Bello Ade


English 114B


Professor Lynnette


March 6, 2013


                                                        NOT SO HAPPY MEAL

             The definition of a happy meal is simple. “A happy meal is a form of kids' meal specifically marketed at children sold at the fast-food chain McDonald's since June 1979. The Happy Meal contains a main item (typically a hamburger, cheeseburger, or small serving of Chicken Nuggets), a side item (French fries, apple slices, or a salad in some areas), and a drink (milk, juice, or a soft drink).” (Happy meal. wiki.org) Imagine yourself driving your child back home from a soccer game he/she just won. While in the car, your child sets eyes on a McDonald’s coming up and then begins to beg you to buy him a happy meal because he wants the new toy they are offering and then you pull over, get him his happy meal and continue on your journey. Thinking everything is fine, unsuspecting parents are feeding their children artificial meat and produce to their children and they don’t really know the nutritional aspect of this meal they just bought their child. My main focus is to break down the contents of a hamburger that comes with a happy meal and reveal to the unknowing parents what they are really feeding their precious children.


The Hamburger


Through extensive research, I have found out that McDonald’s hamburgers contain simple and basic ingredients like 100% beef patty, a regular bun, ketchup, mustard, pickle slices and onions. Personally, I like my hamburgers to just be basic filled with awesomeness. I like my beef grass fed, disease free and well treated; I like my buns to be made out of regular flower and contain no additives because settling for regular means I can have good tasting, healthy food which is really all I require. Now let us settle in and explore these basic ingredients used to make a hamburger at McDonald’s.


· 100% beef patty


Ingredients: 100% pure USDA inspected beef; no fillers, no extenders. Prepared with grill seasoning (salt, black pepper). (Konie Robin)


Before August 2011, McDonalds used to incorporate ‘pink slime (ammonium hydroxide)’ in the production of their hamburgers. This chemical is the same chemical used in fertilizers, household cleaners and even homemade explosives and it is very dangerous to the human digestive system. Ammonia hydroxide is made when water comes in contact with ammonia, so basically now we have a hazardous gas turned into a liquid which we ingest thanks to this meat. The Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for ammonium hydroxide classifies the substance as very hazardous when in contact with skin. Ammonium hydroxide may produce tissue damage on mucous membranes (Dr. Daniel Zagst.) Don’t forget that the human digestive system is made up of one long mucous membrane from start to finish. With this chemical being very harmful to our digestive system, there is an upside to it. Benefits of this chemical in meat is that Many food pathogens can be found in the intestines of cattle. They are able to survive and grow in the high acid tissues of animals. Ammonium hydroxide can be used as an antimicrobial to control pathogens, such as E. coli O157:H7, which may be present in beef (Food Insight). With such great amount of chemicals being used in processing our beef, we are all encouraged to follow safe meat handling measures and to always cook all our meats to the recommended internal temperatures. So don’t condemn this chemical fully, just know that when you go to the market to buy your beef, make sure you cook it really well knowing that you are killing the left overs of the E coli bacteria. Thankfully, McDonald’s have stopped using this chemical in their beef but the vast majority of their beef comes from cows that are in concentrated agricultural feeding plants. This harsh treatment of the animals is not only bad for them and the environment, but also bad for the consumers too because eating meat from sick animals will also make the consumers sick. So the next time you walk into McDonalds and eat their meat, you might be getting a mouth full of antibiotics, hormones and bacteria’s that are dangerous for the human body.






· Bun


Ingredients: Enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, high fructose corn syrup and/or sugar, yeast, soybean oil and/or canola oil, contains 2% or less of the following: salt, wheat gluten, calcium sulfate, calcium carbonate, ammonium sulfate, ammonium chloride, dough conditioners (may contain one or more of the following: sodium stearoyl lactylate, datem, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, mono- and diglycerides, ethoxylated monoglycerides, monocalcium phosphate, enzymes, guar gum, calcium peroxide), sorbic acid, calcium propionate and/or sodium propionate (preservatives), soy lecithin. (Robin Konie)


Now look at that list and notice that this is the mixture that produces just the bun for a hamburger at McDonalds. The regular way people make bread is by mixing flour, salt and water but McDonalds just had added excess ingredients that the human body does not need.


Taking a closer look at these ingredients, research show that:

• Ammonium chloride is the same ingredient used in fireworks, safety matches and contact explosives.
• Ammonium sulfate is used commonly as an artificial fertilizer for soil and it is also in flame retardant materials. This chemical activates the yeast in bread so it helps get the industrially produced bread to rise.
• The soybean/ canola oil used are most likely products of GMO’s.
• High fructose corn syrup can do big damage to the human health.

· Ketchup


Ingredients: Tomato concentrate from red ripe tomatoes, distilled vinegar, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, water, salt, natural flavors (vegetable source)


This mixture to make ketchup is just irregular. To these producers, mixing regular corn syrup with high fructose corn syrup is a normal thing for them (remember that most corn produced in the US are GMO’s), but to me, it is just adding insult to injury. A long term study on the effects of GMO’s was recently conducted and it revealed that massive tumors grew in rats that were fed GMO corn for two years (and GMO’s have been in our market for more than 20 years now).


When the words ‘natural favors’ comes into my mind, I perceive it to be a giant warning sign that I should keep away, but temptations kick in, I cannot resist the urge to eat such produce.


           So my final though about these ingredients I have listed above is: you can see for yourself that McDonalds has a lot of very questionable ingredients in their food (and so does many other fast food restaurant so I am not completely condemning McDonalds) making me not want to eat there, but occasionally, I walk into McDonalds with a crazy craving for all these terrible things for my body. My advice to the people whose life’s revolves around fast food is that they should go to their local market and pick up some produce so that they could make a meal for themselves because food is what helps the body thrive and eating healthy means a longer life.