When I was little, my mom would take us to McDonalds every once in a while for a treat. It was a huge treat, and I always got a kids meal, with mcnuggets, and then we'd go to the playground. I even went to birthday parties at McDonalds, and no one seemed to mind or judge the fact that we were eating fast food. It was a treat. And if you ask my mom, she thinks the food was made better back then. I tend to agree with her. At any rate, it was very seldom. That's the only fast food that I can really remember eating as a child.
Occasionally on Friday nights we'd order pizza as a family, or my dad would bring home stromboli from Philly. Nom nom. We didn't eat out much at all, we almost always ate at the kitchen table, and nights like these were considered treats.
After I graduated from Elon, I ate more fast food than I'd care to admit. It was easy, it was on my way home from work, and it was cheap. The flavor was there. The quality was not. I still got the same meal from McDonalds. Chicken nuggets, fries and sweet and sour sauce. Every once in a while, I'd bite into a nugget and get something that didn't quite feel like chicken. A couple times, I'd stop going because I knew what I was eating wasn't good. I'm by no means a "clean eater," but I also don't like mystery meat. I eat processed foods (mac and cheese), but these occasional bites would throw me off of the fast food chain. I'd go back, a few months later, and love the flavor again. Let me remind you though: the quality was not there. The fries, well I think those are tough to mess up. The nugget quality wasn't there.
I even started reading "Fast Food Nation," which people swore would make you stop eating fast food. Yeah, it seemed gross, for sure, but I didn't finish the book. I wasn't in a particularly good place emotionally while reading the book, so I'm sure that stopped me from finishing it. I was having trouble concentrating. At any rate, something eventually took away my love for the nugget about two years ago. A picture went viral, and I haven't eaten a nugget since. Haven't eaten at Taco Bell. Had KFC once. Chick fil A a few times. (I like to think the quality is better.) I can count the times I've had McDonalds fries on one hand in the past two years. This is the picture that did it.
Articles all over the web slammed McDonalds for using THAT to make nuggets, hamburgers, etc. Is it true? I can't prove it. But whoever sent that picture out got the job done. I haven't eaten a nugget since. And real life experience with the mystery meat in the mcnuggets left me confidant. No more meat from McDonalds. I would tell anyone to stop eating the meat from that place. The picture scarred me, and I think I'm better for it.
Again, I do not strive to eat organically, I snack on processed foods, I clearly don't have a perfect diet, but at least I'm not eating pink slime.
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