Anyone else notice that McDonalds is making a *killing* lately?

[Niptuck MD]

It's a great product, even if you don't like it. The taste is honestly good.

disagree mate.

the product is not good, it is just CONVENIENT: people have gotten lazy and thus suffer for it. Watch super size me. There are chemicals in mcdonalds food that triggers your senses to make it feel like you think it tastes good but in all reality it is utter shit. Just like most of the USAs food supply. Utter dogcrap. And rightfully so since Mcdonalds has ruined modern agriculture and destroyed the plight of the once noble, and lucrative american farming industry. Mcdonalds is utter dog shit and is a far cry to what Ray Kroc once dreamt of this to be. I strongly believe that him, sam walton and dave thomas etc did not anticipate the types of cruetly and inhumane business practices that these corporations make in the name of Convenience.

 

[Boo]

Not everyone hates McDonald's. I actually think the food there is good, especially for the price. I can't think of another restaurant where I can go into in any city on the planet and come out with a burger that tastes the exact same. That's incredibly hard to do, practically impossible. A lot of people just want to hate McDonald's because it makes them feel superior.

It's the same with Budweiser. Most people have ZERO idea how hard it is to make a consistent taste with local ingredients. Water in Ohio tastes different to water in London which is different to the water in Delhi, yet Budweiser tastes the same everywhere, the same as McDonald's.

It's a great product, even if you don't like it. The taste is honestly good. People who disagree are either going in with pre-conceived notions or they are accustomed to buying better quality food. If there was a better product out there at the same price, it would get more attention (not necessarily win), but there isn't.

It's not just the burgers either, the drinks they sell are delicious. In Canada they took over the old Tim Hortons contract AFAIK. So their coffee is the old Tim's coffee, which most people prefer to their new one. As a result a huge amount of people have swapped from Tim's to McDonald's coffee and then for convenience, they get their breakfast there too etc etc.

When I travel to NYC or LA or Paris, I consistently eat McDonald's at least once. It's convenient, fast, tastes good and I know precisely what I'm going to get.

 

[The Abundant Man]

 

[luniac]

 

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[ChrisV]

I don’t know if it has to do with the new machines they started putting in:



Or the other changes they made, but holy shit. I pass this place at 1AM and there are lines around the block.

I mean don’t get me wrong. I hate McDonalds as much as the next guy. Especially as a health nut. But that’s actually one of the funnier points. Everyone hates McDonalds. Yet despite the amount of hate they get, they’re still out there like:



And especially lately? In the city I live, there are 5 McDonalds’ within a few mile radium. Every one of them is constantly packed. At all hours of the day and night.

Burger King? Ghost Town.
Taco Bell? Not even the ghosts go there lol
Dunkin Donuts? They get a little action, but nothing like McDonalds

The lines at Burger King are the equivalent of Tai Lopez’s intellectual credibility. In other words, they’re totally nonexistent. McDonalds? Those shitty rubber burgers are selling like hotcakes.

What’s going on here? What do you guys think they’re doing right?

 

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[mike24601]

Yes. They appeal to people who can't spend money on healthier foods and probably don't care about anything other than taste when it comes to feeding themselves or their children. In other words, they appeal directly to most "sidewalkers" and "slowlane" folks (penny pinchers). And there's a LOT of them around.

Warren Buffett is notorious for eating McDonalds every single day, washed down with multiple regular cokes. A man who has money to eat whatever he wants chooses McD's. But he probably receives some kind of alien blood transfusion every week so it's unrealistic to compare his diet choices to that of mere mortals.

Actually I imagine a great deal of modern day Fastlaners eat fast food on the reg. The Zuck types who are so focused on their work that they either have no time to eat better or no regard for what is put in front of them. Henry Ford was one such early Fastlaner who was so disinterested in food that he would routinely cook and eat the weeds growing in his back yard. In his mind, the stomach was no different from a combustion engine, and the weeds were wasted energy that could be put to good use.

 

[DennisD]

I'm convinced that these companies live and die by peripheral zeitgeist.

