The McWhat?

The McRib is back. Personally, I couldn't care any less that it ever left in the first place. But there are apparently folks who are really into this thing. It quite possibly has become the most ridiculously over-hyped menu item of all time. It has this cult-like following that seem to hold the sandwich in a higher esteem than that of the Pope. (And with all of that child touching that's gone on in the Catholic church, that probably isn't that hard to do.) I'm going to see if I can knock it down off of its sanctimonious little high horse bun a little bit here.

Do you know what's IN a McRib? I mean, the term 'rib' would imply that it is some sort of pork. (I suppose it could be beef, but it's not the size of a brontosaurus burger, so I'm going to go with pig.) And apparently this thing has seventy ingredients. And while most of those ingredients compose the bun and the sauce, what you really need to be concerned with is the "pork patty". You know the one. It's some sort of congealed meat that is shaped to look like it has bones in it. There are no bones. That's the good news. The bad news is that there isn't exactly all that much "pork", either.

According to KSEE24 News, "The slab of "restructured meat product" consists of salt (980 mg, more than half your recommended daily intake) and pig innards, like tripe, heart, and scalded stomach." Mmmmm! Tripe, heart and stomach. Sounds like a band from 1974 that was modeled after Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Tripe, heart and stomach. So, they take all of that and blend it all up (kind of like a shake), form it into a patty with fake bones and then slap it on a bun with a little sauce, onions and pickles. Sound good? I hope not. And SF Gate is even reporting that Time magazine is reporting that the McRib contains something called "...azodicarbonamide: a flour-bleaching agent that is most commonly used in the manufacture of foamed plastics like in gym mats and the soles of shoes." Huh. I'm going to assume that whatever that stuff is can also be found in several other McDonald's products. There are an awful lot of menu items there whose taste could definitely be compared to that of a yoga mat.

Look, I realize that one can just just about every part of the pig except for the oink. But that doesn't mean that one should. And I also realize that one cannot come to expect a very high quality level of meat in fast food products. But I'd like to think that there is some regular meat. I don't think that one should have to be subjected to innards disguised as pork rib sammies. And apparently, I'm the only one who thinks that as this sandwich has become more popular than God. We are truly doomed.

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