Leave McDonalds Alone!

I LOVE Jamie Olivers show. It's the reason I don't eat chicken nuggets or ground beef (unless from a butcher) anymore. I had already changed my diet but watch his show has really made me change a lot more. Just knowing (and watching) how certain foods are made is a complete turn off. However, if - keep watching his show I'm gonna run out of thinks I like to eat :-D

 

One of the few things I really do like from McD's is the McRib. I'll go out of my way to get one. Even at BK, I prefer chicken sandwich to the 'burgers'.

Might also want to check out Kill it, cook it, eat it. Interesting, but not dinner viewing.

 

I surprised you can tell what he's saying? I'm English and I struggle:-D

 

I don't always understand him but a lot of the time he is showing what he is talking about so I can sorta follow that way. LOL

 

@David... I'm possibly the exception to the rule in reguards to laziness, I will admit I often go for easy meals in the name of laziness but in McD's case I have on many occassions stated that a Big Mac meal is my favourite meal, I have turned down a night in expensive place to eat and gone for McD's.
I know I'm odd but I just really enjoy a big mac meal. But I do understand 100% where you are comming from.

@Dyamond... Again I am an exception to the rule here too, I've never been bothered by the process of food production. There are many things that seem nasty when we find out how it's made but by the same token we eat nice healthy veggies that have had animal poo sprayed on it at some point.
Many things are not nice in the way it's produced but as you say if we discover all these horrid thing we would just end up eating rice with water.... but then look at how water is refined :-D
As for Jamie Olivr, I always quite liked him, I remember years ago they did that nugget thing and when he went to the school none of the cooks knew how to bloody cook anything anyway, which I found quite amusing.

Once again with reguards to school meals, it boils down to money, it's cheaper to employ someone with basic cooking skills to throw some mass produced frozed junk on a tray and set the timer than to buy fresh produce and employ cooks who know how to cook or train th ones already there.

Right or wrong thats how it is.

This is something else I've often said, in many cases it's cheaper to buy fast food than make good food. I can feed my family a good amount of food from McD's for $28, expensive huh?.... not really, if I want to make a nice fresh stir fry (one of my specialties) it costs me in excess of $35 by the time I've bought meat and fresh veg and if I add having to buy rice then it jumps to over $40.
Now this amount of food will cook 3 meals, but the veg only lasts a few days and we don't want the same type of meal 3 days in a row lol
Yes you can eat cheaper, but my point is the amount of tastey food that I really like... McD's is very comparable.
My doc told me I have high colesterol (surprised? :-D ) and I need to eat stuff to help, I like eggs.... the Omega eggs are over 100% more expensive than regular eggs, heart helping butter/margerine is 50% more expensive than regular (actually it's the same price as butter but I don't eat much butter anyway)
As someone who doesn't have much money at the moment I either eat cheap (meaning foods I don't really enjoy much) or I eat bad.

Although I have a fairly even split, my biggest issue is my timing which revolves around my work, I will go a 12 hour shift on a snikers bar (bad) and then come home at 11pm and eat a junk load of food be it good or bad... as we all know thats not the way to do it, but I can't have a healthy cooked meal while at work and to buy a nice healthy lunch (usually around 4-6pm) costs me a fortune, example: Healthy tastey turkey wrap from a nice little place nearby is $9, a slice and fries with drink = $6. Although sometimes I'll take some veg to munch through the day and I do eat a colosal amount of fruit at home.

Lets face it, I'm just not very good at this eating/diet/health/money mangement thing

 

What's wrong with changing the method and using the same veg in a different way? Use frozen veg instead of fresh if you're pressed for time though of course bean sprouts will never freeze well.
Maybe you can cook up a mess of freezable stuff and just add the fresh veggies as you need them, the options are endless.

$4 for rice?:eek I hope that's for Basmati or Jasmine. Get a 10 kilo bag if you eat a lot of rice, it doesn't go bad.:confused

 

The meat is the expensive part of a stir-fry...which is why mine are mostly vegetables with just enough chicken or pork to taste (and certainly no beef...the cheapest cuts of beef go on sale for $7.99/lb). Especially in summer when the farmers' markets and roadside stands are open.

