Mythbusters' Grant Imahara reverse engineers McDonald's fries and learns they have 19 ingredients

boing
61

Watch the video, he explains it.

62

2 Likes
63

5 Guys Burgers and Fries FTW! Potato, slicer, fryer, eat. Funny, I have never had a consistency problem with 5 Guys that McDonalds claims to have resolved.

1 Like
64

I haven’t watched the video, but it’s also marketed as Dimethicone, and given to babies for colic. It’s an anti-foaming agent.

65
66

ifyouwishtomake0aamcdonald27sfrenchfry0afromscratch0a28sun290ayoumust0afirstinvent0atheuniverse-default.png550×550 38.4 KB

2 Likes
67

“Grant Imahara Reads a List McDonalds Gave Him”

Yeah. Probably won’t get the clicks of a ‘reverse engineer’ article in these parts.
Since this is nothing more than a McDonalds commercial (with absolutely no reverse engineering mind you), I don’t know why BB would run it virtually un-notated or expanded upon.

I guess I hope BB is getting some cash for clicks to this nothing-but-commercial via their targeted and totally misleading headline - because I otherwise don’t know why they’d accept it being so blatantly mis-headlined.

3 Likes
68

polydimethylsiloxane is french for nomnomnom, non?

Come on over, early May. Bumper crop guaranteed.

Come on over, anytime.

1 Like
69

MMM

I do basically the same thing, except without soy sauce or vinegar, and with curry powder. I’m going to have to try the soy sauce and vinegar though. Time for a trip to the asian market for chinkiang vinegar :slight_smile: It sounds lovely.

1 Like
70

You can’t spell deliciously scrumptious without PDMS.

1 Like
71

It’s social reverse engineering.

73

McD processes a lot of meat, so it would probably be cost effective to use any waste to create flavor.

74

I’ve never understood this weird pleasure some meat-eaters take in being rude to or upsetting vegetarians.

Yeah. It’s really strange.

Doesn’t there being more vegetarians mean that there’s more beef and bacon left to accumulate in your arteries and gut?

Oh. Wait. Now I remember why.

7 Likes
75

Grant - Thanks for confirming what I’ve been hearing for years about the beef fat!
As a vegetarian, this is one of the big reasons I don’t eat lunch or dinner at McD’s. (There’s also no veggie burger, the salads are boring, and no onion rings. Good breakfast, though.)

For many years, they fried their fries in beef fat at the stores. Then they switched to frying mostly in oil (but with trans-fats.) Then a few years ago they switched to “healthier” oil (no trans-fats.) If I remember correctly, the scandal with Hindus discovering the beef fat was during the last transition, as opposed to early on when “Yes, it’s beef fat. Tasty!” and McD’s wasn’t widespread in India anyway.

76

There y’go.

BTW, I’m not knowingly rude to vegetarians (such as my gf). I have to admit to pleasure at smugness being punctured, though, and a fair few vegetarians quality.

2 Likes
77

I dunno, I’ve had a lot of badly made home fries.

1 Like
78

Yeah, many babies have some serious foaming problems.

3 Likes
79

Sure they can. They just won’t be very happy when they find out.

80

Unfortunately, duck-fat fries have become trendy at some restaurants I go to, where I’d like to have fries along with my meal. (Typically it’s places that my non-vegetarian wife wants to go to, so I’m having salad and beer there.)

81

It would be fun to ask all the employees at a local supermarket which aisle they stock the dimethylpolysiloxane in. “It’s OK if you don’t have name-brand. I’m just making some french fries.”

1 Like