To paraphrase the exchange my comments were directed at:
Phlosphr: Can anyone fill me in on whether McDonalds claim that their entire hamburger patty is 100% beef can be believed? brickbacon: Why yes, look here, where the company claims they use 100% beef patties.
An assertion is not proof of itself, which is what makes that a bad cite in that instance. Now if brickbacon had referred to the relevant USDA and/or FTC regulations in conjunction with McDonalds claims, we might have a decent cite on our hands for the discussion. Analysis from an objective third party, if available, would be even better to establish the veracity of McDonalds claim.
No, anonymously. At least a third of the authors on your own history link are not pseudonyms, but IP addresses. So the credibility of the article rests with whoever happened to by typing at the keyboard that that IP address was assigned to at that particular time. How that’s supposed to tell me their expertise or whether the text that was changed still matches any cited sources escapes me.
All that does is tell me when an error was introduced and possibly by whom if I am knowledgeable enough about the subject to recognize the error. If it is a subject completely unfamiliar to me, I have no idea whether a particular change was from fact to BS, BS to fact, fact to different fact, or BS to BS.
Assuming you accept the methodology used in the study published in Nature as valid. I have not read the study nor its rebuttals in depth so I make no comment, but I confess to skepticism on the matter.
Didn’t catch this post before. So if you already saw my post upthread saying what I was actually teaching them I apologize. Also, as some of you know I have not been an instructor for a long while. We’re going several years back now. This whole thread acame about after seeing fast food nation.
Depends entirely on what part of the cow you cut it from.
Normally fattier cuts are more expensive, because the marbled fats make them more tender, like filet. The leaner cuts are cheaper because you have to tenderize them by cubing or roasting or some other technique just to make them edible rather than tough and leathery.
But hamburg is made from the scraps that can’t be sold as a name kind of cut. Usually those are fatty but not in the good way, i.e. not marbled, so they are cheaper. Leaner hamburg has to be made from better quality portions so it costs more to make.
It’s an art going through every scrap of muscle and fat on the cow and allocating it to the use that will bring in the highest price, which is why butchering was once a prized skill.
The OP’s entire point is that they don’t claim that. They claim their burgers contain 100% beef, which is potentially a different thing:
… well yes, but that’s not the same as saying “our beef patties are 100% beef”. By definition all beef is 100% beef, it’s a meaningless claim. Suspicion is aroused when they could make the stronger claim but don’t. Granted they could just be exceedingly clumsy at expressing what they mean, but they do pay marketers an awful lot of money every year and it would seem odd to let this one by year after year.
There is no stronger claim you are just picking nits. They use a USFDA definition, and their burger patties are constantly inspected by the FDA and also various private dudes & orgs who would like nothing better than to find earthworms in there. McD’s patties are 100% **beef, **all beef, and nothing but beef. Maybe not the best beef in the world but that is not one of the claims.
Are you really this dense? First, I was not trying to create a definitive list of cites to support the fact that their burgers are 100% beef, however I think the three I picked were sufficient. First, as someone else mentioned, the only people who know for sure is the company itself (which I linked to). It would be a disastrous move for them to lie about what is in their burgers. Not only because of the fines they would incur, but also from the thousands of lawsuits that would result from people with dietary restrictions, allergies, etc. It’s a lose-lose for them. Any idiot knows that, and linking to a FDA web page saying that companies need to not lie about the ingredients in their food is completely unnecessary, and illogical. Just because it is a rule doesn’t mean any restaurant has to follow it. The reason you know a huge chain like McDonald’s does is because it would be completely retarded for them not to do so.
Second, Morgan Spurlock, the wirter/diector/star of Super Size Me, is as strong a critic of the fast food industry (esp. McDonald’s) as you will find. It is in his financial interest to be as critical of these companies as possible. The man made a documentary depicting how bad their food is for you, how deceptive their advertising is, and how our gluttony is leading to our ruin. Do you really think he wouldn’t take the opportunity to call them on their bullshit if they were lying?
Do you think he hasn’t done the research about what is in their food?
So now we have the company itself saying what’s in the burgers, a critic admitting the same thing, and an online encyclopedia echoing the same thing. Not to mention the cites and links (14) within the wiki article, to reputable news agencies like the AP, CBS News, and Newsweek. If that is not enough for you, then you will never be convinced. I cited the company itself, a critic of the company, and an impartial source, all of whom agree that the burgers are 100% beef.
Can I add to the chorus (from an Aust/NZ perspective, bearing in mind the link provided was to McD’s NZ) by saying that there are people in our consumer regulatory agencies who would get a hard on you could pole vault with at the mere thought of being able to catch McD’s lying about this and fine them gazillions. If they say their patties are 100% beef they either being very stupid or very accurate.
