Chocolate Shake - 63g, McDonald's dessert: M&M® McFlurry 81g (can you explain why something that contains 33% more sugar than the daily recommended intake isn't 'unhealthy'?)

Salt. (WHO GDA <5g per day)

A Quarter pounder with cheese contains almost 50% of the daily recommended Salt intake. A hamburger almost 70%. A double cheeseburger around 110% A Fruitzz drink contains 144% GDA salt and 70% sugars.

That you're most likely being flippant aside, that's the idea isn't it really. BK marketing dept win, kind of, since the chemicals they add to the Whopper I think is supposed to be a simulated 'char-grilled' taste, not BBQ. The point I'm making there of course is that the flavour isn't a result of the cooking but that of chemicals created in a laboratory being added to the meat after processing. Nothing wrong with that, maybe? If it's not actually harmful to health, why does it matter?

These are the ingredients of the whopper, from the BK site. I'm curious, after reading this, would you consider the Whopper to be a healthy food? Is it 'junk food', and if so, why?

Calories 650 (790 with processed cheese, the ingredients of which I won't list)
Protein 22g (In a 133g burger and bun there's only 22g protein, where is the rest of the weight?)
Carbohydrates 50g (How is almost half the meal carbs? I'm not certain they're including sugars)
Sugar 12g (Sugar in a burger?? 1/4 of the GDA in a burger/bun)
Fat 37g
Saturated Fat 11g
Trans Fat 1.5g
Cholesterol 60mg (almost a third of the daily recommended intake, whoppers are considered 'dangerous' to those with high cholesterol levels)
Sodium 910mg (Daily recommended intake = 2.3g according to the Institute of Medicine - Macro-nutrients recommended intake) when accompanied by fries, this accounts for most of your daily intake in one meal. It's tricky now to avoid going over the GDA if you only eat processed foods.

You talk about additives, and then say you're going to list "ingredients," and end up with a nutrition chart. How do these pieces fit together into a meaningful argument about something?

It's food that can be included in a healthy diet. If I'm eating a whopper for my main meal of the day, doesn't it make sense that it might use up about a third of the various nutritional standards?

Incidentally, meals at sit-down restaurants can often be even less healthy than meals at fast food restaurants when focusing on calorie count and fat intake.

You also have less chance of finding out how healthy it is.

There's an answer to that question if you trust the USDA:

https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/beef/show

In 80-20 ground beef, a 4 ounce (133g) portion contains 19.4g of protein. So you're actually getting bonus protein.

Where is most of the weight? Water. 70 grams of it. You might have been able to figure that out if you actually did a little research and really learned about nutrition. But as things stand, it seems the odds are good that you never actually did your research.

Idk. I like the taste ever now and then.

I have no idea why you keep trying to force this back into the conversation. I didn't contend with this separate point. I contended with the point about McDonalds being unhealthy and not normal. I could (I probably don't) agree with your on how unethical it is and that wouldn't change my view on it being unhealthy. And it is not the case that I go around the forum disagreeing with absolutely everything everyone says at any moment and feeling the need to respond to each in turn. I have chosen this one, specific thing to disagree with. STop trying to twist it into a discussion about something else. My goodness.


Once each by myself and Aaron isn't really "often", but okay. But yes, snobbish about food is almost certainly part of the connotation. Not all foodies are the same, but there is certainly one category that is obsessed with everything being "natural" and "organic" and various other buzzwords that is, to put it bluntly, far more often wrong than right and certainly will commonly rally against things like mcdonalds with holier than thou criticism based on truly horrible nutritional claims. You may well fit in with that community.


You brought up the terrible claims, I just rejected them.

This is exactly why I am losing tonnes of respect. I have given on a couple occasions very specific answers to what my claims are and what I am challenging. You didn't quote or respond to those in any way. Then you challenged me to be specific about it. I pointed out how I already had, and re gave my points all over again. You didn't quote or respond to that in any way. And through all of this, despite my repeated queries for specific and detailed positions on your part, you have consistently been unable to do so (although you brought some new stuff in for the first time in this post, thankfully!). You say I am strawmanning you, but then I have repeatedly given a particular characterization and asked if that is indeed your view. You didn't quote or respond to that in any way. Do you see the pattern here? When I'm specific, you don't respond. When I ask you to be specific, you don't respond. And then you turn around and have the audacity to challenge ME for being unspecific? It is a basic lack of an ability to engage with a conversation. If you feel like changing that, there are entire detailed long multipart posts, and big sections of such posts, left entirely unanswered by you that address exactly what you asked for.


I think that I can defend a general claim of 'unhealthy' wrt to the McDs menu, where my argument is that McDs food has a nutritional makeup (specifically, Fats, Cholesterol, Sodium and Carbs) in proportions that make many of their meals unhealthy choices as part of a well balanced diet, taken individually,

Of course this doesn't help. The problem has always been to say what specific nutritional facts are being conveyed by using the word "crap'. Putting in a synonym leaves that point unchallenged. You said it becomes "not normal", well what does that mean, etc.


