Why Does McDonald's Taste So Good?

I don't want people to think I'm a hypocrite, so let's get this out of the way right here. I am sitting here writing this while eating a McDonald's sausage burrito and hash brown. I normally try to avoid eating fast food, but there was little in the house to eat this morning, and well it just tastes so good!

What is it about the food that attracts even the wariest of people to eat there, knowing full well how bad it is for you, and how bad their system of food production is for the world? It's certainly not looks. On the commercials the burgers look fresh and amazing, but in reality they are pretty ugly. So why do we continue to eat them?

According to Fast Food Nation, McDonald's secret is a special combination of flavors created in laboratories, along with that infernal scent that wafts out of the buildings and into the street. The United States has a fascination with science, especially chemicals. We tend to assume that science is always a good thing, and that messing around with growing and preparing food will yield results in terms of quantity and quality of food provided.

For example, Monsanto created soy beans that already contain pesticides. This (in theory) should eliminate the extra time needed to spray pesticides on the crops, and would cut down on these poisons entering the ecosystem and destroying other plants and animals as well as habitats. Unfortunately, science is still very mysterious, and we do not fully comprehend the implications of these creations. Who knows what these beans will do to people once the crops have been ingested, or what will happen when these beans inevitable escape the boundaries of the field and enter the environment.

There's no escaping the advertising on the television, Internet, radio, billboards, etc. You know that song in their commercials? That was created by a Berkeley College of Music professor. Yes, it was designed to be simple enough to stick in your head forever and drive you crazy. Much like those car and mattress comercials whose jingles you find yourself singing in the shower every morning.

Is there any escape?

The answer is no. As humans we have evolved to seek out fats, sugars and salts when it comes to food. These are rare in the natural world, which makes us intrinsically designed to stuff as much as we can into our stomachs when we do find these foods. Sadly, McDonald's has tapped into this evolutionary design with their products. It is up to us as individuals to stop and think about our food choices when it comes to meal time. This is a difficult feat, but one worth doing. As I said before, this is still something I'm working on. It gets easier over time, but there will be times when you can't help but eat that large order of french fries. All we can do is try and do our best.


http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/business-brains/green-chemistry-stresses-8216benign-by-design-mindset/16177