There were several mentions in the McFib thread of the consistency of the ground product being "off," namely, containing undigestible, jaw-jarring bits of bone, teeth, and cartilage, which jived with my experiences in recent years. Regardless of what standards McD's is able to demand from its suppliers, I find that, unlike any other fast food place out there, even the regular old hamburger patties contain little bits of hard bone from time to time, which make biting down with full strength a dangerous experience. This more than anything else is gradually turning me off from the Golden Arches.

Santander wrote:There were several mentions in the McFib thread of the consistency of the ground product being "off," namely, containing undigestible, jaw-jarring bits of bone, teeth, and cartilage, which jived with my experiences in recent years.

I recall those posts on that thread and wondered if it was the pigs teeth being found , or if is was the remnants of the consumers teeth after hitting a bone fragment in the "pork" rendered to make a mcfib.

stevez wrote:

auxen1 wrote:We consume rough and tough 30 pounds of ground beef per person

That seems a bit high for a weekly number. I'm going to assume you're talking about 30 lbs./month.

I think it's probably an annual number. According to numbers on the USDA website, total beef consumption in the US in 2008 was 27.3 billion pounds. Divided by 300 million people gives 91 pounds of beef per person. That figure refers to all beef, not just ground beef. So auxen1's numbers imply that a third of total beef consumption is ground beef.

stevez wrote:Why in the Wide World of Sports anyone in Chicago patronizes places like that with the bounty of other, better choices available to them is beyond me.

Price, and availability?

I was headed home last night at a bit past 11pm. Weiner and Still Champion was closed (an excellent 5-buck cheeseburger-and-fries option). Patty's had been closed for 9 hours already (thats the big reason I dont make it to Patty's very often, they arent ever open for dinner... and I dont always feel like spending 10 bucks for a burger-and-fries either).

I happen to *like* Mcdonald's double-cheeseburger, no pickles, easy ketchup on occasion; (I also happen to like the occasional Mcchicken-sandwich-easy-mayo-cooked-extra-crispy). The double-cheese used to be a buck, its now 20 cents more - but at 11:30pm on a weeknight, even in this area of world, what other option would have been better and quite as good economically as what I chose to go with?

The pizza argument I have a little more sympathy for - in the Chicagoland area there are a few more independent pizza joints that do a good pizza and are open late (even if they are usually more expensive than the chains)... but even there a lot of LTH GNR's dont hold up (either in price or availablity). But burgers? I, like Cathy, proudly go to Mcdonald's every once in a while when I feel like it

c8w

Ed, What exactly do you mean is unfair? I don't understand your point or question.

Marco, Any day of the week I'm going to choose Wieners Circle. But your supposition about safety doesn't necessarily hold water. If Wieners Circle buys their beef from Sysco then perhaps. But there are other stewardship issues once the product is inhouse which may cause additional separation. I think everyone agrees that we're talking about quality of ingredients vs. quality of final product.

I'm going to agree generally with McD's producers that quality of ingredients is improving. I can't speak to the gap that you ask about because we try not to eat there. I do think that the coffee and egg mcmuffin have been consistently good over the last 20 years. Portions got smaller when they killed the super size menu.

auxen, you wrote that McDonalds and Top Notch are both using roughly the same quality beef. Do you really think that's the case? Top Notch is using USDA Choice (which is impossible to get with 5 year old dairy cattle, or anything older than 3.5 years) round. McD's is using.. 5 year old dairy cattle for the lean and young steer for the fat, for flavor, right? I don't really consider those roughly the same quality. If you do, fine.

I'm pretty sure we established the fact that if you grind your own meat, you are not doing what McDonald's does.

Dont have anything to add on meat quality but I just put down two of these bad boys this morning. Let me say this, it tasted good. What happened after... well, i wont get into that, but for about a half hour I didnt have any complaints.

Do not, i repeat DO NOT, eat two of those things and then have a cigarette.

c8w wrote: But burgers? I, like Cathy, proudly go to Mcdonald's every once in a while when I feel like it c8w

~News Flash~


That is the second proud to go to Mcdonalds mention in four days, therefore I am pleased to inform you that this thread has officially jumped the shark.


Carry on.

