How Bad Is McDonald's REALLY?

Hey, how are you?

>> How you doing?

>> Thanks. It's

>> a big order, right?

>> I'm about to order the most popular

items at McDonald's to show you what's

exactly in them and what these weird

ingredients will do to your body. Why?

Because we're living through a fast food

epidemic.

>> Obesity among children doubled over the

past two decades. The regular hamburger

and the cheeseburger, those are all

between 40 and 50% bad.

>> How is it that some chemicals that are

in our foods have long been banned

elsewhere?

>> Outbreak of E. coli tied to McDonald's.

Ultrarocessed foods now make up 73% of

the US food supply.

>> Millions of people eat this stuff for

breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Without

realizing that, in my opinion, these

companies are shortening your lifespans

and wrecking your health.

We're about to go through the drive-thru

and order McDonald's. What's on your

mind?

>> Complicated emotions. I It takes me back

to earlier times in my life. I feel like

I've played this so many times. I can I

can smell it before we do it. I know

what it looks like, what it smells like,

what it tastes like, feels like. I know

the bag. Like I know the experience so

thoroughly. I can map out the entire

thing. I've done it so many times.

>> Wow. Okay, let's do it.

>> Really? Let's do it.

>> There's definitely a subconscious

version of me that's like, we're getting

McDonald's. I'm excited.

>> We're going to start with the most

ordered item on the menu, which is the

large fry. Let's first assess for smell.

I mean, this takes me back to my

childhood. This is such a distinct

smell. This really is appealing. I

understand why people eat this.

Everybody wants to know why McDonald's

French fries taste so damn good. It's

It's a simple answer. McDonald's world

famous fries are made with premium

potatoes with zero gram of trans fat per

label serving. These epic fries are

crispy and golden on the outside and

fluffy on the inside. But man,

whoever that copyriter is, they need a

raise. First, let's tackle the trans fat

claim. So, that does not mean it's

without trans fat. It means the FDA says

that you can be under.5 g and list zero.

So just note that sometimes labeling is

leads you to inaccurate conclusions.

Secondly, these are fried in a number of

refined seed oils. This is a problem

because these refined seed oils are

unsaturated fatty acids which oxidize

very quickly which form aldahhides and

these are cancerous toxins. These damage

proteins, cell membranes and DNA which

can lead to heart disease, liver

disease, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

Next, we have AES, which are toxins that

form when the starch is exposed to high

temperatures. The AES you find in fries

at McDonald's is 20 times higher than

you'd have in a baked potato that you

make at home. These compounds contribute

to oxidative stress and inflammation

throughout the body, which has been

linked to insulin resistance, vascular

damage, and accelerated aging. But

Brian, chill out. It's just fries and

potatoes. Just live a little, man. But

you know what? I just don't think it's

worth it. Way too much junk and toxins.

I wouldn't do it. All right, next up,

let's reach into the magic bag and see

what we have. We've got a Big Mac.

Everybody loves Big Macs.

>> McDonald's Big Mac. It's more than just

another hamburger.

>> All right, first impressions. I mean,

they really did a good job. And this is

a golden bun. Looks like it's just like

baked to perfection. You've got a

pickles. The cheese is kind of pouring

out in places. The cream is there. I

have to give it to them. It is a really

compelling design. The box is nice. It's

in paper. You're thinking, "I'm doing a

good thing." Good job, McDonald's. You

really made this thing appealing.

Thanks.

All right. If we dig into the Big Mac,

one factoid, which is interesting, is

people have had these out for a decade

and they just don't die.

>> There it is. My gosh,

it hasn't changed.

>> Did McDonald's build Don't die?

Okay, so this guy's got 580 calories, 45

carbs. He's got 11 grams of saturated

fat. That's half of your daily value.

Fiber is only 3 g. Not great. Sodium.

Wow. 1,60 mg of sodium, almost half of

your daily value. 85 mg of cholesterol,

25 g of protein. All right, so pretty

good protein content. Now, there's a

twist here with the Big Mac is you see

this, you imagine eating it and imagine

yourself being satiated. Actually, it's

going to leave you more hungry. Why?

There's a bunch of added sugars and

ultrarocessed carbohydrates, making you

even more hungry. The 9 g of added sugar

is almost as much as a glazed doughnut.