I guess in terms of it coming 100% from a cow, McD’s is accurate. As for it being 100% muscle tissue, or whatever they ground up in supermarkets, is another story I think.
Why do you think so? Is it so hard to believe that McDonald’s would just use a lower quality beef for their burgers w/o putting all sorts of weird things in it?
I think it would be accurate to say that McDonalds hamburger contains cartilage, connective tissue, fat, and muscle exactly like the hamburger you get from any supermarket. That is ground beef. It is ground beef… no organ meats, no fillers, it’s just hamburger no worse nor better than any other processed ground beef you might get in a supermarket.
Phiosopher, you could easily use a steak in your teaching example and it would still make no sense. “Ahhh… a steak is 100% beef but what they don’t tell you is that that steak has fat, connective tissue, and sometimes even cartilage!”
I never said I disagreed the patties were beef. Someone referred to your cites as “good”, and I disagreed with that. Hence the “nitpick” part of my post, oh observant one…
Indeed. However, when that very claim is what is called into question by the OP, it is no evidence whatsoever to merely repeat the claim, as you effectively did with your third link.
However, you did not include any of this in your first post. You simply repeated McDonalds claim as to the contents of their food without comment. Some one said “good cite” to that, I disagreed.
I know I don’t have to point this out to someone with the sort of advanced perceptive abilities I conceded to earlier, but there are people who might be confused by this portion of your post so:
You do realize that your second link does not lead to Morgan Spurlock’s site, right? It leads to a site put up by a strong critic of his, Fox News journalist and former Cato Institute policy analyst, Radley Balko. Right in my link there it says, “The general purpose of this site is to counter the silly hysteria perpetuated by Morgan Spurlock.”
So your second cite about McDonalds beef content come from a writer who has dedicated his little portion of the internet to making a filmmaker look bad. His link to his Cato institute bio leads to a blank page as he no longer works there. Why this makes him the “go to guy” on hamburger content isn’t clear.
His only reference as to the content of the beef is the same page as your third link, which merely repeats the claim under discussion again. His other links are to old articles about how McDonalds sources the beef they use, which isn’t really relevant to the discussion at hand. No one is wondering if McD’s uses beef at all, only whether it’s all they use. So your second link isn’t very helpful to that at all.
There is no indication whatsoever of the bias or lack thereof with respect to McDonalds or their opponents among the anonymous authors of the Wikipedia article. The title, “McDonald’s Urban Legends”, suggests a pro-McDonalds bias in the absence of any other info. There is also no indication of the anonymous authors’ expertise on beef or the practices of the fast food industry. There are six footnote references in the section of the article dealing with the hamburger meat. The first three would appear to reference supporting material on the cost and nutritional value of worm meat. The fourth refers to a Snopes article about the worm controversy (an article which the Wiki article incorrectly cites in at least one place), most of whose sources are other UL gathering references, although Newsweek’s 1978 article on the matter is referenced, separating the Wiki article from its purported source material by two degrees. The fifth cite is an About.com article about a cow eyeball controversy which does not cite its own sources, and the sixth is a newspaper article written in Portugese, whose credibility I am unable to determine, as I don’t read the language.
So in answer to the question, How can I be sure that McDonalds’ hamburger meat is all beef and nothing else nasty added intentionally?, your reply amounts to:
McDonalds uses 100% beef in their patties. Here’s why you should believe it when I say it:
This random collection of anonymous people who felt like writing about and discussing McDonalds Urban legends over the past four years says the following:
*McDonalds does not use worm meat. We can be pretty sure of this since they provide leads to the price of worms, and the other people who like to write about Urban Legends that they hamfistedly paraphrase seem to have read an old Newsweek article that said they didn’t.
*They also say cow eyeballs are not used, and another Urban Legends writer agrees with them.
McD’s doesn’t use kangaroo meat, although they don’t really say why we should believe that.
*They don’t use mutant laboratory meat, as it says in a Portugese e-mail, but this English Language encyclopedia page doesn’t have an English language source that backs them up.
This journalist and self-described Libertarian policy wonk says Morgan Spurlock is a doodyhead and the reason McD’s hamburgers don’t taste good anymore is that they use leaner beef than they used to, although the article he claims backs him up on this actually merely says that McD’s started getting their already lean beef (which is then mixed with fat cuttings from the processor) from overseas due to American shortages.
Cuz McDonalds says so, that’s why!
WhyNot says “good cites” to that. I don’t. Doesn’t mean that the burgers aren’t all beef, only that your post and cites aren’t sufficient to make the case.
