What does a berger cutlet consist of? How to make hamburger patties How to make a McDonald's patty

McDonald's popularity has not subsided, but many experts still argue that such food is detrimental to people's health. Faktrum gives 15 reasons that will convince you to give up the Big Mac and French fries forever.

Meat in fries?

Not long ago, the corporation assured all adherents of vegetarianism that instead of beef fat, French fries were cooked in 100% olive oil. McDonald's partially kept its word, only before the potatoes go into the deep fryer, they are processed using a small amount of natural beef flavoring!

Buns not made from bread

McDonald's doesn't want to make losses. Therefore, so many preservatives are added to perishable baked goods that they can remain “fresh” for several years. One of the magic ingredients is calcium sulfate, which is also known as gypsum. But even worse is ammonium sulfate, which can cause nausea and diarrhea.

More expensive than healthy eating

Fast food prices are rising, and the quality of food is falling. For the cost of lunch at McDonald's, you can buy a lot of healthy products in the store, which will make a nutritious soup for the whole family. In any case, to eat economically, you need to cook yourself.

Inglorious McRib

Looks like a delicious seasonal burger at McDonald's, judging by the name with ribs. As it turned out after checking, there are no traces of ribs in it. This is just an imitation, the semi-finished product is formed so that the cutlet resembles meat on ribs.

Fast weight gain

In 2004, American documentary director Morgan Spurlock conducted an interesting experiment: a man ate exclusively at McDonald's for 30 days. During this time, he gained 11 kilograms, proving to others that fast food leads to rapid obesity. And extremely high cholesterol levels cause many diseases, including heart attacks.

Childhood obesity

In 2005, the English medical publication The New England Journal of Medicine published a report stating that the life expectancy of the current generation of children in America could be shortened due to obesity. The health of minors directly depends on nutrition, and fast food often causes childhood obesity and diabetes. But McDonald's does not forget to open more and more game rooms and release more and more new collections of toys for its little visitors.

Questionable meat for cutlets

McDonald's claims that the cutlets are prepared from high-quality boneless meat from the best factories, and the strictest control is observed throughout the production chain. In reality, the meat comes from farms where animals are kept in unsanitary conditions and injected with antibiotics and growth hormones. Moreover, the phrase “100% beef” may imply the presence of cow's eyes or giblets in the minced meat.

Most McDonald's meals are high in phosphates, which increases the risk of heart disease and kidney problems. The fast food restaurant's chicken dishes are of particular concern.

Sugar in French fries

It is clear that no one thought that French fries could be healthy. Only for its preparation is glucose used, which quickly turns into fat and greatly affects blood sugar levels. These fries will fill you up, but only for a short time, and the next feeling of hunger will be stronger than the previous one.

Immortal French fries

In 2008, an experimenter decided to find out what French fries from McDonald's and KFC would look like in a few years. Now take a look at the photograph of potatoes taken back in 2012. Impressive?

High Fructose Corn Syrup in Rolls

Many people believe that the most harmful thing about any McDonald's burger is the cutlet. Research shows that buns are no less dangerous. High fructose corn syrup and sodium make you hungry again within 20 minutes of eating a Big Mac.

How are nuggets prepared?

The famous chef Jamie Oliver demonstrated how nuggets are prepared at McDonald's: the remains of chicken skin, fat, giblets and even bones are taken, then ground, and then from this mash the machine forms the familiar “chicken” pieces for everyone. It is worth noting that children from the UK refused to eat the resulting nuggets, which cannot be said about American children. The corporation claims that it does not use the technologies described by Jamie Oliver.

Unsanitary conditions

Many McDonald's fast food restaurants turn out to be breeding grounds for unsanitary conditions. There are massive complaints from visitors about the dirt and quality of the products. Workers violate hygiene standards both when preparing food and when cleaning the halls.

