# So what exactly IS in a fast food hamburger? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 30, 2007, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050 "2007-05-30T12:32:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Belrix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed655f/32.png) [@Belrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belrix)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/21 "2007-05-30T17:43:41Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] Not in my experience. In my supermarket 80/20 is the _fattest_ and therefore _cheapest_ grade of hamburger. It goes up to 85/15, 90/10, and 95/5. The only fatter meat is a blend made for meatloaf. [/QUOTE] I’m sure my grocery store sells 73% lean beef in the “chub packs”, the prepackaged 1 lb tubes of beef. Actuallly makes good juicy burgers ifyou cook it on the grill and let the fat drain. You kinda have to start them large, there’s some significant shrinkage. GEORGE: Couldn’t you at least tell her about the shrinkage factor? JERRY: No, I’m not gonna tell her about your shrinkage. Besides, I think women know about shrinkage. GEORGE: How do women know about shrinkage? JERRY: Isn’t it common knowledge? …or - on post-post viewing, what **bordelond** said… ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/22 "2007-05-30T17:48:39Z")
I wish I could find 80/20 ground beef more often; the leaner stuff is dry and crumbly and tends to break up on the barbecue grill. Health concerns about fatty beef have made the 80/20 stuff hard to find. I tend to stock up on it when I find it so that we have a good option for barbecued burgers. And I don’t care if they mix-n-match the beef and the fat from different animals; it’s meaningless. ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/23 "2007-05-30T17:56:05Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] Does anyone understand the food labeling laws in this country? If McDonald’s or Burger King claims their patties are 100% beef, then they’re 100% beef, with no soy extenders or other fillers. How it is naive to think that? Isn’t it more naive to think that they could somehow, with the intense scrutiny of their every move, slip things into the burgers and not have anyone in the universe find out? \<\\> I’m embarrassed that we have an admission by an OP that he has been lying to classes on a subject he hasn’t researched and thinks that a finding of fecal matter would disprove the 100% claim (as if they added it deliberately and listed it among the ingredients), and that this misinformation is being backed up by conspiracy theorists who are refusing to believe facts when they are posted. Next time you all jump on the people who think that missiles hit the towers or the moon landing was hoaxed, you might want to remember this thread and blush. [/QUOTE] Try not to jump on me too much without finding out all the facts **Exapno**. I was making a point to a class not to believe everything you hear on TV or read in the papers. And I never said the other part of the beef patty was from another animal. But the patty may not be all ground beef, unless you consider cartilage, organs, and ligaments beef just because it came from a cow. And I dunno about you, but I don’t wear a tin hat. [not anymore :D] and wasn’t trying to make the students I had into another wave of mad tin hatters. Jeepers. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/24 "2007-05-30T18:04:38Z")
[QUOTE=scotandrsn] 3) The company itself, hardly an objective source. Those cites suck in terms of credibility. Love- A high school teacher who just finished spending a year trying to teach students how to evaluate online sources. [/QUOTE] Call your students back and try again. In this case, the company itself is the ONLY credible source: they’re the only ones who actually know. Further, they’re regulated by several federal agencies who take a very dim view of even slightly incorrect labeling or advertising. Short of the FDA itself, or actually performing an analysis of your own, it’s about the best cite you’re going to find. If you’re actually claiming that you can’t trust a company’s own analysis of their products, I hope you’re not eating anything or taking any drugs – because basically all analysis on these things is done by the companies themselves as part of the approval process. Who else would care to spend the money? Do some companies lie about it? Sure – but the penalties for getting caught are massive, enough to prevent it in most cases. And once you get deliberate illegal actions in the mix, you can’t trust ANY cite. Evaluating any source for 100% validity is unrealistic and impossible: you can only achieve some reasonable level of likeliness. In this case, that level is very high, because the government has gone to great lengths to MAKE it very high. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/25 "2007-05-30T18:37:34Z")
[QUOTE=Smapti] The ingredients list on our hamburger patties is as follows: “Beef, salt.” [/QUOTE] Yes, but is it 100% sodium chloride? Maybe you’ve got some potassium salts in there, buckaroo. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/26 "2007-05-30T18:39:47Z")
100% beef means just that. 100% of the product in the patty comes from cow. 1. Meat. 2. Fat. 3. Fecal matter. All from a cow- hence the truth in advertising laws are neatly obeyed, and we get to get deathly sick from e.coli 🙂 Cartooniverse ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/27 "2007-05-30T18:41:09Z")
