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Have you heard about one where McDonald's is allegedly the largest purchaser of cow eyeballs in the world? According to the rumor I've heard, "100% all beef" includes eyeballs. Can you please investigate this and refute or confirm it?
Let's face it, although most of us eat fast food of one sort or another for the sake of convenience, we don't really trust it. We don't trust it because it's cheap, mass-produced and sold to us by vast, impersonal corporations.
But we still eat it, suffering queasy afterthoughts as a kind of penance. The sharing of fast food horror stories — of which "Icky Hamburger Additives" make up a major subgenre — is one way we express our collective misgivings about how we eat in the 21st Century.
"Contains 100% pure USDA inspected beef; no additives, no fillers, no extenders."
Note, that's 100% pure beef, not 100% of the beef.
Which would seem to rule out eyeballs. Indeed, under USDA rules the inclusion of any "beef byproducts," let alone scrap parts, must be labeled accordingly.
Cost would seem to rule them out, as well. Contrary to popular assumption, bovine eyeballs can fetch a higher price on the open market than the choicest cuts of beef. That's because they're in demand at research facilities and college biology labs for experimental purposes. At one online biological supply house I checked (yes, you can buy cow eyeballs over the Internet!), the going rate was $15 apiece. (Similarly, earthworms — another alleged low-cost substitute for beef in fast food burgers — are more expensive than beef itself).
If, in fact, McDonald's were the world's largest purchaser of cow eyeballs, we could only surmise that the burger chain is engaged in some sort of very expensive, super-secret scientific research — a horror story unto itself.
Dear Guide:
Dear Reader:
The alleged adulterant of the moment is cow eyeballs, but over the years horse meat, kangaroo meat, camel meat and even earthworms have been rumored secret substitutes for beef in McDonald's burgers. Small wonder the company now goes to the trouble of labeling all of its hamburger products thus:
More fast food horrors:
The McPus Sandwich
McDonald's customer bites into a tumorous chicken sandwichUnhappy Meal
Woman finds a breaded, fried chicken head in her box of McDonald's wingsCockroach Egg Tacos
Taco Bell customer experiences unusual symptoms after eating a chicken tacoKFC's 'Genetically Manipulated Organisms'
Did Kentucky Fried Chicken have to change its name because its products aren't legally "chicken"?'Worm Burgers' and Other Horrors
A smorgasbord of fast food urban legends
