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McDonald's senior director of culinary innovation sees nothing unhealthy on menu

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ianp622

Member
healthy/unhealthy food...
Unless it's literally poisonous, there simply is no unhealthy food.

Or in other words, everything is unhealthy to you depending on the dosage.

Eat exclusively 20-30 super-healthy apples per day over months/years and you might actually get fat as well as look like some chemotherapy patient (if not already dead).

Not true. Trans fats increase your risk for coronary heart disease at any amount.

Processed meats also increase cancer risks at relatively low levels, but they're not as bad.
 

SeanR1221

Member
...okay. Buy it, or don't, doesn't change how lifestyle affects eating habits. When you work 14 hour days, six days a week, shit is going to suffer. "Barely any time" > no time at all, which is what fast food offers.

I do agree that this is often just an excuse, but there is also a lot of truth in it.

I work plenty of 14 hour days and manage. It's really easy.

No its really not. What a stupid thing to say.

Why?
 

SeanR1221

Member
No, you don't or you wouldn't say nonsense like that. It may be doable, but it's not easy to do anything on 80+ hour work weeks.

Sure it is. I have a little lunch container with a ice pack inside and I eat stuff like tuna, chicken, pork, etc over vegetables all the time. Takes barely anytime to get ready. Especially tuna.

For stuff like chicken and pork just make a little extra the night before.

My fiancé constantly works double shifts at the hospital and shes never stepped foot in the cafeteria there. She does the same thing as me.

I guess we're just not lazy.
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Sure it is. I have a little lunch container with a ice pack inside and I eat stuff like tuna, chicken, pork, etc over vegetables all the time. Takes barely anytime to get ready. Especially tuna.

For stuff like chicken and pork just make a little extra the night before.

My fiancé constantly works double shifts at the hospital and shes never stepped foot in the cafeteria there. She does the same thing as me.

I guess we're just not lazy.

You know absolutely nothing about working as a chef, apparently. Literally nothing you said would work whatsoever. First, you can't bring your own food into a vast majority of restaurants. It's illegal. Second, chefs and back of the house generally do not get lunch breaks. There is no time. Third, it's sheer hubris to say "well, gee, it works in this environment, so people who work in different environments and don't follow my regiment are just lazy!" Fourth, I do not, for one second, believe that your fiancee has never, ever had to eat from the cafeteria or other fast food establishment if she has worked at a hospital for more than a week.
 

Wthermans

Banned
I dislike how expensive McDonalds got relative to what you get. Guess this applies to a lot of fast food places. Inflation blahblah, but even still, expensive ass shit. There used to be fast food, then middle tier stuff, then restaurant quality stuff. The fast food prices these days are so close to the middle tier stuff, there is rarely a need for fast food.

/rant

I can't say that my experience has echoed your own. While fast food prices have increased (from ~$3/meal to $6/meal), I can still determine a certain "hierarchy" to retail food. You have your lower tier (McD's, BK, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Subway), then you have a mid-tier (local Sandwich shops, Lenny's, Panera, McCallister's), then you have sit-down restaurants. These normally rank from Applebee's, O'Charley's, TGIF, Chili's; to Aubrey's, Texas Roadhouse, local sit-down, etc. Then you have your mid-priced sit down that normally has Ruth Chris's, and cheaper local steakhouses/seafood; and then you have upscale.

Maybe I'm using far too many anecdotal experiences, but this is the hierarchy I use when choosing dinner based on cost/server.
 

commedieu

Banned
Corporate PR bullshit. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year getting kids hooked on this shit and then abdicating all responsibility for Anericas obesity epidemic is insane; the marketing of toys with high calorie meals is insidious.

Cigarette companies preached the same bullshit about personal responsibility; how about some corporate/social responsibility to not poison our country?

I <3 you. There needs to be a social responsibility for human health and well being. People are addicted to making money, and its just as bad as any drug addiction. Has just as much denial of effects too.
 

