McNuggets

If you want to live past the average lifespan avoid fast food, smoking and illegal drugs. Incorporate normal weight and exercise. Try and reduce stress and take a vacation every year

 

Lifespan is the least of it; quality of life for those last 1 - 20 years is the real prize.

Recently the 77 year old retired pro golfer Gary Player agreed to a nude photo shoot. The magazine campaign seemed a bit foolish to me, but the fellow is a life-long fitness addict and he had a lot of very smart things to say. Among the pearls: "Very few Americans are living past age 70. That is different than simply being alive."

And another: "By age 50 Most American men cannot see their private parts, and never will again."*

* I'm recalling the quotes from memory, but they capture the intent if not the exact wording.

 

Okay sure.
But is the "Investigation" really needed?
I kind of came to the conclusion it wasn't the healthiest thing I could choose to eat when it was presented to me as a "McNugget".

You don't have to put it under a microscope to know it's a processed chicken nugget. Which means it goes through a LOT of processing.

Then near end step is it get's thrown into a highly used deep fryer and fried in oils and grease and stood over buy a under paid sweating employee. Yeah, I'd expect some rogue fibers, lumps and colors do make their way into the McNugget landscape.

I'm a little tired of McDonalds and other fast foods being presented to me as being the root of all evil. They're in business, and making profit, so somebody is eating it.

Should we be eating it? That's a different argument. But I think it's a little silly to go to the trouble of throwing a Chicken McNugget under a microscope to show slow shots of it's landscape and texture, while spooky music is played in the background, like a scene out of an Aliens movie.

Yeah, fried highly processed foods aren't good for you.- A lot of people still eat them.

The longer I live, the more I realize I don't want to live forever.

Make informed, reasoned decisions about your personal diet.

But nobody should even hint or claim that they were "blindsided" by The McDonalds McNugget, thinking it was incredibly healthy only to discover it's malignant and dubious healthy reality.

Say what you will about the highly processed McNugget, but when the E-Coli and Salmonella outbreaks get traced back, it's usually to the pre-packaged Salad Greens.

 

I'm not so sure that most E Coli and Salmonella outbreaks are from greens rather than meats* or other foods, but it sure is prudent to rinse if not wash veggies before eating. In my home my habit is to put a drop of dish detergent into a bowl of water and then swish the veggies in it followed by a rinse.

A little prevention can go a long way. Oh, and it would be a good idea for Americans to learn to wash their hands before preparing food or eating, and (I know this sounds outrageous) after using the bathroom.

We eat a lot of 'leftovers' at home, which means we make a big pot of something vegetarian that is consumed over the following 3 - 10 days. For variety the fridge at any one time might hold 3 or 4 different food stocks, so it is important to us that the food stay fresh in the fridge. I find that a mixture of cooking at high pressure, storing in containers that have been freshly washed before use, and only using freshly washed utensils to take portions out of the stock do wonders. It is unusual for me to find food that has to be discarded; and when I do, I can often think of a breakdown in our 'keep fresh' handling.

* HUS related E Coli infections
*CDC summary of foodborne outbreaks past ~ 5 years by source

 

A few years back there was a lot of outbreaks traced back to those pre-packaged salads. Dole as recently as this year recalled a salad mix because of an outbreak of intestinal illness connected to them.

This was not to suggest there aren't other sources for E-Coli or Salmonella, but just as comparison to the "dangers" of the McNugget.

Strange alien landscape and odd fibers aside, as far as I know there have been no reported illnesses or outbreaks connected to the selling or consumption of the "evil" McNugget.

Seems the highly processed and fried McNugget is the "slow knife" that will kill you in decades...but you're not likely to eat them and be in the hospital the next day.

 

Your earlier post said

Read the CDC link for a more accurate representation.

 

Well this thread started with a video about the dubious dangers of the McNugget, my one sentence remark at the end of my original response was not meant to be the point, only a comparison in relationship to "fear" about what we are eating.

But I would say my representation is accurate. THERE HAVE BEEN outbreaks traced back to packaged salad mixes.

Here is ONLY ONE of many.

Dole recalls bagged salad in 15 states for salmonella – USATODAY.com

 

It is not.

'There have been' is not even closely equivalent to 'it's usually''


'There have been' means more than one case
'It's usually' means the majority of cases

Did you read the CDC link ?

 

Ya Just keepin washin those veggies Sage Brush....

I don't think anyone was mislead by my remark.

My point was neither to attack nor defend Veggies and Greens. My point is that when making decisions about what we believe is healthy or "safe" to put in our bodies, fast food is a convenient and easy enemy to create and fear. Nobody usually eye's the salad bar with mistrust.

And BOTTOM LINE like I said.....I can point to a lot more cases of packaged and processed Salad Greens being problematic than cases of The McNugget causing a problem. But I don't see any super magnification slow motion, scary music videos of Kale and Ice Berg Lettuce.

I think that is pretty easily understood.

 

Snide remarks will not help improve your reasoning. If you bother to read the CDC, you might learn that washing produce prior to consumption is broadly recommended.

How could you possibly know ?

 

Yes, I'm whole heartedly behind washing produce before consumption.

What that has to do with Chicken McNuggets I have no idea.

 

I guess the last time I ate a chicken McNugget was 1985, so I'm OK with this.............. Never been a big fan of McDonalds food anyways Wendy's is a better call if you have to go fast food

 

Alien fibers in your "chicken" nuggets? No problem - Have some pink slime instead!

 

That looks like the stuff they make those Pink Sugary Fluffy Chewy Candy Peanuts out of ....I love those...

...I'm going to be dead by 58 aren't I?

 

I find the whole concept of McD's disgusting: mass-produced fast food, sourced by the super-freighter load, sold in stores that are identical over the entire planet, cooked and served by people paid minimum wage with no benefits. I've never eaten in McD's or any of its cousins, though when traveling I sometimes eat at Subway or Quiznos.

But I suspect that if you put ANY processed food under a powerful microscope, you'd see images much like those in the opening post. I recall reading, many years ago, that meat packers are allowed by law to have a certain maximum amount of foreign material in their meat. So they test it, and if they are below the allowed limit, they sweep up the floor and dump in the sweepings, to increase the total weight of product at zero cost. Rat hair and droppings, creepy crawlies of every description, dust and dirt and the laborers' dandruff, etc.

But the cooking process kills the microbes. I'd be more concerned with the chemicals listed on the label than with all those fibers under the microscope. If I ate that stuff.

Once in a while (as a treat) I eat pizza. I bet it would look similar if you magnified it enough. Heck, I bet if you put any restaurant food under the microscope you'd see the same kind of stuff. Though the idea of grinding up a chicken until it's mush, and then adding chemicals to make it stick together, pressing it into uniform shapes and frying it in the same vat of fat that was used for the last fifty or a hundred batches, is pretty creepy.