[QUOTE=Phlosphr] But the patty may not be all ground beef, unless you consider cartilage, organs, and ligaments beef just because it came from a cow. [/QUOTE] To a limited extent, the [USDA](http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Oa/topics/hotboned.htm) does: > [@](#): > > Meat, as defined in 9 CFR 301.2(rr)](1) The part of the muscle of any cattle, sheep, swine, or goats, which is skeletal or which is found in the tongue, or in the diaphragm, or in the heart, or in the esophagus, with or without the accompanying and overlying fat, and the portions of bone, skin, sinew, nerve, and blood vessels which normally accompany the muscle tissue and which are not separated from it in the process of dressing. It does not include the muscle found in the lips, snout, or ears. The last stuff qualifies as beef byproducts, which cannot be passed off as beef. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/28 "2007-05-30T18:48:09Z")
> [@](#): > > Do you find something wrong with eating dairy cows that are past their productive period? Maybe I’m reading more into your post than is there, but I get the impression that you are trying to spin using dairy cow beef mixed with trimmed fat as something distasteful. No value judgement intended. I’m not saying that it’s gross or distasteful, just cheap. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/29 "2007-05-30T18:56:19Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] Yes, but is it 100% sodium chloride? Maybe you’ve got some potassium salts in there, buckaroo. 😉 [/QUOTE] A wise guy, eh? Per the [FDA](http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/FCF101.html), > [@](#): > > Salt refers to sodium chloride. And, using the unassailable logic that McDonalds won’t use the fake thing if the real thing is cheaper (see the arguments against the use of worms and kangaroos in McBurgers), sodium chloride costs less than half what potassium chloride costs. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/30 "2007-05-30T19:14:02Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] Does anyone understand the food labeling laws in this country? [/QUOTE] Apparently several people here don’t. :rolleyes: Can anyone here even begin to imagine what would happen if the FDA or anybody else found out that a Micky Ds burger was not 100% beef? The fines alone would probably run in the millions. Lost sales would run in the tens of millions. If not the hundreds of millions. Yes people should be somewhat skeptical, but there is a fine line between being a skeptic and tin foil idiocy. FTR here in So Cal 70/30 is the cheap grade of hamburger. IMHO 80/20 makes the best burgers. Also FTR adding cereal or other fillers can make your homemade burgers taste much better than beef alone, but it would be commercial suicide for a fast food company to advertise that. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/31 "2007-05-30T19:24:34Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] Good cites. But I think the OP’s question is not “Do they use 100% beef in their burgers?” but “Are their burgers 100% composed of beef?” Two very different questions. I use 100% lemon juice in my lemonade, but my lemonade is not 100% lemon juice. [/QUOTE] Yes, their \*patties \*(if advertised as 100% beef) contain beef and only beef. The bun is made of bread, of course, etc. And the fecal matter is a rare happenstance. Anything can be contaminated any time, see the Spinach contamination just last year. Do you anti-meat dudes say that spinach normally contains fecal matter too? :rolleyes: \*\*bordelond \*\* “Am I crazy, or is some form of fecal matter or another virtually ubiquitous?” Nope, not crazy. I don’t know about fecal matter but as far as colifrrom bacteria, they are “virtually ubiquitous”. There’s a good Mythbusters epidose on this. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/32 "2007-05-30T19:34:45Z")
[QUOTE=Phlosphr] Try not to jump on me too much without finding out all the facts **Exapno**. … Jeepers. [/QUOTE] Jeepers, yourself. All we have to go on are the words you actually post. Not your meaning, or what you were thinking about, or what you meant to say, or what you thought was understood. Just the words. Sorry that you didn’t like that several of us in this thread looked at your words and found them wanting. But they were your words. We just read them. I’m as skeptical as anybody about what I read and how good the information is. If I could refer you to my blog, you’d see many examples of my cutting newspaper reports to shreds because of poor understanding of the material. But I agree with **Rick**. There’s a vast difference between skepticism and crackpottery. We’ve seen that line crossed here. ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/33 "2007-05-30T19:38:01Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] Jeepers, yourself. All we have to go on are the words you actually post. Not your meaning, or what you were thinking about, or what you meant to say, or what you thought was understood. Just the words. Sorry that you didn’t like that several of us in this thread looked at your words and found them wanting. But they were your words. We just read them. I’m as skeptical as anybody about what I read and how good the information is. If I could refer you to my blog, you’d see many examples of my cutting newspaper reports to shreds because of poor understanding of the material. But I agree with **Rick**. There’s a vast difference between skepticism and crackpottery. We’ve seen that line crossed here. [/QUOTE] Agreed. I’ll check out your Blog. I enjoy a good flaming of crackpottery and the like! Makes me think there are actually still people around today who give a sh\*t about the written word. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/34 "2007-05-30T19:48:58Z")
[QUOTE=bordelond] Am I crazy, or is some form of fecal matter or another virtually ubiquitous? Would I be off base to say that the OP – as well as myself and all the posters in this thread – has, at this moment – a non-zero amount of fecal matter on his hands, clothes, computer keyboard, coffee cup, money, etc? [/QUOTE] Well, _I_ certainly do. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/35 "2007-05-30T20:24:43Z")