Here we go. Finally, a specific criticism! And one that is a complete contradiction in terms. Calories come from macronutrients. Something that is high in calories is BY DEFINITION something that has high nutritional value. That is the alleged problem, it is so rich in the energy out body needs that people eat too much of it and store all the extra nutrition as fat. I don't really blame you, this is one of the most common distortions out there, but if you stop to think about it for 3 seconds it is obvious it is complete nonsense.

Of course, as I have explained to you, there is nothing wrong with high calorie foods, provided, of course, that your total caloric intake (over, say, a week) is roughly maintenance levels. And most high end restaurants and a lot of food that you probably by is high in calories too, so if you want to fight against high calorie foods then sure, but nothing special about mcdonalds here. You just have to eat it in appropriate quantities averaged over some time period. This is why there are examples of people who lose weight while only eating mcdonalds.

The same basic argument applies to high fat as to high calorie since fat is just a form of calorie. But sometimes people think that dietary fat is particularly evil because they confuse it with body fat. Fat metabolizes into energy much like carbs and protein and there are tertiary differences (See post 87), but in the end you get fat on your body if you have had an excess of calories and if your macros are switched to a high proportion of fat this doesn't really change that. People are just "it's fatty, how evil" but there is no basis for that on either the first approximation (caloric intake) or the second (macro balancing, where one eats a high protein and carb dinner if one has a high fat lunch to balance). But almost nobody needs to even worry about macro balancing if you aren't doing body building and are broadly okay. .

Sure. This feels a little distasteful because I have repeatedly brought up in this thread that salt is by an order of magnitude the worst thing and the most difficult (but hardly impossible) to balance away because salt is so frequently added widely across our diet. I actually had to go through a nosalt diet for a while becauuse of my cancer, which was very hard to do when travelling. You brought up salt once, directly using my phrasing, and now after all this time it pops up again. So firstly just take a moment to acknowledge how difficult you have been that this comes into your arguments so late in the game. There are some things to push back with, but I think I will say that this is your best argument and outside of the fact that high salt doesn't apply in the least to just mcdonalds (most sit down restaurants and tonnes of stuff in grocery stores are very high salt too) high salt is a real problem in our diets.

Earlier you spoke about sugar and said at least three very ridiculous things about it. Then you ignored the post where I broke it down. So I am happy to speak more about this, but I think basic conversational etiquette would suggest you reply to the errors I identified about this first.


I have said this a huge number of times. That you would even ask this this late in the game just demonstrates how poorly you have been paying attention to the argument. Shame on you.

I didn't quote the specific examples, but clearly am referencing them in the above.

Back in the day i worked at a quite few restaurants including McDonalds and a high end place. Funny thing is i feel more comfortable eating at fast food restaurants. They keep their kitchens immaculate compared to reg restaurants in my experience. If you all would see some of the stuff that goes on in these "nice" places from food storage to general cleanliness....Probably just variance. But yeah.

Looks about right. First approximation: total calories. Looks good, maybe a quarter of the average caloric intake. About right for a meal. Second approximation: macros. Got a nice blend of carbs, fat, and protein. Maybe a body builder worries a bit about the protein being a bit low but certainly sufficient for the average person, particularly when you consider the average american eats quite a bit (about 250% iirc) of needed protein intake. Eitherway, if one cares one can easily eat a higher protein meal some other time in the day to compensate. Third approximation: glycemic index/etc. Looks good here. Sugars give quick energy boost but that fat and protein will take longer to break down.

So yes, this definitely seems like something one can include in a balanced diet.


Switch it to something you think (but still can't) beat. Only processed foods. If someone has an unhealthy diet (and you would be much better to say the more general "high salt" diet) then yes mcdonalds could certainly be part of such a diet. But someone can also have a healthy diet and mcdonalds can be part of such a diet. So if you assumption is that someone has an unhealthy diet (which is really what you are trying to say when you say "processed foods" which is a huge misnomer) then it isn't striking that someone would have GASP an unhealthy diet. But you haven't said anything.

UM,

just a couple comments, not that I want to get in the middle of your crossfire with MB....

This seems oversimplified. Slushies and Coke are high in calories and I don't think there is much nutritional value there. "High nutritional value" is relative, a stalk of broccoli is better in the calorie to nutrient ratio.

To quote TD, two wrongs don't make a right. I guess this point makes sense as a polemic argument against MB's anti MCds view but as you say high salt content is a problem, and MCds is not part of the solution.

PS. We are still in RGT right

Fast food kitchens are exposed to the clients. Sit-down restaurants hide their kitchens. Out of sight, out of mind.

Also, big corporations have policies that they enforce strongly and have entire legals teams to develop them. Individual restaurateurs just do what they think is right. Sometimes they talk to the food health people before inspections, sometimes they don't. And if they don't, who knows what they think is the right way to handle food.

It's very simple - I mean, it's the definition it can't get simpler - but it is entirely accurate. Calories come from macronutrients. By definition something high in calories is high in these nutrients. The calorie to nutrient ratio is 1! Consider, would you give a coke to a starving person? OF COURSE! It provides a huge amount of energy, a huge amount of macronutrients.