Malcolm Gladwell has a fantastic talk about the cultural rise and fall of wonderbread. When it first came out it represented consistent sanitation in a world where local bakers used poisonous fillers within their bread to save $.

Decades later, it transformed into an incarnation of 'the man'. White, bland, boring, safe. Hipsters shun wonderbread in favor of artisanal choices that support local business.

Same product. Different zeitgeist . Different interpretation.

I mean don’t get me wrong. I hate McDonalds as much as the next guy. Especially as a health nut. But that’s actually one of the funnier points. Everyone hates McDonalds.

I'm currently in Indonesia, and the culture here is SO VASTLY DIFFERENT than America. McDonalds here is 'hip'. Maybe 3-5% of the population has a McDonalds sticker on something they own. A laptop of motorbike helmet.

Can you imagine if one in 20 American cars had McDonalds bumper stickers?

In America the zeitgeist has been against McDonalds because of what they STOOD FOR. The anticorporate vibe, and the 'green eating' vibe coincided with the food-truck movement and the cooking shows for a distinctly anti-McDonald's culture.

We're in a new era.

An era where something cheap + easy + 'good enough' has renewed value in the face of our overcrowded overcomplicated alternatives. An era where it's brave to reject the PC notion that McDonald's is scum. An era where people are sick of hipsters judging them for making a sensible choice when money's tight.

 

[WJK]

Not everyone hates McDonald's. I actually think the food there is good, especially for the price. I can't think of another restaurant where I can go into in any city on the planet and come out with a burger that tastes the exact same. That's incredibly hard to do, practically impossible. A lot of people just want to hate McDonald's because it makes them feel superior.

It's the same with Budweiser. Most people have ZERO idea how hard it is to make a consistent taste with local ingredients. Water in Ohio tastes different to water in London which is different to the water in Delhi, yet Budweiser tastes the same everywhere, the same as McDonald's.

It's a great product, even if you don't like it. The taste is honestly good. People who disagree are either going in with pre-conceived notions or they are accustomed to buying better quality food. If there was a better product out there at the same price, it would get more attention (not necessarily win), but there isn't.

It's not just the burgers either, the drinks they sell are delicious. In Canada they took over the old Tim Hortons contract AFAIK. So their coffee is the old Tim's coffee, which most people prefer to their new one. As a result a huge amount of people have swapped from Tim's to McDonald's coffee and then for convenience, they get their breakfast there too etc etc.

When I travel to NYC or LA or Paris, I consistently eat McDonald's at least once. It's convenient, fast, tastes good and I know precisely what I'm going to get.

Many years ago, I was married to a man, Bob, who had worked for the Mc founder in his lab in Santa Barbara, CA. Bob worked on developing new food items, manufacturing systems, and the quality of their existing offerings. Bob was a "food technologist" with a long history in the food business -- so I know some of the inside operations of a lot of these food companies.

The way that they get that consistency is by using a commissary where the food is prepared and packaged for distribution. The food quality and handling are both very carefully controlled before it ever arrives at the individual stores. There's a whole bunch of different safeguards in place to prevent mishandling of the food. (It's like the way that the hamburger patties are flash frozen and then put into loose stacks with waxed paper between them. If they become the thawed anytime before they are cooked on the grills, the paper is designed to stick to the patties rendering them unusable.)

After being married to Bob for many years, I have great respect for the food industry in the USA. I have been in many of the production plants and helped set up many projects. The standards are very strict.

 

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[TonyStark]

I just recently had a #1 combo at McDonalds for the first time in about a year, the fries were good but the overall meal gave me a stomach ache like right away.

You can taste how artificial it is - full of chemicals.

I prefer In N Out for about the same price.

 

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[The Abundant Man]

Warren Buffett is notorious for eating McDonalds every single day, washed down with multiple regular cokes. A man who has money to eat whatever he wants chooses McD's. But he probably receives some kind of alien blood transfusion every week so it's unrealistic to compare his diet choices to that of mere mortals.