That will give you an extreme insulin

and sugar spike, and then 90 minutes

later, your mood is going to plunge and

make you feel hangry. Okay, so what

about the patty? It's 100% beef. Why not

do that? When McDonald's says 100% beef,

it's not so simple. But first of all,

beef that comes from industrial lot fed

cattle have different fat profiles.

There's less omega-3 and more omega6.

The meats are also cooked in oils that

are bad for you. Now, you may be

thinking the pickles are great, but the

emulsifying agents they use in the

pickles actually disrupt the microbiome,

which can trigger chronic inflammation

and metabolic disease. In my personal

opinion, end to end, this thing is just

a a death machine. So, I wouldn't do it.

All right, next up, let's go into the

lucky bag. What do we have here?

We've got the hot cakes breakfast. This

is the most caloric dense option on the

McDonald's menu. Check out this 1,340

calories.

Honestly surreal

people eat this. This is not Oh, man. I

just feel so bad for the body when this

goes in. This uh can't be doing good

things inside. 41 g of added sugar. It's

going to spike blood glucose. It's going

to increase fat storage. And the kicker,

it's going to make you hungry again. But

it's interesting how much cover

McDonald's gets. It's probably because

everybody shares this addiction.

Everybody. And so everyone like you

can't speak out against your abuser

because you're stuck.

>> All right. Next up is the 20 piece

chicken McNugget set. Not four, not six,

20.

What is this? What does 20 even look

like? Man, that is a lot of chicken

nuggets. I've been out of the the fast

food game for quite some time now. And

with a little objectivity, I'm coming

back and seeing this. This is justing

nuts that they sell this. This doesn't

even look like meat. The weird

ingredient here is sodium aluminum

phosphate. This is McNugget batter.

There are concerns that these aluminum

salts contribute to dementia risk. A

French study found that.1 mg of aluminum

in water was associated with a risk of

cognitive decline, dementia, and

Alzheimer's. One 20 McNugget box can

expose you to up to 2.8

mg of aluminum. That's 28 times more

than in the French study. The frying oil

they use for these chicken McNuggets is

called TBHQ,

which means they use this to stabilize

the oil so they can continually use it

again and again. Scientists have studied

TBHQ on rodents and they have shown it

can have the following effects. Some of

the animals cells died or stopped

working properly. Their DNA showed signs

of damage. It helped cells grow into

tumors more easily. I don't know about

you guys, that's a hard pass for me.

Let's see. This is what happens, right?

The the whole car is is

>> Yeah, it's that

>> it's that smell. Everybody knows this

smell. All right, next up is the caramel

frappe. And spoiler alert, this is the

worst. There's 70 g of added sugar.

That's like a crumble cookie as a drink.

There's few things you could do as bad

as jamming 70 g of sugar into your body,

especially in drinks where absorption is

very fast. A Swedish study showed that

even a 5% increase in added sugars was

correlated with a 23%

increase in all cause mortality. The

caramel coloring has 4mei. Let's put

that big word on the screen here. This

is a manufacturing byproduct that

produced lung tumors in mice and it's

listed under California's Prop 65 as a

potential carcinogen. After the baseball

game, everybody gets together. If you go

to Mickey D's, you get one of these

guys.

They know how to hook us. You got to

give it to them. Like, those are clever

mother. All right, let's go into the

happy bag and see what we pull out. It's

the McGriddle.

I'm scared.

Oh man, this is disgusting.

This is so Oh, man. Even touching it is

so disgusting.

This just smells like sugar. It smells

like pancakes with maple syrup. What is

this? What is this monstrosity?

Pull it apart.

I mean, I want to look at this under a

microscope. We will find upon inspection

this is not really food. They've been

pranking us. This bacon and sausage are

among the very worst things you can

consume. Numerous studies have shown the

increase of all cause mortality with

processed meats. These processed meats

also have nitrites which are a known

carcinogen. The cheese, which like I

guess this is going for cheese, has

additional cancer-causing toxins. And

just as I thought I could smell it, it

has 13 g of added sugar. Why is there 13

g of added sugar in a breakfast

sandwich? I understand. I understand

it's easy and convenient and that it has

all the characteristics that make you

feel better because life is hard and

brutal and mean and this is like the the

moment of joy and reprieve you have from

life's awfulness

and then it just you over. McDonald is a

villain. They're not a happy place.

They're not a good player in society.

And even if they say we're just giving

people what they want, that uh don't

don't do that. If if people want to do

uh bad things, don't enable it. Like

that's not a good argument. All right,

let's go to the bag and see what comes

out next. Going in. What is it coming

out? The egg McMuffin.

