McDonald’s spokeswoman Becca Hary said the company got rid of an artificial preservative used in the cooking oil for McNuggets and now makes McNuggets themselves with “ingredients that sound more familiar to people”, such as pea starch and rice starch, according to USA Today.
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The fast-food giant also is rolling out Chicken McNuggets and some breakfast items free of artificial preservatives and said it has curbed the use of chicken raised with antibiotics that are also commonly used on humans a year earlier than planned.
The changes come as McDonald’s competes with other restaurant chains that are overhauling their menus to make them more appealing to consumers seeking healthier options.
On “CBS This Morning” on Tuesday, Moss lauded McDonald’s latest efforts, but cautioned that eating too much fast food could still be bad for long-term health.
McDonald’s said Monday it’s eliminating some unpalatable ingredients from its most popular menu items.
Combined, the changes announced Monday affect ingredients in almost half the food on the chain’s USA menu.
The US Food and Drug Administration has said it is unaware of any differences in the safety of foods containing equal amounts of corn syrup and sugar, or sucrose. Besides many doctors prescribing antibiotics when they are not necessary, producers of animals for human consumption also use antibiotics indiscriminately, quite often to enhance the animal’s growth, and not because of sickness.
Antibiotic-free chicken. Breakfast sandwiches made with real butter.
“From our test kitchen to what we serve in our restaurants, we’re zeroing in on how to bring new flavors and choices to some never seen before on our menu to customers across the country”, says chef Jessica Foust, RDN director of culinary innovation, McDonald’s Corporation. But some of the tweaks they’re making underscore how far they have to go in changing perceptions. Among the food haul is one Big Mac, one Quarter Pounder, large fries, one Crispy Chicken Snack Wrap, one McChicken, a large Coke Zero, a large chocolate shake, a large caramel sundae, one Double Cheese Burger, six Chicken Nuggets and one Filet-o-Fish. Wendy’s, for example, has a paid post housed on the New York Times’ website called “Fresh Food Fast: From Farm to Fork”. Chick-fil-A does not face the same pressures because its food has a better reputation in the first place, so it will likely receive a pass from consumers as it waits to implement these changes.
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Mike Andres, president of McDonald’s United States of America, said that over the past few years, the company took a hard look at its foods and how they were prepared.