This is an important point for you because the book you quoted made the same mistake and built a whole book predicated on this error and this calorie to nutrient ratio is directly from there. What is meant is a redefinition where "nutrient" only means "micronutrient" and not "macronutrient". So then the question is whether or if you eat a balanced diet that inclundes mcdonalds and the like, can you get a decent micronutrient profile? And the answer is certainly yes. In fact, despite how bad american diets are generally, they don't even benefit from increasing their micronutrient profiles by eating multivitamins as studies have shown. And certainly it has nothing to do with losing weight as your book falsely claims (the mechanism doesn't even make sense). Finally, note that mightyboosh has never talked about micronutrients and his criticism are all that mcdonalds are too high in quantity in fat and calories and the like not too low in quanitity in micronutrients, so to the extent that this is reply to him it just doesn't apply.



For salt, yes I agree they are part of a problem that is very wide across the majority of the food industry. There is no specificity to it against mcdonalds in specific. For the other issues, there isn't even a problem. I mean, people have trouble eating within caloric needs, to be sure, but it isn't hard to do this and it isn't hard to do this inclunding mcdonalds either. With salt it is a little harder to avoid.

The main problem I have with food like this is that at 650 calories, I still need like 1500 calories to go for the day, but I'm at half my sodium intake for the day.

Not a huge problem, but I like to keep my sodium to a minimum, and it's a pain to keep in check when you start including too much fast food. Same goes with the fat content, but it's easier to deal with.

Definitely manageable though. Besides, while .9 in the whopper is halfish of the recommended intake, the IOM upper limit for salt is 5.8. Should be easy enough to stay within that.

Fat shouldn't really an issue at all. Saturated fats can be a problem, but if you cook at home with good oils it is quite fine to have a high fat ratio in your caloric intake. Heck, there are whole diets out there predicated on cutting out carbs completely and just eating fat and protein. They don't really help (total calories is the most important) but high fat isn't some huge problem.

There is some debate as to what the sodium intake should be. I have some health problems, or I wouldn't care, so I try to keep it on the low end.

It's not that it's not manageable, but it becomes difficult. If you have a whopper once in a while, you're fine, but if I had to include it as part of my daily meal, I'd be in trouble.

I think what your lifestyle is and what your goals are is the difference in this conversation that has not been focused on too much.

I don't know why you have no idea (although I'm not trying to 'force it back'), I've explained several times that for me it's far more the important aspect of the argument about fast food than is the quality of the food and, I asked because you responded to a comment I made about profits and that took the discussion close to the ethics of how the fast food industry makes it's profits. Just forget this.

The rest of that very long post seems to just be explaining my conversational deficiencies and that's why I'm not responding blow for blow. Let's deal with some actual examples since you keep reminding me that you asked for them.

Oh, except for your comment about "Here we go. Finally, a specific criticism! And one that is a complete contradiction in terms", I'm not sure what definition of 'nutritional' you're using, LZ, isn't either so there's clearly an issue here, but it seems to be that no food can be considered poor nutrition, can you clarify the definition you're using? Would you consider a can of Coke, with a 33% sugar content, to be 'nutritional' in the sense of it being part of a healthy diet, rather than in the most pedantic sense of it containing at least one 'nutrient'?

Now, I posted this below and you didn't respond to it.

I chose a couple of things at random (and not even the extreme examples like triple burgers and milkshakes) from the McDs site and they all contain an element, or multiple elements that in one item off the menu take you close to, or over, daily recommended intake levels. This is backing up my claim that it's the quantities and combinations that are the problem. (By the way, you still haven't confirmed or corrected my interpretation of your argument)

Why don't we focus on the ones that go over recommended levels, like the two deserts, or the Fruitzz? I'll go get a few more while you're thinking about that.

ya and for clarity because you quite rightly probably didn't read the majority of my posts, I have readily acknowledge from the beginning that of all the issues salt is by far the biggest. What I objected to was a long period where mightyboosh was asserting that mcdonalds was unhealthy "not normal" food that had transformed into "something different". What followed has been a long list of basic nutritional mistakes, so this is why the thread kept going. But if one just wants to speak about salt then I certainly agree that in North American diets broadly - not just fast food but high end restaurants, large amounts of products in grocery stories, many recipes even - then high amount of salt is a legitimate issue.

My wife and I are huge fans of indian and have many show meals that we make for people when they come over, and we have some excellent cookbooks. But here is the dirty little secret: the best loved recipes are ones that call for truly enormous amounts of salt and oil. Why? Because it tastes ****ing fantastic. We will literally quarter the amount of salt and it still tastes nice and salty. This isn't fast food, this is everything from scratch home cooked gourmet cooking. So sure I readily acknowledge there is a salt problem in diets broadly, and on that specific front mcdonalds is a contributor as is much else. But even here, even on the most effective way to criticize them, it is entirely possible to have a balanced diet that includes them and is fine on salt.