McDonald's may not be the trendiest fast food chain out there, but they have remained one of the most popular in the world for decades, and there are a lot of reasons for this. Sure, kids love the Happy Meals, and everyone loves the fries, but their delicious burgers are really what keep people coming back. McDonald's has made some noticeable changes to their hamburgers over the years, and their quarter pounders are now made with fresh beef, but that's not the only thing that makes them great. Let's take a look at some reasons why McDonald's burgers are so delicious.
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00:00McDonald's is famous for its burgers, selling approximately 75 every second.
00:05Of course, this means that the fast food giant must be doing something right when
00:08sandwiching their signature all-beef patties inside of a simple bun.
00:12But what makes these burgers so delicious? Here's the secret.
00:16Contrary to widespread rumor, all of their patties are actually made from 100 percent
00:21USDA-inspected beef. Prior to 2011, like many other fast food chain restaurants in the United
00:26States, McDonald's did use the meat-based filler commonly known as pink slime in their burgers.
00:31The substance in question was beef, but only technically. Pink slime is actually made from
00:36finely textured beef trimmings that are then treated with ammonia before being ground up into
00:40a pink paste. Is it gross? Yes, but thankfully pink slime is no longer an ingredient in McDonald's
00:45hamburgers. In 2014, as part of a widespread effort to debunk the negative consumer perceptions that
00:50surrounded their beef products, the company hired former MythBuster Grant Imahara to prove to
00:55customers that their well-known claim to serve all-beef patties was true. Imahara went to the
00:59Cargill Processing Plant in Fresno, California to see for himself what goes into a McDonald's 100
01:04percent beef patty. In the end, he found that McDonald's patties are indeed 100 percent beef,
01:09as claimed. You may have heard that McDonald's burgers are made from entire cows that are put
01:14through a meat grinder. However, many media outlets, including Snopes, have gone on to prove that this
01:19is not in fact the case. The process could not be more different from what the public might perceive.
01:23Here is my hot and fresh quarter pounder with cheese. Oh, that looks good.
01:30McDonald's makes their patties out of a few specific cuts of beef, which is crucial to
01:34ensuring that their products are of a high enough quality to compete in today's market.
01:38While you won't find any of the fanciest butcher's cuts in your McDonald's burgers,
01:42they do use the trimmings from cuts like chuck, round, and even sirloin to create the familiar
01:46flavor profile of their signature beef blend. And while they don't boast their meat as being
01:50grass-fed, the cows they use are for the most part fed on grass for the first half of their lives,
01:55before being finished on a diet of grass, minerals, and grain.
01:59Immediately after the ground beef blend is formed into patties in the processing plant,
02:03there's another important step that contributes to the classic flavor we've come to know and
02:06love from the Golden Arches. The standard McDonald's burger is flash-frozen immediately
02:11after shaping, in order to ensure that it is as fresh as possible when it hits the grill at your
02:15local restaurant. Unlike slower freezing processes, which can cause larger ice crystals to form in
02:20foods, flash-freezing can chill foods to temperatures below zero degrees Fahrenheit
02:24in just minutes. The flash-freezing process has changed the way Americans eat, and it's
02:28been used for a long time. It was developed by Clarence Birdseye, the founder of Birdseye Frozen
02:32Foods, in 1924, and is responsible for much of the convenience food we enjoy today. As McDonald's
02:38explain, it typically takes between two to three weeks from the day a burger patty is formed in a
02:42processing plant to the day it is served to a customer. As such, flash-freezing is one way
02:46that McDonald's ensures they're serving hamburgers that taste as fresh as they possibly can for each
02:51and every customer. Even though flash-freezing is a very effective way to get fresh-tasting,
02:56delicious burgers in the hands of customers, it is not without some serious drawbacks.
03:01Over the years, McDonald's has come under fire multiple times for the practice.