SeanR1221

Member
You know absolutely nothing about working as a chef, apparently. Literally nothing you said would work whatsoever. First, you can't bring your own food into a vast majority of restaurants. It's illegal. Second, chefs and back of the house generally do not get lunch breaks. There is no time. Third, it's sheer hubris to say "well, gee, it works in this environment, so people who work in different environments and don't follow my regiment are just lazy!" Fourth, I do not, for one second, believe that your fiancee has never, ever had to eat from the cafeteria or other fast food establishment if she has worked at a hospital for more than a week.

Ok, my first point was I don't buy a time excuse as a reason to eat like shit.

I'll take your word for it a chef can't bring food into work to eat. That's fine. Still not an excuse to eat like shit.

And no my fiancé has never stepped foot in the cafeteria at the hospital and she's been a nurse for 3 years now. Why would she when she has sensible eating habits.

I'll gladly snap pictures of our food next time if you're so sure we're lying :)
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Ok, my first point was I don't buy a time excuse as a reason to eat like shit.

I'll take your word for it a chef can't bring food into work to eat. That's fine. Still not an excuse to eat like shit.

And no my fiancé has never stepped foot in the cafeteria at the hospital and she's been a nurse for 3 years now. Why would she when she has sensible eating habits.

I'll gladly snap pictures of our food next time if you're so sure we're lying :)

Sure, buddy. ;)
 

SeanR1221

Member
Do you want my breakfast lunch and dinner in the same picture or can I just put lunch and dinner together? I usually eat my breakfast first then prep lunch and dinner.

I also can't wrap my head around how you don't find this possible, but hey! I'm not you.
 

Septimius

Junior Member
I was at work until 9 one day during the last week, and I decided to have a dinner break with McDonald's. Ugh. Not going back there for a while.

Really, I love it, but being tired and eating McDonald's just doesn't make you feel less shit.
 

Emerson

May contain jokes =>
Ok, my first point was I don't buy a time excuse as a reason to eat like shit.

I'll take your word for it a chef can't bring food into work to eat. That's fine. Still not an excuse to eat like shit.

And no my fiancé has never stepped foot in the cafeteria at the hospital and she's been a nurse for 3 years now. Why would she when she has sensible eating habits.

I'll gladly snap pictures of our food next time if you're so sure we're lying :)

I don't know anyone who works in a hospital who has never gone to the cafeteria, but fine, I'll accept that possibility. The real problem is your superior attitude about it. You and your girlfriend are not better people because you avoid the hospital cafeteria. People who work long hours and don't want to spend half an hour or an hour of their evening cooking are not "just lazy." It's a difficult way to live for us ordinary humans, you must understand.

You can recognize that a lifestyle or certain choices are not ideal without trying to shit on the person making them from a great height. Everybody cuts corners when they're stressed, and yours may just be different ones. Everybody also does a bunch of things that increase their risks of various diseases. For some people it's food, some people it's smoking, alcohol, where they live, where they work, so forth. We should all strive to minimize them but it's not a contest. We'll all die of something, and statistically the odds are it'll be heart disease or cancer. You could look back on life and say "man, I shouldn't have done that specific thing that had a small role in killing me" or you can live your life and accept that something will get you eventually, and just do your best.
 

SeanR1221

Member
I don't know anyone who works in a hospital who has never gone to the cafeteria, but fine, I'll accept that possibility. The real problem is your superior attitude about it. You and your girlfriend are not better people because you avoid the hospital cafeteria. People who work long hours and don't want to spend half an hour or an hour of their evening cooking are not "just lazy." It's a difficult way to live for us ordinary humans, you must understand.

You can recognize that a lifestyle or certain choices are not ideal without trying to shit on the person making them from a great height.

Sounds like excuses to me, nothing about being superior. It really doesn't take long at all to make a dinner of grilled chicken and green beans. Make extra for the next day. I mean are you telling me 30 minutes of time cooking is out of the question? You are working and sleeping for 24 hours?
 