Actually I imagine a great deal of modern day Fastlaners eat fast food on the reg. The Zuck types who are so focused on their work that they either have no time to eat better or no regard for what is put in front of them. Henry Ford was one such early Fastlaner who was so disinterested in food that he would routinely cook and eat the weeds growing in his back yard. In his mind, the stomach was no different from a combustion engine, and the weeds were wasted energy that could be put to good use.

Trump also eats nothing but MickeyD's. I want to live till 150. So I'm going to keep eating my meat and vegetables.

 

[Chris25]

McDonalds is fast, cheap and addictive. But what they're doing long term with their strategy is creating places that look exactly the same, so it doesn't matter which McDonalds restaurant you pass, it triggers a habitual response in your brain. And you will pass by one of them for sure, because they're around every corner.

 

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[DennisD]

WHAT? Poisonous? Can you give me some details on this? Stuff like THIS really pisses me off! I understand profits, but this crosses the line wayyyyyy too much.

Before the government intervened in the 1950s, bread was sold by weight and nearly all bakers were mixing flour with sawdust as filler. This was something that's happened for hundreds of years.

This included sawdust from treated wood, which, of course, isn't exactly great for your health.

Because you couldn't TRUST your local baker, Wonderbread killed it. Every loaf was machine made, every loaf was exactly the same. People lined up around BLOCKS to get this stuff because they knew they could trust it.

"The biggest thing since sliced bread" refers specifically to wonderbread's debut.

 

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[ChrisV]

Not gonna lie, I am a sucker for Oreo McFlurries

 

[Boo]

McDonalds tastes different in other countries though.

Slightly, yes. But the difference is incredibly small and this just highlights my point, which is that people don't give them enough credit for this. It's ridiculously hard to achieve. In a huge number of countries, they use local ingredients and still achieve the same finished product. Doing that with any business is tough, let alone fast food.

disagree mate.

the product is not good, it is just CONVENIENT: people have gotten lazy and thus suffer for it. Watch super size me. There are chemicals in mcdonalds food that triggers your senses to make it feel like you think it tastes good but in all reality it is utter sh*t. Just like most of the USAs food supply. Utter dogcrap. And rightfully so since Mcdonalds has ruined modern agriculture and destroyed the plight of the once noble, and lucrative american farming industry. Mcdonalds is utter dog sh*t and is a far cry to what Ray Kroc once dreamt of this to be. I strongly believe that him, sam walton and dave thomas etc did not anticipate the types of cruetly and inhumane business practices that these corporations make in the name of Convenience.

That's just not true. People just fetishize local and small businesses. A huge percentage of local food establishments are worse tasting than McDonalds and you can't just sum their success up to using chemicals. Chemicals is such a loaded word because people often don't understand what they are and associate it with danger.

Similarly, farming is just a business, it's not noble. It's called capitalism. A small amount of farmers got wealthy beyond their wildest dreams by growing beyond small operations and the rest got swallowed up or make a relatively small profit.

 

[Niptuck MD]

Arun you are spot on mate as one QC guy to another.

i do realize that several users on here and many others have been once upon a time plagued by the golden arch, however due to the advent of technology and information and advances in investigative journalism, the golden arch true persona has surfaced.... Believe me even when I was young, I begged my momma to go to the playplace mcds. That was a brilliant idea, however, my mom also knew that the upkeep wouldnt be there and heard stories from work that her frineds kids got sick due to the lack of hygiene etc. I will never shun Mcdonalds creativity. Sheer brilliance actually since its inception. The big mac will never ever be replicated. The happy meal as well. The entire culture of pairing toys with movies in the 90s was brilliant..... Furthermore the playplaces and those establishments holding numerous birthday parties for parents that didnt have as much money was also brilliant.... However somewhere along the way, the standards just fell, and corporate greed took over.

 

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[SEBASTlAN]

I have to admit I did love The Founder - one of my favorite entrepreneurial movies.