 

Ouch @ beef prices!:eek Here I thought that we had expensive beef. Is this $7.99/lb anything special like organic?:confused

 

Nope. That's a standard NY Strip steak. This week on sale (I just happen to be about to make my grocery list, so the ad is in front of me)... Boneless ribeye steaks $6.99/lb. (save $3.80/lb.); boneless tip sirloin $4.49/lb. (save $2.30/lb.). Sales are better this week because of Independence Day and grilling.

Chicken, on the other hand...boneless skinless breasts this week for $1.79/lb. (save $0.80/lb., family pack only). Center-cut, bone-in pork chops $2.49/lb. (save $1.10/lb.). We eat a lot of chicken and pork. LOL

 

Those are reasonable prices for the cuts you mentioned. You used the NY strip loin for a stir-fry?:yum :drool:-D

 

Well, yeah! If you're gonna do it, do it right! :-D

 

Hehehehe. You'll never find strip loin being used in a stir-fry at any local place, that's high end sarge!:-D

 

I couldn't tell you what cut I use, I know what it looks like though lol
It usually costs me around $10 ish for the meat whether it be beef , pork or chicken but sometimes I'll use shrimp because it's cheaper... which is odd.
As for rice, I buy Uncle bens because I have found other brands of rice don't cook the same for some reason and $4 was a low ball, the 2kg bag I usually buy is closer to $8, but obviously that goes a long way.

 

I agree with this in part. What's worse is that corporations like McDonalds are getting blamed for the appalling obesity rates. While it is partially responsible, much of the problem still has to do with us simply not making healthy choices and our own fast food consumerism.

Still, some of the problem has to do with our being able to access terrible food for us at all times. In Italy, McDonalds is a rarity, and even if it is present, barely anyone goes because nobody likes it. The whole culture there is different around food, and they are more healthy than we are. Perhaps if we really want to curb our consumption of fast food and promote healthier living, just don't go to places like McDonalds. Once people change their attitudes about food, then McDonalds would disappear. But only after that. Unfortunately here McDonalds and our food culture is so ingrained into us that I can't even imagine it disappearing anytime soon; people like us just love it too darned much. I kind of don't like where we are at, but I can still understand it and certainly don't complain about it. There is far worse shit in the world than McDonalds and fast food: lame ex's and starving are two. So in the end, I understand both sides of the debate. Now I'm going to go grab a McFlurry.

 

That much for beef? Buy a roast and slice it thing. Just as delicious, way cheaper. Actually, far cheaper for the price, certainly better taste.

Most of the 'high-end' meat cuts aren't worth the extra cost.

Tell you what Tibbs, you want, I'll sell you a pig. All you have to do is pay me for the pig and the butcher for the chopping and you don't have to deal with it until it's in plastic packages and going into the freezer. You won't want to go back to store pig. Probably save you a bunch of money getting it all for 2.00/lb.

 

I think most cuts are priced accordingly,economy frying steak cuts are as tough as old boots and full of little veins and blood vessels,it really must be pressure cooked or stewed for a long time IMO.

I've tried it. I got a couple of pounds of the cheapest cut of beef and cooked it in the oven for about 45 mins until it was medium as an experiment. It tasted pretty good,not as good as a good cut but it was REALLY tough and I kept coming across little chewy bits you have to spit out.

And the now a rant about supermarkets:-D The only cut from the supermarket I consider edible without putting it in the pressure cooker is the fillet steak,it has got better over the years now farm source is on the packaging but its still not great.

I only get my steak for griddling from a local butcher who loves meat,its more expensive but you get what you pay for. Has anyone ever seen a nicely marbled piece of steak that's dark red/blue in the supermarket? Its all water injected,steroid pumped,bright red carbon monoxide soaked crap.:-D They don't even hang it its rushed straight onto the shelves.

 

Rikky, I am blessed with a nice little grocery store half a mile away. Has a meat department, and you can on the right days pick up a 1.something pound porterhouse for around 8$ a pound. Makes life lovely when it is time to fire up the grill.

 

My supermarket has an instore butcher and baker (sorry no candlestick maker LOL). I can always get fresh meat if I want. It's part of the reason I shop there exclusively.

 

Why in... the hot place, would you fry a steak, unless you have no other option? Ruining a perfectly good steak. Shame, shame.