Ed, Got your point. It wasn't clear to me that you were narrowing the discussion to grades.

Answered strictly on the basis of USDA grade, the argument could be easily made that Beefburgers has superior quality beef.

McD's and others combine multiple grades to produce an equivalent fat/lean product. I can't speak to how this might affect taste other than to note that we use this at home and our product tastes far better than what McD's serves.

Answered strictly on the basis of product stewardship, the argument could be easily made that McD's has superior quality beef.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with how Beefburgers procures its beef. But Darren and Bill don't employ the Phd.s to ride heard over their beef suppliers like McD's does. Though I've been in the room when they've negotiated with their beef supplier and they're pretty tough.

So I think my statement was fair.

auxen1 wrote:McD's and others combine multiple grades to produce an equivalent fat/lean product. I can't speak to how this might affect taste other than to note that we use this at home and our product tastes far better than what McD's serves.

The problem as I see it is they have to grind the **** out of everything to get it to be a consistent mixture. Then they compress it into a little patty and cook the hell out of it. It's more of a sausage type product.

Teat, couldn't agree more.

When making burgers at home I try to barely touch the product before cooking. And the salt always goes on the outside.

My guess is actually that the cattle destined for McDonalds burgers (and the vast majority of fast food prefab burgers out there) are never graded, because, seriously, why bother? And, as mentioned above, the dairy cows won't grade at anything except "commercial" "utility" and "cutter".

I do certainly believe McDonalds' practices good stewardship, but I don't think that means the meat is of better quality. It might be safer, although McDonalds' cooking methods are such that you're not likely to ever get food poisoning, regardless of whether the particular batch of ground beef your burger was made from had high levels of e coli, for example.

McDonalds is spending all of that money studying and managing their food supply line to ensure that the meat meets specifications, that it's safe, and that costs are being controlled. I don't think that taste (what most people on LTH mean when they say "quality", I suspect) is very high on their checklist.

I think the bulk of this thread is, as was said above, a difference over the type of quality we mean. Consistently mediocre isn't how I define quality, but I can understand others seeing it that way.

gleam wrote:Consistently mediocre isn't how I define quality, but I can understand others seeing it that way.

This is positively Ebertian, Ed, and I love it. We can has banner quotes, mods?

The truth is that McD's meat specifications far exceed those that the USDA grading system provides and so bringing that into the discussion doesn't add much clarity.

It's misleading to group McD's procurement with other fast food companies....apples and oranges.

Summarizing this topic thread as others accepting mediocrity is a bit too easy of an out. It's pretty clear to me that even those brave enough to say here that they eat McD's from time to time know good food from bad.

But I'm starting to feel like Speed Racer....seeing the same thing again and again. Which is a sign that we've beaten this cow to death.

auxen1 wrote:But I'm starting to feel like Speed Racer....seeing the same thing again and again. Which is a sign that we've beaten this cow to death.

Was it a dairy cow?

Blown Z wrote:

auxen1 wrote:But I'm starting to feel like Speed Racer....seeing the same thing again and again. Which is a sign that we've beaten this cow to death.

Was it a dairy cow?

Ad aside <snicker>, who the hell thought this would be a good idea? Why would anyone rather eat a McFib-type beef patty on a longer bun than two Whoppers?

Marco wrote:
2. Certainly Burger King has utterly jumped the shark. They used to have 3 different grades of beef available to their stores; if you found one, usually in a nice suburb, that used the top end meat it was pretty good. The meat product presented today is hardly even recognizable to me as BK.

I am a fast-food prophet.

auxen1 wrote:
It's misleading to group McD's procurement with other fast food companies....apples and oranges.

I am curious of your affiliation, if there is any, with McD's.

auxen1 wrote: Which is a sign that we've beaten this cow to death.

The cow has a name, The Distinction without a Difference thread.

Is that BK ad for real? I mean seriously it will "BLOW" your mind away and "fill your desire for something long, juicy, and...." On top of that the large phallus like burger dripping mayonnaise is moving directly for the wide eyed woman's mouth. Yikes.