More than a month to digest trans fats

Trans fats are unnatural isomers of fatty acids, formed, in particular, during the production of margarine and vegetable oils. Margarine and other modified vegetable oils raise cholesterol levels and increase the risk of heart disease. In addition, spenders interfere with cell metabolism (replacing unsaturated fatty acids), contributing to the development of certain types of malignant tumors. And a Big Mac contains 1.5 grams of trans fats, and it takes 51 days to digest them!

Pink slime burgers

On his show Food Revolution, chef Jamie Oliver revealed what hamburger patties are actually made of. During the production of future cutlets, unedible waste from meat production is used, previously washed in ammonium hydroxide to disinfect and give it a pink color. The prepared mixture looked like pink slime, and when a thickener and dye were added, it took on the appearance of a real cutlet...

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The first production where we were brought was the MARR-Russia company, where they make meat cutlets for McDonald’s. The six-story building houses the main production, as well as a warehouse where finished products are stored under special temperature conditions. As the company’s quality director assured journalists Natalya Stepanova Before the cutlet ends up in the bun, it must undergo strict control - from cutting the meat to grilling.

“McDonald's introduced the HACCP system in 1995, which prevents the risk of product contamination through critical control points. In addition, our products are assessed by international independent companies, various audits, in the last of which the result was very high - 99%,” said Natalya Stepanova.

It is quite difficult to believe that everything is so perfect in the production of meat products, because there are rumors that McDuck burgers are so tasty because they are stuffed with chemicals. Representatives of the MARR-Russia company assure that they have nothing to hide, because they don’t even add salt to minced meat (at least beef). And during production, meat products undergo repeated testing.

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The entire process of creating cutlets can be divided into several stages. First, the meat is delivered to an automatic freezer, then using lifts it is moved to the third floor, where the production is located. Here we work with raw materials - frozen meat is picked up by a robot controlled by an operator and placed in tempering chambers (cooling/heating). In these rooms, meat is defrosted to a temperature of -6...-8 degrees. After this, the robots place them on pallets and take them to the meat grinders. In total, MARR-Russia has three meat grinders: one works with frozen meat, the other with chilled meat, and the third with a combination grinder. The meat is ground for some time and goes into a mixer, in the neck of which there is a special device that can remove excess (for example, cartilage and tendons larger than 2-4 mm). The finished minced meat goes into a molding machine, where cutlets of different shapes and weights are already “molded”. The output is ready-made cutlets, which are then frozen. It is in this form that meat products are supplied to fast food restaurants.

In total, McDonald's has six types of cutlets: three are made from 100% beef, three are made from pork. According to Natalya Stepanova, some of the raw materials are imported from other countries, but the majority are Russian-made.

“The beef is foreign-made. These are Latin American countries certified by Rosselkhoznadzor and certified by McDonald’s. Among the Russian suppliers of beef are the Borisoglebsky Meat Processing Plant (Voronezh Region) and the Orenbeef Meat Processing Plant (Orenburg), as well as the Belarusian Slonim Meat Processing Plant,” said the quality director of the production workshop. — As for pork, these are only Russian suppliers. We haven't used imports for several years now. First of all, pork is delivered from meat processing plants located in the cities of Atyashevo, Veliky Novgorod and Penza.”

According to the director for interaction with government agencies Irina Korshunova, McDonald’s is striving to completely switch to Russian suppliers of meat products, but so far this is an impossible task.

“We cannot produce only from Russian beef, since it is very unstable and lean. But none of us would eat meat with a fat content of 8-10%, since it is very tasteless. But the specification of the final product is created in such a way that every guest has a delicious experience,” concluded Irina Korshunova.

Natalya Stepanova explained that spices are not added to all types of finished products. The same salt is most often used during the frying process in restaurants. But there are also pork cutlets to which a certain composition of spices is added, of which the quality director could only remember rosemary extract and salt. But she repeated several times that there are no flavor enhancers, monosodium glutamate or GMO ingredients.

