McDonald’s recently published a video revealing what really goes into their French fries. It’s part of their new ad campaign called “Our food. Your questions.” in which they try to prove that their menu items are indeed made from recognizable ingredients. Mashable notes that in the video host Grant Imahara “reverse engineers” the process of McDonald’s French fry production and finds that while the chain does indeed use real potatoes, there are also more than a few other ingredients. To make a fry — which at its most basic form is simply potato, salt, and oil — McDonald’s uses 14 ingredients, including strange items like hydrolyzed milk, natural beef flavor, and sodium acid pyrophosphate.
Over on Boing Boing, blogger Mark Frauenfelder points out that that McDonald’s locations in the UK serve up fries made from a much simpler recipe. The official McDonald’s UK site reveals that they use just five ingredients in their fries: Potatoes, two kinds of oil, dextrose, and salt. Frauenfelder writes that “notably absent” from the UK version but found stateside is methylpolysiloxane, “a commonly used anti-foaming agent that’s also an ingredient used to make Silly Putty.”
McDonald’s should probably get their American fries in check as soon as possible if they hope to improve their image and possibly increase sales. McDonald’s spent most of 2014 struggling fiscally and prospects are not looking up. The Wall Street Journal reports that the chain announced a “21% drop in earnings for the latest quarter” this week.