McRib Ingredients – “Restructured Meat Products”

My coworker, who is a life-long McRib lover, may have just ruined my chance of ever trying a McRib. Some truths are better left in the dark for me. I'm going to have a really hard time dining on something described as a "meat log" and "restructured meat product". Still, the McRib frenzy cannot be denied.

Did you know that there are 70 or so ingredients in a McRib? Thanks to Ben Popken of The Consumerist, I too am wondering what forest you find a "meat log" in.

Ben did his research and tracked down the brilliance behind the construction of the McRib from the creator himself, Roger Mandigo. Here is what Roger has to say about the creation and edibility of "restructured meats":

Most people would be extremely unhappy if they were served heart or tongue on a plate," he observed. "But flaked into a restructured product it loses its identity. Such products as tripe, heart, and scalded stomachs are high in protein, completely edible, wholesome, and nutritious, and most are already used in sausage without objection." Pork patties could be shaped into any form and marketed in restaurants or for airlines, solving a secondary problem of irregular portion size of cuts such as pork chops. In 1981 McDonald's introduced a boneless pork sandwich of chunked and formed meat called the McRib, developed in part through check-off funds [micro-donations from pork producers] from the NPPC [National Pork Producers Council]. It was not as popular as the McNugget, introduced in 1983, would be, even though both products were composed of unmarketable parts of the animal (skin and dark meat in the McNugget). The McNugget, however, benefited from positive consumer associations with chicken, even though it had none of the "healthy" attributes people associated with poultry.

Read Ben's very funny and fact filled story here.

Okay, here is where I would like to reiterate that some things are better left in the dark for me. I realize I have probably eaten some atrocious man made foods, but, I'm okay with never knowing how atrocious. I would rather live on the edge, in complete darkness. Now, one day, I may try a McRib---but, it will not be while I'm pregnant. Seems wrong to send "restructured meat products" to a bystander without a voice. I will keep slamming back the discounted Halloween candy instead. ;)