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At the end of the excursion, journalists were told that, perhaps, their own production would be created in Siberia, for which Kuzbass meat processing plants would also be involved. It's all about the opening of a new restaurant in Novokuznetsk and further plans for the company's development beyond the Urals. According to Irina Korshunova, if more than 200-300 fast food outlets are opened in this part of Russia, then the creation of its own poppy complex, where the production of both meat and bakery products will operate, will become very important for McDonald’s. In the meantime, cutlets and buns will be transported to Kuzbass from Moscow frozen.

“To service production shops in Siberia, it is necessary to produce tons of cutlets, and besides, the price in restaurants remained reasonable,” said Irina Korshunova. “For now, McDonald’s has a distribution center in Novosibirsk, where they will deliver finished products in special machines at a temperature of -18...-23 degrees.”

From what do buns

The final destination was the bakery of the East Bolt Rus company, which is the only supplier of bakery products for McDonald's. Buns, tortillas, muffins and sweet pies are prepared here. In general, baking is done according to the old, grandmother’s method - make a dough, let the dough brew and only then put it in the oven. In words everything seems very simple, but in reality the production volumes are amazing. According to the production director Konstantina Kostyuchenko, 13 thousand tons of flour are consumed here per year, and 72 thousand buns are prepared per hour.

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Journalists were taken through several lines of the production process. The most memorable and noisy was the bun-making workshop, where the sweet aroma of dough hovers. Traditional dough made from water, flour and yeast is mixed in huge cauldrons, and then sent to a special room, where it is infused for 3.5-4 hours. Then the dough goes into the mixer along with sugar, salt and some spices. When asked what kind of spices these were, Konstantin could not give the journalists an intelligible answer. The finished dough turned out to be very elastic.

“Why are our buns different from the rest? We use classic bread making technology without adding active process accelerators. It is very difficult to achieve stability. If at some stage of preparation something doesn’t work out, then it will all go to waste,” said production director Konstantin Kostyuchenko. — The most difficult thing is cooling the mixer itself, where the dough is kneaded, which should be cold. If its temperature is above 25 degrees, then everything will stick to the tapes and equipment.”

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The principle of preparing flatbreads and muffins is identical to that used to prepare sesame buns. They differ only in shape and a couple of ingredients. For example, muffins use cornmeal to make the dough crumbly.

As Konstantin Kostyuchenko said, after the bakery products are packaged, they are sent either to be frozen or to restaurants. Only Muscovites are granted the right to eat fresh bread, since by the time the rolls reach the regions, they will have time to spoil. The shelf life of a freshly baked bun is 6 days, while if frozen it can be stored for up to two months. As McDonald’s representatives assured us, Kuzbass residents should not be afraid that buns and meat will arrive at the restaurant frozen, because they are safe. A restaurant will open in Novokuznetsk on September 16, where ready-made products for burgers will also be delivered. We'll see how many tons of meat Novokuznetsk residents and city guests can eat at the opening.

Cooking instructions

1 hour + 1 hour Print

1. So, let's begin. First, soak the dried onions. Just fill it with a glass of clean cold water. Ideally, the onions should be left for at least 3 hours (this was the standard in Mac), but an hour is possible, but no less. If you don’t want to wait, you can pour boiling water over it. This way it will swell much faster. Crib How to cut onions

2. While our onions are “recovering,” let’s move on to the beef. Lean beef needs to be twisted through a meat grinder with the addition of butter. This is necessary so as not to add sunflower oil when frying, but to fry in a bare frying pan. If the minced meat is large, twist it again. IMPORTANT!!! Under no circumstances add onions, bread, or milk to the minced meat - it will turn out completely different. Divide the minced meat into five cutlets the size of the buns. The thinner the cutlet, the better. If you get more cutlets, it’s no problem, put the excess in the freezer.
Crib How to prepare beef fillet

3. Cut the cucumber into thin round slices. If your onions have recovered, then pour out the remaining water and you can proceed to frying the buns. Tool Chef's knife A chef's knife is a universal and, in general, irreplaceable tool that can cope with any cutting job - from cutting a huge piece of meat to much finer chopping of parsley. A favorite of many professional chefs, the Japanese Global is not susceptible to rust or stains, has a very sharp blade and the only thing it fears is improper sharpening, which is best left to the professionals.