KSeecs wrote:Is that BK ad for real? I mean seriously it will "BLOW" your mind away and "fill your desire for something long, juicy, and...." On top of that the large phallus like burger dripping mayonnaise is moving directly for the wide eyed woman's mouth. Yikes.

It is for real, but it is not a U.S. ad. My understanding is that it is being run only in Singapore, a place that may have just moved to the top of my vacation-planning wish list.

I am curious of your affiliation, if there is any, with McD's.

Sure Jim.

I have no affiliation with McD's. Years ago I did some short term contract work.

My knowledge based about the company -- admittedly limited -- comes from the fact that I do work in an industry directly affected by McD's and its policies.

We oftentimes have discussions about food production methods whereby we have difficulty separating our emotions from some of the "actors" such as McDs. And so we bring in a lot of hyperbole, urban myth, etc. and extend that to all aspects of their business which I think is natural.

I don't care to eat the food McD's serves. I think the restaurants are a visual blight. Their advertising is rancid. Their portion sizes are indefensible and I think possibly immoral. Many of the execs I met I wouldn't want as neighbors (some I would).

But I've come to respect how they steward part of their supply chain.

auxen1 wrote:

I am curious of your affiliation, if there is any, with McD's.

Sure Jim.

I have no affiliation with McD's. Years ago I did some short term contract work.

My knowledge based about the company -- admittedly limited -- comes from the fact that I do work in an industry directly affected by McD's and its policies.

We oftentimes have discussions about food production methods whereby we have difficulty separating our emotions from some of the "actors" such as McDs. And so we bring in a lot of hyperbole, urban myth, etc. and extend that to all aspects of their business which I think is natural.

I don't care to eat the food McD's serves. I think the restaurants are a visual blight. Their advertising is rancid. Their portion sizes are indefensible and I think possibly immoral. Many of the execs I met I wouldn't want as neighbors (some I would).

But I've come to respect how they steward part of their supply chain.

thanks, I was just curious, you seemed to have alot of info on them.

They're a 1,000 pound gorilla. You just can't work on some things without bumping into them.

auxen1 wrote:Ed, My understanding is that all ground beef in the U.S. incorporates some percentage of dairy cows. When the cows are older (10+ years) and taken out of production they are made into hamburger and luggage. Hamburger is a mix of lean beef and fatty beef and the steer meat has to be "leaned up," that's what the dairy cows are used for.

How many dairy cows actually make it TEN years? Nearly all managed herds dump their cows after five to seven years as the milk production starts to drop off and the operating costs go up.

How many dairy cows actually make it TEN years? Nearly all managed herds dump their cows after five to seven years as the milk production starts to drop off and the operating costs go up.

While I don't know the number, I'm going suggest that it's a true bell curve and that the number that makes it to 9 or 10 years is about the same that are culled in year 1 or 2 of production for whatever reason.

I agree that the decision is entirely economic and a cow is not going to be taken out of production while still producing profitably. And you'll have some outliers who continue to produce after six or seven years.

You do bring up a good point about which I'd like to understand better. With the rapid consolidation of dairy farms in this country and the creation of a small number of huge herds, is it now automatic to cull on age vs. productivity. And how might culling practices differ between the few smaller dairy farms that are left and the ginormous dairy operations.

But that's completely off topic so message me if you have some data on that.

typically cows stay for as long as something doesn't go wrong. if they get sick or don't get pregnant on time, it screws up their milk production and makes them unprofitable to keep. it's just a matter of time until something goes wrong (mastitis, lameness, various metabolic problems are the biggies). rough guess is that a cow has a 30% chance of some problem in a year/lactation. it's just a roll of the dice. most cows have outstanding genetics, but once in a while you get one that doesn't milk well for some reason. in that case she'd be gone too, but usually not until during/after 2nd lactation, as 1st lactation heifers are not even full grown yet and tend not to produce as much.

very small herds don't really exist anymore. the smallest you might find would be 50 cows milked by an older couple a few years from retirement. a step above you'd have the 100-200 cow family operations with multiple family members involved. you might find smaller herds by some weird circumstances...Amish, other income, hobby, etc.

but either way, there's not too much of a difference between cull rates on a big farm (500-10,000 cows) or a small one.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I found this write up on the Angus Burger to be very entertaining.