Malcolm Henry
It comes around once a year… after Halloween, and leaves before Christmas… it isn’t the guy who dipped out on your mom, it is the McRib — the deadbeat dad of the fast food industry.
Why do we get excited about this annual rite of disappointment?
And, could the analogy be any more true?
First, the McRib, isn’t even rib meat. Just like that guy might be your father, but he is hardly your dad. Chicago Magazine broke the story a few years ago that the ingredients actually consist of cast aside products like heart, tripe, and scalded stomach. Those tasty treats are put through a 45 minute process to be shaped into ribs, despite not having much to do with that location on a pig. Yumm…
From there, what should be a simple thing to make, actually has 70 additional ingredients. One of those is actually a food additive called azodicarbonamide. If you don’t know — which you probably don’t — azodicarbonamide is a flour-bleaching agent that is more commonly found in yoga mats, and the soles of shoes. Tasty, indeed.
The McRib — not sure how we are really calling it that at this point — also contains ammonium sulfate and polysorbate 80. For your knowledge, ammonium sulfate is most commonly used as soil fertilizer. Polysorbate 80 is used in cosmetics, principally.
Via the MickeyD’s website: It’s no wonder the McRib is The Most Important Sandwich of The Year—seasoned boneless pork dipped in tangy BBQ sauce, topped with slivered onions, crunchy dill pickle chips and served on a toasted homestyle bun. This is BBQ pork sandwich perfection. There are 520 calories in the McRib sandwich. This legendary BBQ sandwich is only here for a limited time so don’t miss out— get it today in the McDonald’s app.
520 calories! Fvck me.
That is over 1/4 of calories you need in a normal 2000-calorie diet (which is a lot of calories by itself)… but a deeper dive on the McDonald’s website shows that it also has 240 calories from FAT. 28 grams of fat… and almost 900mg of sodium. Yo, that is a lot… of a lot of things. I don’t care who you are, that is not part of a balanced diet.
One other note about the McRib, its supplier Smithfield Foods, has been sued over the inhumane treatment of pigs following an undercover video showed some pretty horrific scenes of the mistreatment.
Via my stomach: No thanks.
The McRib first made its mark in the United States during 1981 as a limited run item to distract from the lack of McNuggets during a chicken shortage. McDonald’s first Executive Chef René Arend came up with the idea of McRib. He also invented McNuggets. So two menu wins for Chef Rene.
Despite its initial ‘success’ the McRib was removed from menus in 1985, only to be consistently teased with re-releases. Hey, thanks dad.
Its first return was when you were on the varsity football team The Flintstones went to theaters in 1994, and from there it was in and out of your life until 2004.
In 2005 McDonald’s got a new family issued a statement saying it would permanently be removing McRib from the menu. However, he came back the McRib was brought back to the US in 2007 for its next attempt to reconnect.
It was on he menu for the next five years and then dropped in 2012 before returning again several years later. The back and forth is probably going to keep happening for the rest of your life.
If this all feels familiar to you, we can relate. Fvck the McRib.
Photo by William Enrico Jr Quijano on Unsplash