I just want to be clear that I don’t think there’s anything other than dead cow in McDonald’s burgers - sorry, patties. I never did, for all the reasons mentioned. And, of course, the ingredient list is as infalible as possible, if we assume no outright fraud is going on. My only point, which I focused on in the OP, was that he seemed to be trying to teach careful reading, mentioning that his drawn circle’s “100%” and the use of 100% material aren’t the same thing. It’s a lesson I’ve been trying to pound into the heads of my husband and my son, mostly as regards “Whole Grains” in bread and pasta. “ **Made with 100% Whole Grains!** ” is a popular blazon sticker around here, and yet often those breads and pastas have very little whole grains in them. They have some - some amount large enough to keep the FDA happy - but much of the flour in them is plain ol’ white flour. So while I think McDonald’s was a poor choice to illustrate the phenomenon, the phenomenon does exist. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/36 "2007-05-30T21:16:50Z")
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle] Well, _I_ certainly do. 😃 [/QUOTE] Say, what happens when you accidentally step in a dollop of soap or something? Isn’t that just the grossest thing ever? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![lowbrass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dc4da7/32.png) [@lowbrass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lowbrass)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/37 "2007-05-30T21:31:59Z")
[QUOTE=dropzone] Perhaps next semester you’ll learn more about what you are passing along before you default to the cutesy-pie, alarmist, and untrue. Your students are paying for better out of you. [/QUOTE] I have to agree. Spreading misinformation to students is not cool. ---
**Author:** ![lowbrass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dc4da7/32.png) [@lowbrass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lowbrass)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/38 "2007-05-30T21:35:13Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] I just want to be clear that I don’t think there’s anything other than dead cow in McDonald’s burgers - sorry, patties. I never did, for all the reasons mentioned. And, of course, the ingredient list is as infalible as possible, if we assume no outright fraud is going on. My only point, which I focused on in the OP, was that he seemed to be trying to teach careful reading, mentioning that his drawn circle’s “100%” and the use of 100% material aren’t the same thing. It’s a lesson I’ve been trying to pound into the heads of my husband and my son, mostly as regards “Whole Grains” in bread and pasta. “ **Made with 100% Whole Grains!** ” is a popular blazon sticker around here, and yet often those breads and pastas have very little whole grains in them. They have some - some amount large enough to keep the FDA happy - but much of the flour in them is plain ol’ white flour. So while I think McDonald’s was a poor choice to illustrate the phenomenon, the phenomenon does exist. [/QUOTE] Yeah, there are so many _real_ examples of misleading advertising, I don’t understand why anyone would have to resort to false examples to make the point. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/39 "2007-05-30T22:28:31Z")
Jeepers, again. You’d hope schools would try to teach children to use a bit of their common sense, rather than pushing crackpot theories on them. To look at McDonald’s, their sales ‘hook’ is that their fast food burgers **taste good** – a quick meal, that gives a blast to the taste buds right then. Good nutrition, long-term healthy eating habits, etc. are NOT the high point of fast food. Thus, for example, the high sodium and high sweetness of the McDonalds burgers. Anything that detracts from the quick good taste of their burgers will be avoided. Now any extender (soybean, seaweed, earthworms, etc.) is less tasty than beef, by definition. So it would be shunned, unless it was vastly cheaper than 100% beef. And that isn’t likely. Beef itself is reasonably cheap in the grocery store; the bulk purchases McDonald’s makes of beef, bought under contract months before, have got to be much cheaper than that. To avoid a noticeable effect on the taste, you could only use a small bit of the extender in the patties. And there would be the costs of blending that in properly, etc. So common sense thinking about their economics would tell us that McDonald’s is very unlikely to use anything other than 100% beef in their hamburger patties. It just isn’t worth the risk for any possible small amount it might save them, if it wrecks their reputation for good-tasting food. ---
**Author:** ![Punoqllads](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d2c977/32.png) [@Punoqllads](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Punoqllads)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050/40 "2007-05-30T23:18:55Z")
[QUOTE=scotandrsn] \ No, not good cites. … 1. A web page that absolutely anyone in the world can edit anonymously, regardless of expertise in the subject area of the page, or bias regarding disputed facts \ [/QUOTE] A web page that anyone can edit _pseudonymously_, with an extended [trail](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=McDonald%27s_urban_legends&action=history) of every change that has ever been made, on a website with an error rate statistically similar to [Encyclopedia Britannica](http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-exactly-is-in-a-fast-food-hamburger/406050.md?page=3)