03:05Even rival fast food burger chain Wendy's has repeatedly taunted McDonald's for their
03:08use of frozen beef patties in ad campaigns. In an effort to combat the negative perceptions
03:13about their burgers and to compete within the Better Burger space pioneered by higher-end
03:17fast food chains like Shake Shack, McDonald's made a commitment to make all of their quarter
03:20pounders with fresh beef that is cooked to order by mid-2018. The reception to the change was
03:25overwhelmingly positive, with even Food & Wine magazine saying that the freshly made quarter
03:29pounder patty is surprisingly good. Just one year after making the change, QSR magazine reported
03:35that McDonald's had sold more than 40 million more quarter pounders than the previous year.
03:39"'Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, two Pepsi, one chip!"
03:42"'Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, two Pepsi, one chip!"
03:45McDonald's really prides itself on the fact that their burgers, both fresh and frozen alike,
03:50are made with beef, salt, pepper, and absolutely nothing else,
03:53but they don't stop at a short list of ingredients. They actually take things a step further.
03:58At McDonald's, seasonings aren't added at all until the burgers reach their local grills,
04:02where the cooks add salt and pepper as the patties are grilled to order.
04:05According to McDonald's, this brings out all that great beef taste.
04:09Interestingly, there's some leeway in how McDonald's restaurants season their signature
04:12burgers. McDonald's representatives told Business Insider that they actually adjust
04:17the seasoning based on the country that the burgers are being served in, because some
04:20countries prefer their burgers a little more on the salty side than others.
04:23Unsurprisingly, American customers have a tendency to like their fast food on the salty side.
04:28Reuters reported that one order of McDonald's chicken nuggets served in the United States
04:32contains 1.5 grams of salt, compared with only 0.6 grams of salt in the UK.
04:36The salt content in burgers doesn't vary nearly as much, though. They found,
04:40overall, fast food burgers served up an average of 1.3 grams of salt, or 520 grams of sodium,
04:45across all countries, with only small national differences.
04:49McDonald's makes a serious effort to use locally produced beef whenever it is possible.
04:53According to the fast food chain's website, the beef used in the burgers served in the
04:57United States comes from a handful of producers within the country, a practice that makes the
05:01fast food giant one of the largest purchasers of USDA-inspected beef in the entire country.
05:06However, they also supplement their stock with meat from USDA-approved producers in New Zealand,
05:10Australia, and Canada. According to Business Insider, the company also works hard to ensure
05:15that the cows they use for meat are slaughtered in their country of origin, as this helps to
05:19reduce the need to transport livestock across long distances, which also helps keep a focus
05:24on locally sourced ingredients. At McDonald's, a burger bun is more
05:28than just a vehicle for a great sandwich. It is also a critical part of ensuring burger perfection.
05:33Take the chain's signature Big Mac, for example. Oftentimes, when you are served a burger that
05:37contains two or even three patties, you are still only going to get two pieces of bread.
05:41The imbalance between bread and meat in a larger burger can easily lead to what Business Insider
05:46writer Hollis Johnson referred to as beef overload. The Big Mac is different from its
05:50competitor's Mega Burgers, thanks in part to the club bun, that third piece of bread
05:54sandwiched between the Big Mac's double patties. Like McDonald's other deluxe-style burgers,
05:58including the Quarter Pounder and the Double Quarter Pounder, the bun is toasted and topped
06:02with sesame seeds. However, not all sandwiches get the sesame seed treatment. The chain's standard
06:06hamburger, cheeseburger, and double cheeseburgers are all served on a regular toasted bun, as are
06:11some non-burger sandwiches, like the McChicken. The Filet-O-Fish, on the other hand, is in a league
06:15of its own, with its plain steamed bun. There's one more thing at work here, too, the perfect toast.
06:21In 2015, McDonald's decided that in order to ensure juicier, hotter burgers, they would toast
06:26their buns for an additional five seconds, which would lead to their burgers being 15 degrees
06:30hotter overall. Another change came along with the addition of fresh beef to the Quarter Pounder,
06:34which gets a bun that has been toasted for a total of approximately 22 seconds.
