McRib contains same chemical in yoga mats.
As any fast food connoisseur worth his weight knows, the McDonald’s McRib is back for a limited time (through November 14th!), but some people are set on taking the fun out of the 500-calorie marketing gimmick. While we all know the McRib doesn’t actually contain rib, do we really want to know what it does contain? Whether you like it or not, we’re about to find out.
Reportedly the sandwich’s ingredients include “a flour-bleaching agent used to make the soles of shoes… and foamed plastics like gym mats.” Hungry for more? Mixed in with all of those slivered onions, dill pickles and tangy barbecue sauce, there are roughly 70 other ingredients, with the bun alone containing 34, jam packed with chemicals that we can’t pronounce. And then there’s the “meat”…
The McRib, at its heart, is, well… heart. 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.
Time Magazine’s Healthland blog reports that among the McRib’s 70 ingredients are azodicarbonamide, ammonium sulfate and polysorbate 80.
While the amounts are very small, the blog notes that 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, is found in the McRib bun.”
The blog says azodicarbonamide is banned in Europe and Australia as a food additive.