What do we got here? Okay.

All right. I mean, the texture is

better. This guy, the McGriddle, that's

just brutal. This guy, I mean, holding

up nicely after a couple hours. Okay.

Let's take a look. All right. So, the

McMuffin is a less harmful version of

the McGriddle, but it's still bad for

you. It's got heated processed meats

like the McGriddle, which as we know

increases cancer risk. All right, wrap

there. Let's go into the grab bag. What

do we have coming up next?

The double quarter pounder with cheese.

M.

This is a tasty burger.

>> All right, let's see. Let's see how it

shows. Beautiful,

>> beautiful, beautiful.

>> I mean, that is a beautiful,

again, a brown top bun. The meat is

thick. It's got a little char to it like

you would uh see in a backyard backyard

barbecue.

The ketchup, the onions, the cheese.

That's a well-designed product. Might

kill you, but pretty well designed. So

essentially this is a bigger, more

harmful version of the Big Mac. It has

more saturated fat, more trans fat, and

has 740 calories. It does, however, have

48 g of protein. How clean that protein

is, I don't know. I wouldn't be seeking

it out. And again, you're not going to

be satiated if you pair this with a

sugary Coke or a caramel frappe. All

right, next up is the McFlurry with

Oreos. So, what do we have to say about

this guy? First of all, this has an

insane amount of calories and sugar. 410

calories and 48 g of sugar. Now, when it

comes to added sugar, there really is no

good amount. You should be as close to

zero as possible. It's just pure

wreckage for your metabolism, your

liver, your pancreas, and blood vessels.

And it just accelerates aging over your

entire body. Compared to glucose,

fructose is 8 to 10 times faster at

producing those terrible AES, the major

driver of aging across your body. Let's

go to the last item. What do we have?

It's the healthy item, which is the

snack wrap.

>> I love it.

>> The snack wraps are back. It's official.

We have been waiting forever.

>> Double checked for accuracy. What does

that even mean? Why does this guy get a

sticker? No one else does. Was my other

Was my food not double checked for

accuracy? Why do I get a sticker on

this?

Okay. Very expected. Tortilla. What's

inside? I'm still thinking this is this

is Taco Bell. What is this? Okay, it's

chicken. It's fried chicken. Okay, fried

chicken, some sauce, some cheese, and

lettuce. All right, so I guess to begin,

it's a smaller portion. It's 390

calories versus like the 780 for this

guy. It still smuggles 6 g of saturated

fat. The big issue here is it's

jam-packed with 900 mg of sodium. Why?

You're licking from a salt stick. Now,

the breading in this chicken has that

same sodium aluminum agent which is in

the

what do you call these guys again?

Chicken McNuggets, which can lead to

cognitive decline and dementia. The team

is inviting me to take a bite of this

and I have to say honestly, they told me

we're going to McDonald's and I had fear

in my heart. We started driving there

and I started replaying in my mind all

of the smells, textures, feelings,

memories of life and I thought, "Huh?"

And then it got into the car and I was

like, "This is kind of interesting." I

maybe feel a little bit. I got it on the

table and I thought, "Honestly." But now

that I've actually touched it, I've

talked about the ingredients. I know the

science behind it. Honestly, I just feel

repulsed by it. And I I get it. I like

when you don't understand these things.

like I didn't understand it and you

realize you think like I'm just going to

do it one time. Not a big deal. It's got

some good vegetables in there. Pickles,

lettuce, maybe the meat's okay. Guys,

honestly, this is like this I've really

changed my opinion. Like I didn't want

to eat it before, but I really changed

my opinion after doing this. This is

just like evil I honestly can't

believe that a company does this. It's

justing awful. And especially to our

kids. They market this, then they put a

pretty face. They dress this clown up,

show it's like fun and dandy, but

they're like causing legit.

It's just awful. Like these guys just

like should be put out of business. I am

the voice of courage and strength. When

you are faced with a decision on whether

or not you're going to eat it, I believe

in you. You are better than this. You

will rise up and choose a better option

for your life. Now, if McDonald's is not

your jam and you want me to roast

another fast food place, leave it in the

comments below.

Caught.

>> Are we caught?

>> Yep. Caught.

>> Man, I'm dying to eat this this guy. I

have this up. I'm doing this. I'm doing

this. You guys, thanks for getting me

the food.