wow Melusine... I envy your McDonald's over there... here they just serve different burgers (all meat), chickens, fries drinks... oh and ice cream... no salad, no all-vegetable food here... to make a long story short not as versatile as your McDonald's...

Funny how McD's are adapting their products depending on the country.

In France, since some silly peasants broke one or two of their restaurants, we have some funky burgers with different cheeses from different places. Closer to french products they say. :D

We have salads with different dressings. We even have a special meal with salad instead of fries and mineral water instead of coke. No veggie burger though :(

All the fat used to fry fries or cook meat is indeed 100% vegetal.

I know cause I worked in a McD for 8 months. And since then I eat very very rarely in a McD (only when I am with friends who wanna go). Coincidence ? Hell no...I've seen stuff...yuck.

Anyway. KFC here in Paris are way way way worse than any McD around the planet. Totally disgusting.

Now, back to the topic :

It's like a lung specialist who smoke, a kleptomaniac cop or a pyromaniac fireman...

*shiver*

Doesn't surprise me at all, since many nutritionists don't really know the first thing about a good diet let alone how to help people improve their eating habits. A friend was seeing one because he's overweight, guess what, he put on MORE weight. The nutritionist never thought to include the wife in on the plans and make it clear to her what needs to change and why, much less teach the wife how to make better choices when food shopping. Since the wife's doing the cooking and grocery shopping, it's her choices that affect the husband's diet, and therefore she should've been included in the process.
Many will just repeat to you the "current" thinking, which as we all know can change day to day.

Please remember, I said "MANY" not "ALL" in this post, so if you're one of the good ones (or know one) you don't need to argue it with me, I know there's good ones out their, it's just REALLY hard to find them.

[img]smile.gif[/img] Well I'm an expert since as a youth I worked at McD's, BK, and Pizza Hut (pretty much the only way a 16 year old could earn $120 a week where I came from). SO... my vast qualifications... um... qualify me to make some observations.

Since McDonalds is a franchise you will see WIDE variations from area to area... even from store to store within a franchise you'll see differences based on the quality of management (they don't tend to get too many Harvard MBA's).

Even 15-20 years ago when I worked there... McDonalds ONLY used 100% Vegi Oil for frying, I think the confusion is that they found traces of animal fat in the fries themselves (apparently added for flavor).

I tend to think overall the quality of McD's has been declining. When I worked there our store was spotless, if you weren't servicing a customer you were cleaing. The managers kept us hopping... if you were on the Big Mac/Regular Burger station and you couldn't keep two dozen burgers going at once you weren't on that station for long. These days when I've been in a McD's (very rare) I see people standing around BS'ing when the bathrooms look like crap, theres stuff all over the floor... nasty.

They also switched to using a Microwave which IMO was the kiss of death for them... the only thing they ever had going for them was that you could get a hot fresh burger, now you get a rewarmed dry frisbee.

<font color=deepskyblue>I can definitely relate to that experience, <font color=orange>Thoran</font>. I also worked at my hometown McD's for 6 yrs. The owners were a young couple and this was their first store. It was also the ONLY McDonald's in a 75 mile radius...so we were always hopping.

I know exactly what you mean about the work ethic we had compared to the work ethic I see there now. I'm sure you're familiar with the popular phrase - <font color=yellow>"If you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean"</font>. ;) One of our managers came up with another one - <font color=yellow>"If you've got time to gripe, you've got time to wipe"</font>.

My wife and I use to go by on Sunday mornings before church for breakfast, but it got to the point where I couldn't stand to sit there and watch these slackers they have working now just stand around talking and BSing. We stood in line one morning for almost 10 MINUTES!!! I was tempted to go behind the counter myself and show these jokers the job was SUPPOSED to be done.

The husband that owned the store when I worked there was killed in a car wreck several years ago. His wife (who was co-owner), kept the store for a couple more years, but then sold it. That's when it started going downhill. [img]graemlins/verysad.gif[/img] </font>

That brings me flashing back to High School. I worked at BK through high school and first 2 years of college (was then finally able to get a co-op job).

My wife bought her new (at the time) Mazda MX-6 when she was 17 by working at McD's. All her co-workers were like "how'd you do that." She said "remember all those times you went out or bought clothes while I picked up your shift?" One was so mad at that she ran a key down the side of the new car. I hate lazy-asses (points to feet on desk :D ).

Anywho, McD's has always used vegetable oil for many years. It was recently sued by a group of Hindus and others over the undisclosed animal fat in the fries. That's where you've heard about that. They settled, I believe. So, unless meat is cooked in the veggie oil (incl. the fries if they have not changed them), then the oil won't get contaminated. Are McNuggets deep fried?

The new "premium" salads are topped with your choice of: chicken, tuna, or caesar dressing (contains anchovies). So, not a big play to vegetarians as far as I can tell. The Mc-Veggies are only available at select locations here in the states, including some in NYC. I've NEVER seen one on the menu. (BK, btw, has the BK Veggie at all locations.)

That stuff at your McD's in NZ is VERY different - and cool. McD's is regionally very varied. In Mass., I think you can still find the yearly run of the McD's Lobster... burger... erm... thing. :D

I believe I heard in the news in the past month or so that they are changing the fries to not include the meat flavoring because of the uproar from the lawsuit. I can't find a link to back that up, though, so I could be mistaken.

Nuggets are fried in a seperate vat, as well as with fish (which tends to stink up anything else fried in the same oil) and pies. Fries and hash browns are both fried in the same oil.

Damn this brings back some memories... like when I was soo hung over one morning that when I was assembling the shake machine I had to sit on the floor to put together the blade assembly because I felt like throwing up otherwise [img]smile.gif[/img] , not a good day.

I've always been a burger lover, and one of the absolute coolest things about working at McD's was the ability to customize. I used to get lunch right during breakfast->lunch changeover, so I would make the "Ultimate Burger". It was a Quarter Pounder, two slices of cheese, a Sausage Patty and Bacon (from breakfast) topped with onions, lettuce, and tomato. I don't even want to know how many calories were in that beast... but in those days calories and cholesterol weren't even in my vocabulary. It'd be nice to be able to eat whatever I wanted and never gain an ounce... [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 05-07-2003, 10:33 AM: Message edited by: Thoran ]

Thoran, your customizing was also done by me. At Little Caesar's, Dairy Queen, Baskin Robins, Pizza Hut, Chi-Chi's, Denny's, and... oh, I'm sure the names of others will come to me after I hit the "post" button. I had quite the panopoly of jobs between 16 and 21. :D