06:39The components that make up a McDonald's hamburger, such as beef patties and buns,
06:43are not made on site in local stores. Because of that, the company has to rely on a select
06:48few trusted vendors to produce ingredients for them. Since their production is so spread out,
06:52not only across the United States but all over the world, the chain requires vendors to adhere
06:56to a long list of strict quality control standards that help to ensure a consistent product.
07:01Each box of frozen patties, for example, is labeled with such a high level of detail
07:05that they can trace any individual burger back to the cow it came from.
07:08The company details an extensive food safety and quality management system,
07:12including how they hold their vendors accountable, on their website. And according to the Orange
07:16County Register, there are no second chances for vendors whose work isn't up to snuff.
07:20Todd Bacon, head of the fast food chain's U.S. supply chain management, told the publication,
07:25There's too much at stake for us not to do everything we can."
07:29McDonald's has been taking major steps to make their menu seem appealing to a more
07:32health-conscious demographic for years. In 2016, the company announced that they were
07:37planning to remove high-fructose corn syrup from all of their buns, replacing it with sucrose,
07:41according to Business Insider. Even though sucrose is just the scientific name for plain
07:45white table sugar, the change in ingredients added to the perception that McDonald's was
07:49getting healthier. That same year, according to Fortune, McDonald's also removed artificial
07:54preservatives from their chicken nuggets. Then in 2018, McDonald's announced that they
07:58were finally going to make changes to their burgers. How? By removing all artificial
08:02ingredients. Although this in itself doesn't make a McDonald's burger a healthy choice,
08:06removing artificial ingredients is an important step to take in terms of both consumer perception
08:11and food quality. After the change, the company proudly stated on its menu that the only component
08:16of the burgers that contains any artificial ingredients are the pickles, advising customers
08:20to, quote, skip the pickle if you like.
08:22And another thing. Some say, hold the pickles. We say,
08:26hold them in your arms and thank them for helping the Quarter Pounder achieve full deliciousness."
08:32It shouldn't come as a surprise that people are passionate about what particular burgers they like
08:36best, and which ones they would not be rushing to eat again. Yes, people love to rank McDonald's
08:41sandwiches, citing the subtle differences between the Classic Hamburger and the Classic
08:45Cheeseburger, and whether or not a Big Mac is better than a Quarter Pounder with cheese.
08:49The main difference between the burgers, aside from the fact that the Quarter Pounder series is
08:53made with fresh beef, resulting in a thicker patty, is the toppings. Even a cursory glance
08:57at their menu will show you that a Double Quarter Pounder with cheese is very, very
09:01different from a Big Mac. While the Quarter Pounder with cheese boasts ketchup, mustard,
09:05pickles, onions, and cheese, the Big Mac swaps out ketchup and mustard for its
09:09signature Big Mac sauce, and adds shredded lettuce for extra crunch.
09:13At this point, you might think that McDonald's has a tendency to micromanage the production
09:17of their burgers, and that would not be too far from the truth. In fact, the fast food giant is
09:21so obsessive about making sure their burgers will have the consistent great taste their customers
09:25expect, they actually build replica test kitchens at their processing plants in order to further
09:30monitor quality control. Before a batch of burgers can be sent off to its destination,
09:34someone at the processing plant is tasked with cooking up some of the patties in the
09:38replica kitchen. There, a series of comprehensive tests for quality are conducted, including
09:43ensuring optimal fat content and flavor. Once the patties have passed the test, they're cleared
09:47to be sent to your local McDonald's restaurant. This is just one component of the chain's overall
09:51commitment to quality. According to McDonald's, some of the other steps the chain is taking
09:56include a commitment to sustainably sourced beef, rigorous policies concerning the use of
10:00antibiotics and livestock, and a back-to-basics approach that manages to stick to the company's
10:04roots without issuing an ovation. And for the customer, that all just means a more delicious burger.