4. You can buy buns with sesame seeds, or without them. Cut them in half and fry each half from the cut side until caramelization appears (until a crispy thin crust appears). The fire should be medium. It is advisable that you fry 1 bun and 1 patty for each hamburger, and not all the buns and all the meat at once. It will be juicier this way.

5. Put the finished buns aside and move on to the meat. Pre-heat the frying pan to high temperature. Place the cutlets on it and fry each side for 1-2 minutes (more is possible if your cutlets turned out thicker than in Mac). Don't overdo it, the cutlets should be juicy and not dry. Once you've fried the second side, sprinkle salt and pepper from a salt shaker to taste.

6. Take the fried top part of the bun and turn it over. Drizzle mustard and ketchup onto it to taste. Next, add a generous pinch of reconstituted onion and 2-3 slices of cucumber. If it's a cheeseburger, then add a slice of cheese. Cover the whole thing with a cutlet and the reserved half of a bun. Turn over and eat). Bon appetit!

But I was not only in their kitchen, but also in their factories.

So, in 2013, at the invitation of McDonald’s Ukraine, I visited the Mac plant in Ukraine to see what McDonald’s cutlets are actually made from.

Their production is carried out by the Osi Food Solutions Ukraine enterprise, which is the local representative office of the OSI Foods Solutions holding. The premises for the production of “Osi Food Solutions Ukraine” are rented from the Kozyatinsky meat processing plant (Vinnytsia region), which is one of the suppliers of meat for cutlets (the main shareholder of the meat processing plant “OSI International Holding GmbH”).

Currently, this enterprise produces 450 tons of cutlets per month. Production is certified according to European standards.

Previously, the plant supplied its products to McDonald's in other countries of the former USSR (for example, Georgia), but now exports have been stopped. Why this is so remains a little unclear.

We enter the territory of the plant, where we are met by the director of Osi Food Solutions Ukraine Sergey Ovcharenko (working in this position since 2010).

It must be said that besides me, the only blogger was Olga Finkbeiner (she was still living in Ukraine at that time); a journalist from the Delo portal was also invited to the excursion. The rest of our group are directors of McDonald's restaurants. They are regularly taken on excursions to factories where products for Macs are produced, so that they can see with their own eyes how and what it is made of.

To begin with, we were all taken into a small room and divided into two groups.

Unfortunately, this is the last photo that I managed to take with my own hands...

Before the excursion, all “excursionists” were asked to take out everything plastic from their pockets, take off their watches and earrings, and leave cameras and phones on the table.

Such precautions, as the director explained to us, are related to the safety of the product for consumers, since, unlike metal, they cannot control the ingress of plastic and/or glass into the meat.

In this regard, any introduction of glass and plastic products into the production area is strictly prohibited. So that none of the visitors could accidentally trip and drop a fountain pen or camera into the meat grinder, even if it’s the second dime :)

To be fair, it must be said that Ilya Varlamov once encountered exactly the same ban when visiting a similar plant in Russia.
But they were allowed to film from the upper gallery through the glass. Unfortunately, we did not have such an opportunity.

Thus, my entire further story will be illustrated with photographs received from the company “Axis Food Solutions Ukraine” (I wonder how they were taken if filming is prohibited?) I can only confirm that everything depicted on them is true and I saw the same with my own eyes.

Well, I stole a couple of photos for illustration from Olga Finkbeiner and one from Ilya Varlamov :)

Before visiting production facilities, everyone is dressed in protective suits.

They also took a signature from us that we do not suffer from contagious diseases and will not put our hands or other protruding body parts into meat grinders :)

Before entering production premises, hands must be washed thoroughly.

This applies to both visitors and employees of the enterprise.

