Silly Putty Fries to go, please. - FOOD MYTH - BUSINESS

Get out the pitchforks and torches, it's time to kill the monster known as McDonald's (again).

Maybe you've seen the headlines "MCDONALD'S FRENCH FRIES FOUND TO CONTAIN SILLY PUTTY INGREDIENT AND PETROLEUM CHEMICAL" or others similar to it.

In this case, Grant Imahara, host of Mythbusters, took a tour of McDonald's french fries processing plant to learn how their fries are really made, and yes, of course, they are made of potatoes. There are other chemicals used as well, but Natural News used this opportunity to spin a few long sounding scientific chemical names into nasty sounding ingredients that the evil McDonald's is using to deceive us. A few minutes of research revealed what these terrible, terrible chemicals are:

1. Corn starch
2. Vegetable oil

Seriously, the McDonald's bashers are trying to convince their readers that because these same two chemicals are used to make Silly Putty that McDonald's is putting unnatural and harmful chemicals into their french fries. That's like saying because I use vinegar to clean my coffee pot and also use vinegar on my salad, that I'm actually eating a cleaning solution on my salad.

McDonald's does admit to using a total of fourteen additional chemicals in the processing of french fries, all of those chemicals though are used by every fry processing plant in the country, which are then sold by other fast food giants like Burger King, Chick-fil-A, Hardee's, Rally's/Checkers, etc. Not only is it standard industry practice, it has been overseen and approved by the Food and Drug Administration for decades.

Food education is important to our health, but scare tactics don't work, and in many cases creates a backlash. The best example is in the past ten years, Hardee's successfully rebuilt their brand by marketing to people who were tired of being told what to eat, i.e., The Thick Burger. Other restaurants both national and local have also successfully built their brand on this backlash, and the trend is showing no sign of slowing.

The old adage is still true: Everything in Moderation. Eating fast food every once in a while won't kill you. So the bashers need to stop with the sensational headlines.

And in the meantime, we can continue to teach by example by cooking ourselves some good food.

Until Next Time.....
Here is a fun video by PopSugar Foods on how to make McDonald's French Fries at home. Seems like a lot of work, so I'll just visit my local Mickie D's.

Starchly Yours,
Michael