 

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[Deleted50669]

Mcdonalds partnered with Uber Eats.. now has market access to people who don't want to go to McDonalds.. not that hard to figure out

 

[Niptuck MD]

full of chemicals

exactly bro. once youve come to the light and eat clean wholesome foods, your body has this intuition of crap and it rejects it right away. This happened to me at even a subway restaurant at Ohare. I was travelling constantly for almost 30 hours and was starving because i slept through the plane meals lol and got a 6 inch oven roasted sub and man i felt like crap afterwards its a real shame. On the one hand our bodies may get immune to such chemically induced food from eating them way too often, but on the other hand people that are used to eating wholesome foods (not just organic but overall) and then eat them for lack of options can get sick as well thus really altering the biological makeup of things.

 

[TonyStark]

Mcdonalds partnered with Uber Eats.. now has market access to people who don't want to go to McDonalds.. not that hard to figure out

Can you imagine, being TOO LAZY to go to McDonalds....

 

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[Real Deal Denver]

Warren Buffett is notorious for eating McDonalds every single day, washed down with multiple regular cokes. A man who has money to eat whatever he wants chooses McD's. But he probably receives some kind of alien blood transfusion every week so it's unrealistic to compare his diet choices to that of mere mortals.

You are right. I watched a documentary on Buffet and lost a lot of respect for him. His office is a 5 minute drive from his home, and there is a McDonalds on the way. He stops and gets a breakfast sandwich which costs him $1.61. He always has the exact change and goes through the drive-thru. He has three things he orders, depending on whether he has done well in the markets, which determines how much he will "splurge." I only remember the $1.61 one, which was the lowest priced option of the three.

Here is a near genius that could and SHOULD have his own chef making him healthy food, but he has this mental block that prevents him from thinking at that level for some unknown reason. It is a common thread in history for the super rich to turn into fanatical misers, actually. I've also known a few people that went through the depression in the 30's that were that way too. They saved the slivers of soap left from their bars of soap and made new bars from them. Amazing how they would think.

Anyway, this entire show was a waste of time to learn anything of any value. I did get a glimpse into his family life, as they also talked with his adult children. Equally unenlightened fare.

He is a VERY frustrating man to listen to. He stammers a lot and rarely says much of value. He uses a lot of cliches and idioms. He is extremely predictable. But what do I know? Maybe simple is good? Nobody can fault his success, that's for sure. He reads financial news 4-6 hours every day. After watching this show, I now think of him more like rain man. He is extremely focused on business statistics and analysis, almost to a fanatical level. That may be good - but I could not carry on a meaningful conversation with him. His kids all said that too.

By contrast, EVERYTHING I've ever seen on Jobs, Gates, Dell, Musk, has been fascinating. It's not that I'm critical or hard to please ~

 

[ChrisV]

I’m not gonna lie though, I indulge in some McDonalds hate.

I think they’re immoral. I think they put profits before people. I think their actions have added to the obesity epidemic in the US. They specifically engineer unhealthy foods to be palatable, they sell french fries soaked in grease in boxes with toys and smiley faces written all over them, imagine if we market cigarettes like that? I think in 15 years McDonalds will be the new Marlboro. And granted people buy it, but people have evolved to love salt sugar and fat. They have no choice. They’re highly pleasurable to humans due to the scarcity of those 3 things in evolutionary times. But McDonalds is more than ready to capitalize on that fact. They’re not the only ones/ Coca-cola, Kellogs, Nabisco. And then even worse is the perpetuation of the notion that healthy foods are expensive? Yea, maybe if you go to Whole Foods. But you can get a pretty-good banana for 39 cents which is way cheaper than even the dollar menu. But they love this myth because it keeps people buying.

Again, I eat the food sometimes (totally love McFlurries!,) but I wish they would do more to help obesity and less to harm people.

 

[SEBASTlAN]

McDonalds tastes different in other countries though.

 

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[Niptuck MD]

huge percentage of local food establishments are worse tasting than McDonalds

this is lunacy. sheer lunacy mate. When i lived in midwest and in the south, EVERY local food establishment tasted better even on their "off" days then mcdonalds. I dont know what mcdonalds you go to but you are mistaken.