To make cutlets, two types of meat are used - chilled, which is obtained from the Kozyatinsky meat processing plant, and frozen, which is imported from different countries, including Brazil.

When I asked why imported meat is used at all, the director said that it is much cheaper, which ultimately allows us to reduce the cost of cutlets and, accordingly, Mak’s products in general. But to what extent this is true, I don’t know.

Meat that arrives chilled undergoes additional inspection and testing, during which various cartilages, tendons and other “unfortunate things” missed during deboning are cut off and removed.

Imported meat arrives frozen and, naturally, does not undergo such processing, but goes straight into a meat grinder.
“Brazilian” beef looks something like this:

At the same time, there is a special device on the meat grinder that removes pieces of bones from the minced meat, if you suddenly find any.

It must be said that at all stages of raising livestock, processing meat and making cutlets, special markings are used, which, if necessary, allows you to trace the history of a particular cutlet back to the calf from which it was made. In this case, it is possible to establish in what conditions he was kept and what he was fed.

The containers used for minced meat and meat are all made of stainless steel.

After this, the minced meat goes into a molding machine, which squeezes out the cutlets.

At all these stages of production, nothing except the beef itself is thrown into meat grinders (I saw it with my own eyes).

Thus, beef patties are truly pure meat. They don’t contain soy (as people gossip about on the Internet) or anything else.

In contrast to beef, spices are also added to pork cutlets, and onions and olive oil are also added to Beef Roll cutlets (they are made from beef).

The company operates in three shifts.
The first one is used to make beef cutlets. For the second, pork.

On the contrary, it is impossible for the spices from the minced pork (and especially the onions from the Beef Rolls) to get into the beef.

On the third shift, all equipment is washed so that beef products can be made again the next day.

This plant produces only pork and beef cutlets, because... According to sanitary standards, it is prohibited to make poultry products (white meat) on the same lines where red meat products (pork, beef) are made.

Well, since Ukrainian McDonald's has little need for poultry products, it is imported from Germany, because... With such volumes, it is simply unprofitable to set up production in Ukraine.

After shaping, the hamburgers are almost instantly frozen at a temperature of -32 to -42 degrees Celsius.

Already in a frozen state, they pass through a special device that controls the absence of metal in the meat. As an experiment, we placed metal probes on different cutlets in different places.

In all cases, without exception, the system worked flawlessly, dumping these cutlets into a special receiver installed and equipped so that only a controller who has a special key can access it.

Cutlets that have passed inspection are sent to packaging.

Well, the packaging is done by hand.

Packaged products are stored in a huge refrigerator at temperatures from -18 to -23 degrees.

Several hamburgers from each batch are fried in the laboratory on the same fryers as in a McDonald's restaurant, and then tested for compliance with the required characteristics (for example, fat content, etc.).

This is how the excursion turned out.
I can only regret once again that, for safety reasons, I could not film it myself.

The photos, of course, would have turned out much better and more interesting, but, alas, “We can’t do what we can,” as one of our presidents said.

At the end of the excursion, I asked a question about GMOs (also a sore subject that is constantly being discussed on the Internet).

According to Sergei Ovcharenko, one of the main conditions for growing beef and pork, which is used for hamburgers, is a ban on the use of any products, incl. feed and additives using GMOs.

At the same time, meat that comes for processing is regularly tested for GMOs in various specialized laboratories, including Ukrmetrteststandart.

Well, and a group photo as a souvenir :)

From time to time people wonder - what are the cutlets made from at McDonald's? We all pop into Mak's from time to time to have a snack, although we know that it is harmful. I love cheeseburgers, but I try not to think about what they put between the buns.

Not long ago, the American TV presenter of the gastronomic show Jamie Oliver conducted an investigation into what kind of meat they use at McDonald's, and this caused a shock among the “eaters” of cutlets at Mac. The video showed some kind of pink paste, which was initially gray, but at the finish it turned into cutlets.

