"It's because McDonald's cooks their fries with beef flavoring mixed within their vegetable oil," divulged the content creator.
Over the decades, the fast-food giant has changed the oil used to cook those signature fries, often in response to public pressure for a "healthier" French fry, resulting in a product that many swear doesn't taste quite as good as it once did (not that we've stopped eating them, mind you).
McDonald's uses salt to simply enhance the flavors of their french fries. According to their site, they add a small amount of salt after the fries are cooked.
On its website, McDonald's explains that when its “suppliers partially fry our cut potatoes, they use an oil blend that contains beef flavoring.” “Natural beef flavor contains hydrolyzed wheat and hydrolyzed milk as starting ingredients,” the company notes on its site. In hydrolysis, water breaks chemical bonds.
MSG is created in the cooking process
When the McDonald's corporation made the decision to add artificial beef flavoring to their fry oil, in an effort to mimic the beef tallowy-goodness of the 1950s recipe, they created another chemical component that contributes to the addictive quality of their French fries: MSG.
In addition to frying and seasoning the fries, McDonald's coats them in dextrose, a form a sugar.
Step 2: Dip in “Ingredient Bath”
The now-cut and blanched fries are dipped in an “ingredient bath” which consists of dextrose and sodium acid pyrophosphate.
At the beginning of the potato season, when we're using newer potatoes, the naturally-occurring sugar content is very low and we do need to add a small amount of sugar dextrose to our fries to ensure they maintain that golden colour.
They have 19. But relax, McDonald's implores, there's a reason. The rest of the nearly 3 minute video is dedicated to explaining why exactly each of those 19 ingredients is essential.
According to Matt Hartings, an assistant professor of chemistry at American University in Washington, D.C., One of the main reasons that French fries lose their appeal when cold is that their texture changes. Potatoes are filled with starch, Hartings said. Starches taste good when they are “hydrated,” he said.
In 1990, the company announced that they would replace the beef tallow with 100 percent vegetable oil. After the announcement, McDonald's stock fell 8.3 percent. The new fry didn't stack up. As it turns out, the beef tallow had added more than just cholesterol to the signature french fry.
No. Our fries are not coated in any fats or substances from an animal.
With their high starch content, fries absorb plenty of moisture when cooked at high temperatures, which leads to their signature puffiness and crispy exterior. When left out, the fries continue to absorb moisture from the air, which eventually leads to them turning soggy.
According to McDonald's, their signature fries are made with 10 ingredients: Potatoes. Vegetable oil. Canola oil.
The oil is heated to three hundred and sixty five degrees and the fries take a fifty second dip before being conveyed to the 'de-oiler shaker,' where excess oil is 'shook off. '" Bingo. So McDonald's does indeed use a double fry method, but it's far from the traditional one.
We use a blend including canola and sunflower oils to cook with. Like all vegetable oils, it's cholesterol free. We use only 100% Aussie grown beef to serve you the best beef burgers, sourced from farmers across the country. Our Angus beef is 100% Aussie grown.
Ingredients: Potatoes, Vegetable Oil (canola Oil, Corn Oil, Soybean Oil, Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Natural Beef Flavor [wheat And Milk Derivatives]*), Dextrose, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate (maintain Color), Salt. *natural Beef Flavor Contains Hydrolyzed Wheat And Hydrolyzed Milk As Starting Ingredients.
The oil they are fried in will also have less salt, as will the seasoning and ketchup used in its burgers. The move is a response to the concerns of health experts, who want to halve the salt we eat to curb cases of high blood pressure, strokes and early heart disease.
Using ice water will stiffen the potato's cell walls which help you achieve crispier fries. Just make sure after you've rinsed your fries, you completely dry them before cooking.
Foods like French fries come under the category of “hyperpalatable foods,” that stimulate the reward center of brain, triggering the release of “feel-good chemicals” such as dopamine that can keep people in a constant state of craving, making them addicted to them.
There are no dairy, soya or egg ingredients used in our Fries and our Fries are not cooked in the same oil as other products that contain these ingredients.
It also has an equally familiar-sounding ingredient: monosodium glutamate, or MSG. McDonald's doesn't currently use MSG in the other items that compose its regular, nationally available menu—but both Chick-fil-A and Popeyes list it as an ingredient in their own chicken sandwiches and chicken filets.
Once at the restaurant our fries are simply cooked in dedicated frying vats in a non-hydrogenated blend of sunflower and rapeseed oil which is 100 percent suitable for vegetarians (McDonald's French Fries are officially accredited by the Vegetarian Society).
The formed chicken nugget is breaded three times — first in a light batter, then in a breading with celery and white pepper, and finally in a thick tempura batter that contains leavening agents to aerate the batter. This gives the McNugget the crispy, yet airy texture and lightly spiced flavor.