McDonald’s takes steps to offer better burgers

While we would pause to say McDonald’s is a contender for our Clean Living investment theme, the company continues to overhaul its food offerings, making them a “better” Guilty Pleasure choice for consumers. Yes, it would be a stretch to call those now artificial ingredient free burgers “healthy” but we do applaud McDonald’s efforts to improve the quality of its products by making more of them free of artificial preservatives, artificial flavors, and added colors. And while they’ve dealt with the cheese and buns, one has to wonder how and when they will handle their pickles…

Given the herd like mentality across competitors, now to see how long until Burger King and others follow suit.

McDonald’s announced today that it has officially removed all artificial ingredients from its burgers, including regular burgers, cheeseburgers, double cheeseburgers, Big Macs, Quarter Pounders, Quater Pounders with cheese, and Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese.

All the ingredients in these burgers—that means the American Cheese, the Special Sauce, and all the buns, including plain, sesame and Big Mac—will be free of artificial preservatives, artificial flavors, and added colors. Specifically, there’s no more sorbic acid in the cheese; no more potassium sorbate, sodium benzoate, and calcium disodium EDTA in the Special Sauce; and no more calcium propionate in the buns, USA Today reports.

Now, McDonald’s, with its 14,000 U.S. locations, says that a full two-thirds of its burgers and sandwiches are totally natural. 

The remaining one-third is bad news for breakfast fans who want to “eat clean.” The Egg McMuffin; Bacon, Egg & Cheese Biscuit; and Bacon, Egg & Cheese McGriddles, among other sandwiches, still contain artificial ingredients.

Source: McDonald’s Nixes Artificial Ingredients from Its Burgers | Food & Wine

About the Author

Chris Versace, Chief Investment Officer
I'm the Chief Investment Officer of Tematica Research and editor of Tematica Investing newsletter. All of that capitalizes on my near 20 years in the investment industry, nearly all of it breaking down industries and recommending stocks. In that time, I've been ranked an All Star Analyst by Zacks Investment Research and my efforts in analyzing industries, companies and equities have been recognized by both Institutional Investor and Thomson Reuters’ StarMine Monitor. In my travels, I've covered cyclicals, tech and more, which gives me a different vantage point, one that uses not only an ecosystem or food chain perspective, but one that also examines demographics, economics, psychographics and more when formulating my investment views. The question I most often get is "Are you related to…."

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