 

I thought the UK had banned CO processed meat and that the US was the only country left in the western world allowing this. Ooh honey, this 6 week old hamburger still looks good, I'll fire up the grill.uke

 

Most supermarket meat here in Belgium is water forced to plump it up and thats why it spits so much when you put it in the pan.
Our local supermarket used to have Scotch beef that was a superb product but after the mad cow scare they stopped having it, now we have Irish beef that is almost as good, it costs more but the quality is far better than home grown.

 

That is horrible! The only time water/brine are allowed is when the product is smoked so that the product has the same weight at the end as it originally had, like a ham. I never heard of regular cuts of fresh meat being treated this way.:confused

So you get Belgian blue beef from Ireland then? That's too rich.:-D

 

It has been an ongoing argument for a number of years the "water forcing" should be outlawed but as yet there has been no result.
They do it with chicken and veal plus beef and you end up paying for a certain amount of the weight in water, it has been argued that this is fraud but the distributors use the premise that people know this practice exists so there is no fraud element.
As i said we buy imported beef that has not had this treatment but not everyone can afford to do this.

 

I consider it fraud, what's there to stop the distributor's from pumping the meat even more full of water to improve their bottom line? That's just plain wrong. BTW, I just love Belgian beer stew using a brown beer.:yum

 

Holy crapoly Batman!:eek

 

I dunno TBH,what I do know is its bright red,too bright red.

I don't think we used steroids either but i can't be bothered looking it up:-D,we definitely pump stuff full of water though,the cheap steak from the supermarket seems to be at least 1/3 water,same as the bacon it appears to be mostly brine.

 

Good find there Augie, as you can see we are one of the main culprits.:-o

 

Actually, fresh meat should be more purplish when fresh and then turn redder as it ages in the package for a few days and then go slowly gray.

Canada and the US still use hormones, which is the same to me as steroids as per Wiki. The EU banned hormones but I don't know the status now. If I had my druthers, I'd buy organic, no hormones, no anti-biotics and grass fed. Damn expensive though.

 

Sadly, while they aren't steroids, steroids are better than hormones. rGHB has been banned however.

As for no antibiotics, that's a good idea, but when pigs are first born, they get a shot to bolster their immune systems. And I suppose you'd have sick cattle be killed and buried?

 

Cattle die today and they go off to the rendering plant. As to anti-biotics, their excessive use has made most of them useless against the new MSRA bugs these days

 

we tend to forget that We are monkeys that just recently learned to put our shoes on. Considering the life cycle of the planet we infest, we are a mere micro-second of a life that spanned billions of years before us and will continue for billions of years after we are long turned into dust.
you think you can regulate yourself? possible, yes..likely, no.

Why do you think so many people are overweight? or that they can't use a credit card without going into debt?
You are the source of all of your problems



"When you continue to ask yourself 'Why do these things keep happening to me?' I want you to go into your bathroom and look in the mirror. See the person looking back? That's the source of all of your problems. It's not your childhood, it's not your parents, it's not your boy/girlfriends. It's you. You are the source of all of your problems and sooner you recognize this, the sooner you will be able to get your shit together or do the American thing and Blame someone else. in this case, McDonalds

 

May I go on record as being the first one to blame Bush for our calorie surplus? :-D

It is really pretty simple. I don't need the gubment helping me eat right. They should work on a budget....

 

Some time ago I watched on CBC a program about organic and *regular* chickens. Turned out that the organic chicken farmer in Quebec still had chickens which were not antibiotic/hormone free. It turned out that the eggs were already contaminated to begin with.

 

I'm devided on this:confused I like good steak,I know what good is and tastes like. If they could make good steak for half the price I'd buy TBH.

I'm a bit of a anti organic as science is enabling us to feed the world and being organic isn't sustainable in terms of the current world food needs.

I've tried the organic vegitables from the supermarket and they taste the same,it looks like a tomato,it kinda smells like a tomato but they still taste like tomato flavoured water when compared to tomato's grown less intensively.

 

It's not that Organic is unsustainable, it's that the number of people in the world is unsustainable.

We've been stretching the food supply to end world hunger, and in short we're successfully feeding fewer to a satisfactory level. As you increase the size of the harvest you spread the nutrients thinner than as you do, so while you might get 2 bushels to every one organic one, each of those bushels contains half the total nutrients.