Jamie showed a video of the process of making burger patties (the video has now been deleted), and few people managed to control their nausea. Beef fat was soaked in ammonium hydroxide, animal skins and parts of internal organs were added, and all this was ground into a paste.

Dyes, stabilizers, flavor enhancers, flavorings, according to USDA regulations, the use of such technology is legal. And don’t ask later why your children’s acetone levels suddenly increase or they suddenly gain weight.

There was a lawsuit that McDonald's lost, and they promised to change the recipe.

Several years have passed since then and it’s worth checking whether McDonald’s now has meat, and has fast food become safer? We all know that meat for McDonald's is brought from somewhere abroad. Why didn’t they like our meat, what’s wrong with it?

How McDonald's cutlets are made

Sometimes journalists try to break into the kitchens of cafes and restaurants, but what will they see there? After all, the cutlets are delivered to McDonald's already frozen. You can capture how they are fried and placed in ready-made buns, but the very composition of the cutlet at McDonald's remains unknown to a wide range of consumers.

According to the company, cutlets in fast food restaurants are 100% beef. Some of the meat does come from South American countries, but there are reasons for this.

The MAPP Russia company, whose production facilities are located in, has been preparing semi-finished products for McDonald's and other Moscow restaurants for many years. The company's management is aware of rumors and gossip, and from time to time arranges excursions to production. Anyone can watch the technological process and find out what the cutlet at McDonald's is made of.

All production begins with grinding meat into minced meat. For this purpose, chilled meat of local production and frozen meat from the USA are used. It's all about the fat content of the beef. Our cows have lean meat, and 8% fat is not enough to make the cutlets tender and juicy. American cows are fattier, and by combining our meat with foreign meat in a 1:1 ratio, in production we obtain the required meat fat content of 20%.

This is the optimal fat content, although in some countries the fat content is slightly higher. In Russia, based on the preferences of our consumers, they found their fat content percentage, and this is 20%, no more, no less. Each batch of minced meat is checked for this same fat content, and if something happens, it is corrected by adding lean or fatty meat. No veins, skins or strange scraps. The minced meat is 100% beef, and nothing else.

At home we put eggs, bread soaked in milk, salt, and seasonings into the minced meat, but here everything is different. Nothing is added to ground beef during production, not even salt. The grates in meat grinders are so fine that they grind minced meat without missing bone fragments, if any. These hard pieces are caught by a special device, and the risk of bones getting into the cutlets is zero.

The workshop is quite cool, and this is an important part of the technological process. The meat needs to be kept cool while it waits its turn for the next section.

After the cutlets are formed, they are sent for blast freezing and quality control. Many people have probably heard how someone got a piece of wire or a bolt in a sausage? This is excluded here, since at the last stage, before the cutlets are packaged, they pass through a metal detector.

This may seem unnecessary to some, but these are the requirements of the McDonald's company. Surely they have already paid for more than one broken tooth, and now they want to be on the safe side once again. Employees are prohibited from wearing earrings, rings or other jewelry. All jewelry is left in a personal safe, which each workshop employee has.

The MAPP Russia company produces about 1 million beef cutlets per day, and this is only for McDonald's. During the day the workshops work, at night the meat grinders and conveyors stop. After the shift, equipment and production premises are cleaned, cleaned and disinfected. An operating room would envy such sterility.

Still doubt that the cutlets in Mac are 100% meat? After all, you can’t get burgers like this at home, even if you don’t add anything to the minced meat?

The trick is in processing and preparing the cutlets. After kneading the minced meat and shaping the cutlets into a thin flat cake, they must be frozen. You know that homemade dumplings also need to be frozen first. Obviously, freezing is good for the meat and adds juiciness to it. In addition, at McDonald's they fry the cutlets on the grill, without any oil at all, and they are salted when they are almost ready.

If any additives, flavor enhancers, dyes and other chemicals are added to the burger, then it is definitely not in the cutlets. So, feel free to eat hamburgers at McDonald's, but remember that this is still fast food, and you shouldn't abuse it.