Look: I am eager to learn stuff I don't know--which requires actively courting and posting smart disagreement.

But as you will understand, I don't like to post things that mischaracterize and are aimed to mislead.

-- Brad Delong

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Saturday, February 2, 2013

Mish Mashes the McRib

The McRib returneth.  Be very afraid.

As much as I castigate Mish for his libertarian cum Austrian fantasies, he's not all wrong, all the time.

Here, he enlightens us on the McRib, which is in fact not made of ribs.

Quoting The Natural Society, Mish shares this information.  [Quotes excerpted and not in the order presented]

But what’s really inside the McRib specifically that makes it such a food abomination? Containing over 70 ingredients, the McRib is full of surprises — including ‘restructured meat’ technology that includes traditionally-discarded animal parts brought together to create a rib-like substance.
.   .   .  
Out of the 70 ingredients that make up the ‘pork’ sandwich, a little-known flour-bleaching agent known as azodicarbonamide lies among them.
.   .   .
 In Australia and Europe, the use of azodicarbonamide as a food additive is banned. In Singapore specifically, use of this substance in food can result in a $450,000 fine and 15 years in jail.
.   .   .
Since McDonald’s knows you’d never eat a pig heart, tongue, or stomach on your plate, they decided instead to grind up these ingredients and put them into the form of a typical rib.
.   .   .  
So in other words, it’s not actually a rib. Instead, it’s a combination of unwanted animal scraps processed down in major facilities and ‘restructured’ into the form of a rib. Then, 70 additives, chemicals, fillers, and GMO ingredients later, you have a ‘meat’ product that tastes like ribs.

Azodicarbonamide. Yum!

Of course, this problem occurs because of unfettered capitalism, placing bottom line profits above any other considerations, including health and decency; and the obvious solution is more stringent regulation - maybe something along the lines of what they have in that capitalist paradise, Singapore.

I wonder what Mish would think about that.

4 comments:

Cirze said...

We know what he'd say.

He thinks he's a libertarian champion (whatever that means in today's uber-libertarian world).

Funny how when "deregulation beliefs" meet the reality of his personal health . . . well, we'll wait a long time before he addresses the obvious.

Which you've pinpointed for him spectacularly.

Meh.

Thanks, sweetie!

S

BadTux said...

Of course, this nasty comoposition makes the McRib not much different from the "beef" in their hamburgers, which is "beef" only if you squint real hard, being comprised primarily of waste parts processed with nasty chemicals to turn it into something vaguely resembling actual beef. There's a *reason* why, the few times a month I eat a hamburger, it's from In'n'Out, which grinds their own meat fresh daily in their own processing plant and makes their own french fries fresh in the stores rather than rely on the industrial supply chain. I might pay twice as much but at least I know I'm not being poisoned -- there's nothing in their beef except beef, and I can watch them shove potatoes into the fry-making machine immediately after I order and see that my fries aren't treated with any kind of chemicals other than the vegetable oil they get cooked in and the smattering of salt sprinkled atop after they come out of the fryer.

And that of course is Mish's answer -- if you don't like the toxic chemicals used in McDonald's food, simply don't eat there. The problem is that Mish's answer requires perfect knowledge. I didn't have the slightest idea that McDonalds used a chemical that is primarily used in foamed plastics as a foaming agent as an ingredient of the McRib. I assumed that the McRib was a nasty abomination simply because it came from McDonald's, but that's because I've been paying attention to lefty publications about what goes into McDonalds' meat. But the average guy on the street? Fugghedaboutit. How's he going to know? Does Mish's Libertopia require strict labeling of ingredients for things like McRibs, or would that cause him to break out in boils? Curious penguins are... curious!

- Badtux the Non-libertopian Penguin

Jazzbumpa said...

Right wingers in general are against labeling information. To your point exactly - you need the information to make an informed choice, but they don't want you to have the information.

Which also explains Fox News,

JzB

Lovable Derek said...

Stimulating post. Thanks for this.