M-PG71C

Member
You know absolutely nothing about working as a chef, apparently. Literally nothing you said would work whatsoever. First, you can't bring your own food into a vast majority of restaurants. It's illegal. Second, chefs and back of the house generally do not get lunch breaks. There is no time. Third, it's sheer hubris to say "well, gee, it works in this environment, so people who work in different environments and don't follow my regiment are just lazy!" Fourth, I do not, for one second, believe that your fiancee has never, ever had to eat from the cafeteria or other fast food establishment if she has worked at a hospital for more than a week.

I believe it, I work as a RN at the hospital and I carry my own lunch everyday. There is no way I am spending my hard earned money on shitty cafeteria food.

Perhaps more importantly though, if I get a lunch break (And that is a very big if) I want to spend my ten minutes eating before heading back outside to the hall. I work 12 hour shifts and every damn minute is spent working, en large. If I'm not charting, assessing, or passing medicines, then I am seeing patients, cleaning them up, taking them to the bathroom, or whatever. I just don't have time to go outside and eat Mickey D's or whatever.

I should say my lunches are nothing grandiose. Sandwiches, left-over spaghetti, salad, sometimes a Lunchable. Takes five minutes to pack and I pack it before going to bed.
 

Emerson

May contain jokes =>
Sounds like excuses to me, nothing about being superior. It really doesn't take long at all to make a dinner of grilled chicken and green beans. Make extra for the next day. I mean are you telling me 30 minutes of time cooking is out of the question? You are working and sleeping for 24 hours?

If you work 14 hours and want to get 7 or 8 hours sleep, half an hour at night is a significant portion of the time you have left.
 
I believe it, I work as a RN at the hospital and I carry my own lunch everyday. There is no way I am spending my hard earned money on shitty cafeteria food.

Perhaps more importantly though, if I get a lunch break (And that is a very big if) I want to spend my ten minutes eating before heading back outside to the hall. I work 12 hour shifts and every damn minute is spent working, en large. If I'm not charting, assessing, or passing medicines, then I am seeing patients, cleaning them up, taking them to the bathroom, or whatever. I just don't have time to go outside and eat Mickey D's or whatever.

I should say my lunches are nothing grandiose. Sandwiches, left-over spaghetti, salad, sometimes a Lunchable. Takes five minutes to pack and I pack it before going to bed.

I work as an RN as well and this sounds exactly like me (and yes lunch breaks at the moment are a rarity).
 

SeanR1221

Member
I believe it, I work as a RN at the hospital and I carry my own lunch everyday. There is no way I am spending my hard earned money on shitty cafeteria food.

Perhaps more importantly though, if I get a lunch break (And that is a very big if) I want to spend my ten minutes eating before heading back outside to the hall. I work 12 hour shifts and every damn minute is spent working, en large. If I'm not charting, assessing, or passing medicines, then I am seeing patients, cleaning them up, taking them to the bathroom, or whatever. I just don't have time to go outside and eat Mickey D's or whatever.

I should say my lunches are nothing grandiose. Sandwiches, left-over spaghetti, salad, sometimes a Lunchable. Takes five minutes to pack and I pack it before going to bed.

Thank you. I do the cooking in the house so
I already have meals prepped for my fiancé :)

If you work 14 hours and want to get 7 or 8 hours sleep, half an hour at night is a significant portion of the time you have left.

Oh come on.

Wake up at 7

Make breakfast get ready, make lunch and grab leftovers from dinner the night before out the door by 8.

Come home around 10, take 30 minutes to throw some chicken on the grill. Bonus, watch tv/surf web while you do it!

Go to sleep around 11:30-12. So that gives me an hour and a half to do whatever I want. Oh man! That was impossible.

Go into the weight loss or fitness thread and say you legit have no time. You'll get eaten alive. Its an excuse.
 

M-PG71C

Member
I work as an RN as well and this sounds exactly like me (and yes lunch breaks at the moment are a rarity).

