May I call you Ronald? Thanks. You don’t know me, but I’ve got a few questions about your company. They’re about this new product that rolled out of Oak Brook last week - you know, the McLean Deluxe burger, the one that’s 91 percent fat-free. That just about makes burgers count as health food. I mean, what clown thought this up?
Sure, I know why you did it. The nutritionists tell us we eat too much fat (it accounts for more than a third of the calories we take in) and hamburgers are the leading source of fat in the American diet. And I’m not doubting the magnitude of your achievement. Cutting the fat in hamburger meat by 50 percent is, as food marketing expert Phil Lempert says, “major, major, major stuff.” It’s clever, the way you used superlean beef and then kept the patty juicy by binding it with carrageenin, a water-retaining gum that comes from seaweed. Even the folks at the Center for Science in the Public Interest - the Washington group that has given McDonald’s grief in the past for its nutritional sins - is now applauding you. “It’s a much improved hamburger,” says CSPI dietitian Jayne Hurley. (Though she thinks you could have used a little less salt and put it on a whole-grain bun. These guys are never satisfied.)
So what’s my beef? Just this: I’m not sure hamburgers should be healthy. If somebody wants to eat right under the golden arches, they can already scarf down a salad, cholesterol-free fries, even apple-bran muffins and carrot sticks at some stores. Carrot sticks. Everybody seems to be jumping on the bandwagon - fat-free goods are crowding onto supermarket shelves. Other chains are trying to catch up with the trend - Kentucky Fried Chicken is rolling out chicken without the skin, which lowers the fat and sodium. But why defat a hamburger? Each of us carries in our hearts an ideal hamburger. Mine is a particularly wicked creation from an Austin oasis called Martin’s Kumbak Place, popularly known as Dirty’s. Its One-Eye is a bacon cheeseburger cooked on a grill so greaseladen it approaches deep-frying, with an egg on top. So you know where I’m coming from. Nutritionists understand this. Because fat carries food’s flavor, “It’s the fat that makes life worth living,” admits Adam Drewnowski, director of the human-nutrition program at the University of Michigan.
Well, Ronald, I went to check it out. Took the morning train to Philadelphia. Ran over to a golden arches on City Line Avenue. Frankly, I was surprised at how good your new burger is. As another McDonald’s diner later told me, “It doesn’t taste like seaweed or anything.” Then I tasted the patty alone, comparing it to one from a McD.L.T., and found only a slight difference in taste. I felt virtuous just for having eaten it. If you price the McLean Deluxe well, it could be a very big seller. You may be able to upgrade that wardrobe soon.
But you ought to know something. After my bite at your place, I swung by a Philadelphia institution, Jim’s Steaks, for a cheese steak. After all, I don’t get to the city of brotherly cheese steaks every day. I had the works - the five ounces of red meat, the Cheez Whiz, the sauteed onions, the soft white roll. I asked one of the owners, Abner Silver, for a nutritional analysis of his product. “We are what we are,” he explained. I left Philadelphia a happy man. Have I shortened my life? Maybe. Have I enriched it? Definitely. See ya around the arches, buddy.
Sincerely,
John Schwartz
