Remember those fond memories of going out to eat at McDonald’s as a youngster? Remember how you got to sample various different kind of food that you wouldn’t usually have? Remember how the food felt new and exciting with each bite? Remember how McDonald’s’ fries tasted totally different to how they do today?
For those who who lucky enough to eat at a McDonald’s restaurant prior to 1992, you may have fond memories of their fries. However, you may have also noticed that the fries of today are nothing like they used to be. No, that’s not the nostalgia of days gone by glorifying these fries, there’s actually a very good reason why today’s fries don’t taste anything like they used to, and it’s all to do with McDonald’s cooking process.
As INSIDER reports, journalist Malcolm Gladwell recently looked into why, since 1992, one of the most famous items on the McDonald’s menu has no longer tasted the way that many remember it to.
“They went from frying them in beef tallow to frying them in some combination of vegetable oil,” he explains. “And as you dig into this, what you realize is that that is not an inconsequential move. It’s not like when you’re frying an egg where it doesn’t really matter what you fry it in. A fried egg is a fried egg. A french fry is a combination of a potato and some kind of cooking element. The thing you fry it in becomes a constituent part of the fry.”
Gladwell explains that this move came about at a time when there was great debate about the use of saturated fats. McDonald’s of course believed that their continued use of an unhealthy ingredient such as beef tallow would spell disaster for their company.
“It turns out to be false that vegetable oil is healthier for you than beef tallow,” Malcolm Gladwell continued. “So not only did they destroy the french fry, they gave us something that was worse for us from a health perspective. So everything about it was a mistake.”
At this stage, while Gladwell doesn’t see any change forthcoming from the fast food giant, he is still optimistic that they’ll return back to their old formula.
“If they had any balls at all, they would turn around and say, ‘We were wrong, and we’re going back to fries the old way,'” he concluded.