Yeah, they come in cycles. If I have a bunch of med-surg patients then getting in a twenty or thirty min lunch break is pretty doable. But it doesn't happen often. Most of the time, they are post-ops or traumas and I spend majority of my time monitoring them in some form.

I just know most RNs carry their lunches, what time you do get for a break you want to spend it actually getting a breather and eating. Not waiting in line to get something to eat.
 

Emerson

May contain jokes =>
Oh come on.

Wake up at 7

Make breakfast get ready, make lunch and grab leftovers from dinner the night before out the door by 8.

Come home around 10, take 30 minutes to throw some chicken on the grill. Bonus, watch tv/surf web while you do it!

Go to sleep around 11:30-12. So that gives me an hour and a half to do whatever I want. Oh man! That was impossible.

Go into the weight loss or fitness thread and say you legit have no time. You'll get eaten alive. Its an excuse.

Again, your world is the same as everyone else's. What if you have kids? What if you work a 14 hour shift and have another hour and a half commute? What if you're a medical resident who's working 36 hour shifts? Just pack 6 meals the day before? This is how people end up eating fast food. Not people who can leave at 8 and arrive at work instantaneously for a 14 hour shift ending at 10, and also be home instantly at 10. If you want to make a point at least do your math right. Either that or you don't actually work 14 hour shifts.

None of these things even apply to me in the first place, but my point is that, again, you can recognize how people arrive at their lifestyles without being so judgmental.
 
Yeah, they come in cycles. If I have a bunch of med-surg patients then getting in a twenty or thirty min lunch break is pretty doable. But it doesn't happen often. Most of the time, they are post-ops or traumas and I spend majority of my time monitoring them in some form.

I just know most RNs carry their lunches, what time you do get for a break you want to spend it actually getting a breather and eating. Not waiting in line to get something to eat.

Pretty much yeah. We are generally understaffed for the amount of patients we have so despite being allotted a 10 and 30 minute break i'm lucky to find any time to just stop and have a quick bite to eat.

Again, your world is the same as everyone else's. What if you have kids? What if you work a 14 hour shift and have another hour and a half commute? This is how people end up eating fast food. Not people who can leave at 8 and arrive at work instantaneously for a 14 hour shift ending at 10, and also be home instantly at 10.

None of these things even apply to me in the first place, but my point is that, again, you can recognize how people arrive at their lifestyles without being so judgmental.

I agree that not everyone has time to spend 30 minutes preparing a meal but you don't need anywhere near that much. In fact i would argue that it takes longer to buy takeaway than it does to prepare the simple little meals i eat during the day.
 

Emerson

May contain jokes =>
I agree that not everyone has time to spend 30 minutes preparing a meal but you don't need anywhere near that much. In fact i would argue that it takes longer to buy takeaway than it does to prepare the simple little meals i eat during the day.

I agree. I pack lunch myself. But when we're talking about a sandwich, Lunchables, etc. I dunno how healthy that really is either. It's better than cafeteria for sure, but it's not grilled chicken and veggies as the other guy is talking about.

The point is not that nobody should pack lunch, it's that eating in the cafeteria or McDonalds once in a while because you're tired is not a mortal sin.
 

SeanR1221

Member
Again, your world is the same as everyone else's. What if you have kids? What if you work a 14 hour shift and have another hour and a half commute? What if you're a medical resident who's working 36 hour shifts? Just pack 6 meals the day before? This is how people end up eating fast food. Not people who can leave at 8 and arrive at work instantaneously for a 14 hour shift ending at 10, and also be home instantly at 10. If you want to make a point at least do your math right. Either that or you don't actually work 14 hour shifts.

None of these things even apply to me in the first place, but my point is that, again, you can recognize how people arrive at their lifestyles without being so judgmental.

Post up your day and I'll help you.

I find that hard to believe considering a low carb diet is around 50g a day...

I don't find it that hard.
 

