How Your Processed Cheese Slice Gets Made
McDonald’s Canada has been running a year-long ad campaign based on TRANSPARENCY, and it’s been doing very well. If you have a Canadian IP address, you can ask a question on their dedicated site, and someone from McDonald’s HQ will answer it maybe and the answers are so calm and corny and upbeat that I’m … almost convinced? My favorite ones is: “What is your cheese made of? It tastes better than other ‘processed cheeses.’”
The answer: “Hey there, Alex. We’re glad that you really like our processed cheese. The main ingredient is actually cheese. You can see the full list of ingredients here. Have a cheesy day!” GROAAAAAN. Also “the main ingredient is actually cheese,” lololololol. Anyway here is the ingredients list:
“PROCESSED CHEESE SLICE: Cheese (Milk, modified milk ingredients, bacterial culture, salt, calcium chloride, microbial enzyme, lipase), modified milk ingredients, water, sodium citrate and/or sodium phosphate, salt, potassium sorbate, citric acid, soy lecithin, colour (annatto). CONTAINS: MILK, SOY”
“How is it the McDonald’s burger does not rot?” is also pretty, pretty great (SCIENCE). But it was the answer to “Is your stuff good for us?” that brought me back to reality. Truth in advertising is not the same as truth.
The upside of McDonalds being such a giant corporation is that they are under so much scrutiny and are held to a pretty high standard of accountability in terms of what goes in their food and how they treat their employees. I think most people would be shocked by how much oil or fat or terrible ingredients go into their food at your average independent restaurant.
@Michelle I love it when you go out to a nice restaurant and take some pasta home, and the next day all the grease has congealed out and you just kind of stare at it like “I’m sure that’s ALL the grease that was in my entire meal and it somehow all magically ended up here and not in my mouth last night. That’s plausible right?”
I volunteer my multiple Canadian IP addresses if you guys have questions.
I HATE these ads.