Pink slime anyone?

McDonalds has recently directly taken on criticisms of its food quality by calling out the claims of product laden “pink slime”, fake chicken meat, and worm tainted beef. But does the “Our Food. Your Questions” campaign really make anyone feel better about the McDonald’s product?

Grant Imahara appears in the Youtube campaign to investigate how McDonald’s beef patties are made. However this piece is far from an investigative inquiry from the press.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXgSnUmhdws

Grant asks if “lips and eyeballs are in there?” and Cargill employees proudly proclaim that there are only “beef trimmings” being ground and pressed in “patty formers”, with a “beef-in, and beef-out” process, and then the patties are frozen and boxed, “locking in the flavors”. Later, Grant inspects the patties, saying “looks like a burger”, and “mmm… that’s good”. The video culminates in a visit to a McDonalds restaurant, where a mechanism squeezes special sauce onto a bun and the “moment of truth” ends in Grant happily eating a Big Mac.

I’m not a vegetarian, and I eat McDonald’s burgers from time to time. Would I have preferred not to see this video? Probably.

Should McDonald’s be so direct in refuting claims of defective food products? Is the response dominating search results to an unfounded urban myth, or are they just showing me how my burger is actually made – which may be worse.

By addressing rumors of “worms“, “pink slime” and “fake meat”, McDonald’s may be successfully exposing rumors, but are they only grossing out the consumer in the end?