McDonald’s, an Industry Leader of Health? #McDTour #Sponsored

on the McDonald’s Field to Restaurant Tour

First I met a group of bloggers and other professionals at a McDonald’s restaurant for breakfast. 

I’ve never had, nor (admittedly) wanted to eat breakfast there, but I was happily surprised to find that they offered oatmeal and yogurt beyond their regular McMuffins. 

I wanted to give it a full chance, so I ordered an egg and sausage breakfast burrito, I took a bite and went back to get a yogurt parfait, which I was much happier with. 

Plenty of people like their breakfast burritos, but as I said before, I’m just not a fast food fan. I later found out they plan to add bananas and possibly oranges seasonally. I would definitely drive through for a coffee and banana.

We then took a tour bus to Chiquita Fresh Express in Salinas where all of McDonald’s fruits and vegetables are processed and packaged. I, of course, ate a banana first thing.

We learned about where all the produce comes from, most right here in California, so if you’re a Californian, you’re eating local much of the time! Though they do have to get produce from elsewhere as seasons allow.

All the produce served at McDonald’s is farm fresh, including tomatoes, onions, lettuce, and apples. The only exception are the potatoes for fries, those are frozen. Everything else is shipped, washed, and packaged in a very short time frame. They keep things cold!

I got to go inside and see all the fantastic machines used to prepare all the apples that are now included in every happy meal as well as the small diced ones in oatmeal.

I had to suit up in a hair net, hard hat, thick jacket, lab coat, cotton gloves, with latex gloves over those and I was still cold!

It was interesting to see how extremely careful they are with sanitation and quality of each slice.

I wished my kids could have been with me on my field trip! It amazes me that people thought up and built these intricate machines to turn an apple the right way then peel, core, and chop it in one swift motion.

I saw how they washed the apples and rinsed them only in water and calcium ascorbate, to retain color. They don’t add anything else to them, which surprised me because I think they taste funny. However, I am used to fruit right off the tree, with nothing on it at all.

After the tour, we were taken to a gourmet lunch prepared by chefs Sakahara and Bozzo from the Gilroy Garlic Festival. 

They prepared a wonderful meal with only McDonald’s ingredients.

click to enlarge

I felt like I was at a Top Chef challenge. It was a ton of fun and the food was delicious! It was hard to believe everything was made only with ingredients found in McDonald’s! The only thing missing was a glass of wine.

My favorite part was the desert. Mmm…

To view all the dishes and for more from my adventure,

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We listened to a few speakers and I’ll just share what I was happy to learn: 

McDonald’s plans to add more fruits and vegetables, such as bananas and Cuties in the near future. 

The scraps from preparing the fruits and vegetables are used as feed.

They have already added yogurt, apples, wholegrain English muffins, lowfat milk, salads, wraps, smoothies, and bottled water. 

All their meat is from the U.S. only.

All menu choices are customizable. You can order no dairy in your smoothie, for example.

In Happy Meals, they will no longer show images of soda as an option, they switched to a smaller sized fries, and now include either a package of apples or a Go-gurt as a side in Happy Meals.

They plan to change advertising targeting kids to show healthy options.

One of the speakers made a point to say there are plenty of healthy choices and it’s up to us to educate and be educated so we can make those healthy choices in our eating habits.

I am looking forward to seeing more and more healthy menu options and I really like that they are making these kinds of changes for the better. I had no idea McDonald’s was working toward such big changes for health! They are a leader in their industry and I hope this is only the beginning.