Current world food needs are to feed a population of 7 billion and growing. How can that be sustainable?

 

Totally agree,in logic terms continually upping food production is akin to throwing petrol on a bonfire,the more food we have the faster the population grows and hence.

So it would seems Triaxx the answer to feeding ourselves without lowering nutrition and quality is condoms:-D

 

I'm not sure how the gov. is doing anything to make you eat right. you need to explain that more.

I do like knowing how many calories are in food items, so I can plan my diet accordingly, although I like the idea of knowing what foods contain trans fats the government dropped the ball on that one, as they have on most of the hard to use nutritional labeling.

 

Was just a joke. As we face a lot of obesity in the US, I was calling that a 'calorie surplus'. And lot's of people love to blame Bush.

I don't think the government should be involved in people choosing their diet, I am a small government proponent. I do like honest food content labeling on food, that lets the person know what they are getting. And I suppose you would need government enforcement of the labeling.

But, with some research and thinking, you should be able to decide what foods are good for you and which ones should be consumed only in moderation without a bunch of gubment intervention. :-D

 

Actually, I think Soylent green is the better answer, but...

 

I've never heard anyone blame bush or what gubment intervention you are referring to

I do hear michelle obama and her "let's move" campaign is a prime example of the crap the government puts out.

My accountant doesnt suggest I earn more to get out of debt, he told me to spend less.

no one loses weight by moving more, weight loss happens with reducing what goes in the mouth.
is this the gubment stuff you mean? thats what Im curious about

 

My comment on blaming Bush, as I said was a joke. Earing more and spending less will get you out of debt faster.

But, I see this moving more from a casual chat about McD's to a more political area, which is kinda frowned on by the mods and such, so don't expect much more out of me.

I will say the gubment stuff I mentioned is part of what the First Lady talked about, and gubment banning trans fats and such. Just my opinion.

 

I'm not sure why the government over there would want to reduce the number of Mcdonalds consumed as you have private healthcare,over here they have a vested interest as the lower the obesity rates the less they have to spend on healthcare.

On the flipside though if everyone did eat Mcdonalds for every meal and had a heart attack when they were 50 the country would be a much richer place not having to pay out pensions or benefits.

The regulations on food labelling is pretty good IMO,unless your pathologically meticulous with regard to food nutrition everything is written on the side.

 

Don't question the gubment! :-D:-D

 

Look at China and check out some the crap they pull. Putting melamine(a plastic) to boost protein content in milk products(I think the CEO was executed) , lead paint on toys, toxic wallboard etc.

Then there's your home grown issues like e. coli on veggies/meat, salmonella from processing factories etc. Small gubment oversight means basically no oversight. Just like when your economy tanked from unregulated lenders and mortgage packagers. Then everybody runs around pointing fingers everywhere except where it should have been pointed in the first place and after the fact.

Don't you think better regulation could have avoided this whole mess you've put yourselves in? Have a great debt holiday ya'll!:wine I'm done politically.

(Hmm, I want souvlaki and spanakopita all of a sudden.)

 

Augie: " !! ? !!! ? ..." Thats all you get out of me politically. :-D:-D

 

What about healthwise then? Don't you want to trust that what you're eating/drinking won't kill you? I know it's impossible to check everything but keeping a sabre over the producers/processor's necks would be a decent investment. Enjoy your medim-rare grilled hamburger this weekend.:yum:-D

 

Auggie, do you not know Fred at all?... Sabre?.... nah, Fred is more of an AR15 kind of man :-D

@Fred... I got your Bush joke, you use it every now and then and it always cracks me up, I also Blame Bush for Justin Bieber... even though he's/she's Canadian , it's still Bushs's fault :-D

 

A beheading is much more memorable than getting hit by a bullet. Let's import the guillotine.:-D

 

Ground meat is always cooked well done, the steaks are the rare ones! Hmm, how much do I trust the gubment? Well, we do pay a lot of government workers to kill a lot of other people. What if they got a job in the meat inspection office? :-D

 

Got blades as well. Couple of WWII Japanese dress swords, a some assorted blades, and a couple of bayonets as well. Of course one bayonet fits on one of my AR-15s.

Augie just likes to jerk my chain sometimes. I guess he takes my War On Canada personally... :-D