Emerson

May contain jokes =>
Post up your day and I'll help you.

LOL dude. You should start up a business since everybody is seemingly in need of your services.

I don't need help. I don't work 14 hour days and I pack my lunch. But I can still empathize with those who do.
 

Soul_Pie

Member
What he's saying seems fairly reasonable.

The thing is that people automatically assume that fast food=bad and then proceed to wolf down processed packaged foods like two minute noodles and mac and cheese which nutritionally is no better than McDonalds. There are also plenty of "slow food" restaurants which make meals that are arguably more unhealthy. McDonalds is high profile and therefore an easy target, but to be honest I feel like they've improved significantly over the years with their menu, ingredients and their nutritional information. The serving sizes are still wimpy though.

The problem as I see it is that we use fast food, processed food, pre-prepared, packaged food as a crutch. Good food generally takes a fair bit of preparation time. You want to make a pasta meal from scratch? That's gonna require a fair bit of fiddling around with preparing the dough, taking the skin and seeds out of the tomatoes, cooking the ingredients properly etc and will probably end up costing more on top of that. It's easier just to buy a jar of pre-prepared long life sauce and some dry pasta, or even just one of those already prepared meals that you just chuck in the microwave for ten minutes.

Until properly made food suddenly becomes a more attractive proposition there will be a problem with obesity and nutrition because most people don't have the inclination to spend the required amount of time preparing good, wholesome, thoughtful meals. With both parents often working long hours and these tantalisingly easy options available to them it's easy to see why we as a society have slipped into bad habits. The process of manufacturing and selling these easy food options has become so refined now that they've become our defacto food source, while the process of preparing recipes made from fresh fruit, veggies, meats, seafood, nuts, legumes etc has become almost a lost art.
 

demon

I don't mean to alarm you but you have dogs on your face
JdkOs.jpg
 
I can't say that my experience has echoed your own. While fast food prices have increased (from ~$3/meal to $6/meal), I can still determine a certain "hierarchy" to retail food. You have your lower tier (McD's, BK, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Subway), then you have a mid-tier (local Sandwich shops, Lenny's, Panera, McCallister's), then you have sit-down restaurants. These normally rank from Applebee's, O'Charley's, TGIF, Chili's; to Aubrey's, Texas Roadhouse, local sit-down, etc. Then you have your mid-priced sit down that normally has Ruth Chris's, and cheaper local steakhouses/seafood; and then you have upscale.

Maybe I'm using far too many anecdotal experiences, but this is the hierarchy I use when choosing dinner based on cost/server.
I included a lot of those sit down plaaces in "middle tier". Although they aren't technically fast food the way mcdonalds/BK/KFC/etc are, I don't consider them restaurant quality.
 
Wake up at 7

Make breakfast get ready, make lunch and grab leftovers from dinner the night before out the door by 8.

Come home around 10, take 30 minutes to throw some chicken on the grill. Bonus, watch tv/surf web while you do it!

Go to sleep around 11:30-12. So that gives me an hour and a half to do whatever I want. Oh man! That was impossible.
No offense, but that sounds like a miserable life.
 

NervousXtian

Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
The thing is, of course McD's is unhealthy.. but it's not like people are eating better at home or elsewhere.

McD's tends to take the brunt of the obesity problem.. but people fail to look at just about any chain sit-down restaurant and how one could do even worse in them.

The problem is cheap food in this country is unhealthy, be it at home or out.
 

Evlar

Banned
I should think the "senior director of culinary innovation" ought to be concerning himself with why everything his restaurants serve tastes like shit, since he apparently has the "terribly unhealthy" problem fixed.
 

Brera

Banned
Thats more carbs than I eat in 4 days.

Then you need to get yourself a healthy diet.

Carbs and fat are not bad for you...you need them to be healthy. Too much of either and no excercise on the other hand is bad.

You are as ignorant about food as the fatties you probably mock!
 
