Wednesday, November 17, 2010

McRib Phenomenon or Just McDisgusting?

“I have got to get one of those!” my boyfriend excitedly states from the other room as he overhears a commercial that the almighty Mickey-D’s is now offering the “McRib” sandwich nationwide once again since 1994. “Why?” I said, “What’s the big deal?.” “You don’t know? He says, “McRibs are this huge pop cult thing. You should read up on it.” “You’re kidding, right?” I flatly state. He responds, “Not kidding, Google it.”, as he giggles at my reaction.

So I take him up on his challenge.

What I found was astounding. Several stories announcing the McRibs limited reappearance beginning on November 2nd and lasting until December 5th have been posted on The Christian Science Monitor, The Huffington Post, and amazingly enough, The Wall Street Journal. Heck, it even has a Facebook page. I bet the Big Mac is pretty McJealous, never mind the bitter McAttitude of the Quarter Pounder.

It’s more like give me a break today instead of ‘deserving one.’

So after getting by the Wikipedia description (as if we needed one) and images of the sandwich I find a link to a website called “The McRib Locator.” Here is where anyone can document which McDonalds they claimed their sandwich and also pinpointed which McDonalds’ around the country that others have successfully found the barbeque slathered piece of pork-particle-mystery-meat-on-a-bun.

After doing some research, I decide that in order to write about the McRib, I will have to eat one. Take one for the team, so to speak.

Suddenly, I break out in a cold sweat.

Since I don’t make it a habit of eating anything processed, I at least wanted to know what I was going to clog my arteries with. I found an image of a “naked” piece of McRib. It looked like a piece of shriveled up flesh that had been sitting in formaldehyde waiting to be dissected.

Oh yummy.

Then I made the mistake of reading up on exactly what the “McRib” is made of. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. What I found, in my opinion, was truly disgusting. Directly from the McDonalds website are the ingredients of the rib “meat”. Ingredients: Pork, water, salt, dextrose, BHA and BHT and propyl gallate and citric acid (preservatives).

Attached to the saturated fat ingredients are the equally ugly nutrition stats; 24g Fat, 10g Sat Fat, 70g Cholesterol, and 44g Carbohydrates for a whopping 500 calories per sandwich.

Personally, I think the McRib, is McGross to be McHonest.

Ok, I’ll stop.

I found myself procrastinating to purchase the sandwich. Every day, I told myself, “Today’s the day.” Before I knew it a week went by and I hadn’t consumed the sandwich that has people visiting McDonalds sometimes twice a day.

However tempting, I just couldn’t do it. The pictures were too horrifying. The nutritional stats were equally disturbing. I let down my team.

Or did I?

I wanted to know what others on the Northern Essex Community College campus thought of the McRib so I sent out a blanket e-mail to 70 of my fellow students requesting any and all comments they had on the McRib phenomenon.

Surprisingly, I had only received one lengthy and descriptive e-mail from classmate, Peter Piantigini. I feel his e-mail is indicative of exactly why nobody cared to bother with a response to my original e-mail.

Peter commented, “I just want to urge the people out there thinking about what a great deal they are getting on a $3 rib sandwich, that they could go to a legitimate barbeque restaurant and get something that costs roughly $10 that tastes 30 times better.”

I totally concur with you Peter.

I could only gather that people think the McRib is just gross and not worth commenting
on never mind consuming.

With that being said, I will leave you with something else to chew on. While researching the McRib, I stumbled upon a story about Sally Davies, a New York photographer who left out a burger and fries from McDonalds for 180 days. The burger and fries did not mold or turn color in any way shape or form. To see this, go to
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39656461.

Enjoy!