 

[Niptuck MD]

It's cheap to sell, cheaper to make

exactly. Because of general populous (worldwide) ignorance and laziness, mcdonalds will continue to thrive. people just do not know enough to realize what in the hell they are actually consuming. There was a reason my mother never took any of us to Mcdonalds even in the 90s. Her excuse was the sodas and the sugar aspect but then the child obesity epidemic was just in its inception. Momma knew best i guess. After doing my own research and talking to many agriculturalists in Illinois, they all fathom at what Mcdonalds has become in order to produce "cheaper to make" food. A better fast food option is by far Chic.fil A. they make a killing and they are neither open 24 hours a day nor sundays. Plus their food is genuinely more healthy and tastes better than any Mcdonalds chicken meals. Chic fil A just markets chicken rather then beef. Mcdonalds does not even use so-called "angus" beef as it claims. It is pure altered rubbish. There has been cases of ammonia mixed with the meat to give it coloring and preservation against rampant germs due to storage and inadequacies. Really, they are by far a " trusted brand" only to the sheeple and those that know better and who are poorer, unfortunately. I wish they would wake the hell up.

 

[ChrisV]

It really is convenient... and cheap.

But other places are better quality and just as cheap so i dunno

 

[Niptuck MD]

Similarly, farming is just a business, it's not noble. It's called capitalism.

farming is not just a business mate. it is survival. It is noble. Its not our fault that we ahve been raised to shun this important profession and field. It is absolute blasphemy the number of hard working barely making it farmers I have encountered in my travels that tell their sons do not follow my path.... How else will a population of 360 million sustain itself food wise without farming? Maybe the generic population prefers altered genetically modified foods so they can fill their bodies with foreign chemicals and compounds that over the thousands of years our biological systems have never encountered before... And then we wonder why everyone is obese, getting sick, getting tired, lack of energy etc etc.
And then the government incentivizes and loves fast food chains that the general populous can only afford because unfortunately in USA eating healthy is bloody expensive and cumbersome for many slowlaners.
Farming and government should remain at arms length. However the pathetic world governments only favor certain crops for incentivization and exports. This causes a troubled and insufficient food supply. I am tired of numerous people getting cancer in the US. I am tired of the health problems in the US thus causing everyones medical insurance to go up and up. I just want a more educated and knowledgeable populous that knows what's in their foods and where it comes from.

 

[Crexty]

I am guilty of eating McChickens.. Many of them.

 

[Tommo]

disagree mate.

the product is not good, it is just CONVENIENT: people have gotten lazy and thus suffer for it. Watch super size me. There are chemicals in mcdonalds food that triggers your senses to make it feel like you think it tastes good but in all reality it is utter sh*t. Just like most of the USAs food supply. Utter dogcrap. And rightfully so since Mcdonalds has ruined modern agriculture and destroyed the plight of the once noble, and lucrative american farming industry. Mcdonalds is utter dog sh*t and is a far cry to what Ray Kroc once dreamt of this to be. I strongly believe that him, sam walton and dave thomas etc did not anticipate the types of cruetly and inhumane business practices that these corporations make in the name of Convenience.

Arun you are spot on mate as one QC guy to another.

 

[jon.M]

Subway always has that strong plastic-ish smell in their food. Can smell from tens of feet away. I doubt Subway is as healthy as they claim to be.

I've always laughed when people talk about Subway like it's a healthy fast food option. Let's deconstruct a sandwich. It's got lots of bread. Some kind of meat or vegan patty. Sauce. Some veggies.

How's that ANY different from a burger?

"No, it's in a sandwich format so it's really wholesome"

 

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[Chromozone]

I had a McDonald's experience earlier this week.

I got up at 6AM and since my schedule was so full I forgot to eat. I had to catch a train at 8PM for a sales meeting the following day and got to my destination at 11PM.

Let me tell you, when I saw those golden arches at the train station I was pretty damn happy! And the food really wasn't that bad either (I haven't had McDonalds in years...).

I can see why people like them. And the thing is that even if you don't really really like them, no one/very few people, really really hate them.

The other thing I noticed was that I could've eaten somewhere else - but I didn't know any of the local places. I didn't want to wake up with stomach acid or feeling unwell the next day. This made me think: That that's probably the reason tourists love McDonalds!

 

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