He feeds his family McDonald's once a week? What willful ignorance. It stands to reason that the rest of this would follow, if he actually does that.

My wife and I are guilty of indulging in this every once in awhile, but hardly ever with our kid...maybe once or twice a year. Once a week? Jesus.

Hahaha what a monster, once a week


The guy is telling you to pay attention to what you eat and stop blaming McDonalds.. what is so wrong about that? the dudes spot on
 

Liberty4all

Banned
My wife and I were eating take out close to 8 times a week. Not McDonald's per say, but Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai, pizza, wings, fried chicken etc .... We used the "our schedules are too busy" excuse too.

Wife is an RN and I was doing 3 hour commute daily. Would get up at 6 am. Get home at 10pm.

Finally our health a mess and stressed out we sold our house, moved from the suburbs back downtown. Now I get home at 6. I eat fresh fish, white breast meat, sirloin steak, etc with huge helpings of fresh veg. We have both lost huge amounts of weight, and it's to the point that fast food we used to love like Popeyes now tastes disgusting to us (it literally will make us feel sick) .. My wife sometimes takes leftovers to work but will also sometimes use the cafeteria.

Bottom line to me ... It's always a choice to eat and live healthy. Eating crap every day is an excuse. If your lifestyle isn't healthy it's a choice to make changes ... Big changes are always hard but not impossible.

I'm no saint myself. Still smoke and drink too much wine. But diet wise ditching takeout, eating fresh, reducing carbs and portion sizes made a huge fucking difference.
 

SeanR1221

Member
Then you need to get yourself a healthy diet.

Carbs and fat are not bad for you...you need them to be healthy. Too much of either and no excercise on the other hand is bad.

You are as ignorant about food as the fatties you probably mock!

I guarantee my diet is healthy.
 

Petrie

Banned
You know absolutely nothing about working as a chef, apparently. Literally nothing you said would work whatsoever. First, you can't bring your own food into a vast majority of restaurants. It's illegal. Second, chefs and back of the house generally do not get lunch breaks. There is no time. Third, it's sheer hubris to say "well, gee, it works in this environment, so people who work in different environments and don't follow my regiment are just lazy!" Fourth, I do not, for one second, believe that your fiancee has never, ever had to eat from the cafeteria or other fast food establishment if she has worked at a hospital for more than a week.

It is not illegal for staff to bring their own food to a restaurant.

I've been in the restaurant industry for 14 years, working every job in the place. Claiming you can't bring food or that there's "no time" is a gigantic excuse.


I'll take your word for it a chef can't bring food into work to eat. That's fine. Still not an excuse to eat like shit.

Don't. He's wrong.
 

SeanR1221

Member
It is not illegal for staff to bring their own food to a restaurant.

I've been in the restaurant industry for 14 years, working every job in the place. Claiming you can't bring food or that there's "no time" is a gigantic excuse.




Don't. He's wrong.

Ah, thank you :)
 

Polari

Member
He feeds his family McDonald's once a week? What willful ignorance. It stands to reason that the rest of this would follow, if he actually does that.

My wife and I are guilty of indulging in this every once in awhile, but hardly ever with our kid...maybe once or twice a year. Once a week? Jesus.

I ate McDonald's once a week as a kid and am not fat.
 

bill0527

Member
Don't. He's wrong.

Not necessarily.

There may be local ordinances in place from his city's health department or state regulations that are different from the ones in your state.

Once again, just because it's legal where you live, doesn't mean it's legal everywhere else.
 

Petrie

Banned
Not necessarily.

There may be local ordinances in place from his city's health department or state regulations that are different from the ones in your state.

Once again, just because it's legal where you live, doesn't mean it's legal everywhere else.

No. If your job doesn't allow you to bring food, then they have to allow you an adequate break to go off-site for lunch. Or they have to allow you to bring food. It is one or the other, so either way, he has the ability to eat his own food.

They don't have to give you a break, but if they don't, they have to allow you to bring your own food.
 
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