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McDonald's french fries, marketed as World Famous Fries, are a
Introduced in 1949, the french fries were cooked in a mixture of 93% beef tallow and 7% cottonseed oil. Schlosser, Eric (2001). '' Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of All-American Meal''. Houghton Mifflin.
In the 1950s, CEO and founder Ray Kroc established quality control measures for McDonald's suppliers, ensuring potatoes maintained a solids content within the optimal range of twenty to twenty-three percent. Kroc also pioneered the practice of "curing" the potatoes to convert sugars to starch, thus achieving consistently crisp french fries. This process involved storing potatoes at warm temperatures for several weeks. Additionally, he introduced the "potato computer," developed by Louis Martino, to calculate the precise cooking time for fries, based on the fluctuation of oil temperature during frying. Subsequently, in 1967, Kroc contracted the
McDonald's french fries, marketed as World Famous Fries, are a french fries
French fries (North American English), chips (British English), finger chips ( Indian English), french-fried potatoes, or simply fries, are '' batonnet'' or ''allumette''-cut deep-fried potatoes of disputed origin from Belgium and France. Th ...
product at the fast food restaurant McDonald's.
History
Introduced in 1949, the french fries were cooked in a mixture of 93% beef tallow and 7% cottonseed oil. Schlosser, Eric (2001). '' Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of All-American Meal''. Houghton Mifflin.
In the 1950s, CEO and founder Ray Kroc established quality control measures for McDonald's suppliers, ensuring potatoes maintained a solids content within the optimal range of twenty to twenty-three percent. Kroc also pioneered the practice of "curing" the potatoes to convert sugars to starch, thus achieving consistently crisp french fries. This process involved storing potatoes at warm temperatures for several weeks. Additionally, he introduced the "potato computer," developed by Louis Martino, to calculate the precise cooking time for fries, based on the fluctuation of oil temperature during frying. Subsequently, in 1967, Kroc contracted the Simplot
The J. R. Simplot Company (commonly referred to as Simplot) is an agribusiness company headquartered in Boise, Idaho.
History
Simplot was founded in 1929 by 20-year-old John Richard Simplot near the agricultural community of Declo in south ...
company to supply them with frozen fries, replacing fresh-cut potatoes.
In the late 1980s, Phil Sokolof, a millionaire businessman who had suffered a heart attack at the age of 43, took out full-page newspaper ads in New York, Chicago, and other large cities accusing McDonald's menu of being a threat to American health, and asking them to stop using beef tallow to cook their french fries.
After this sustained campaign, including by the National Heart Savers Association against saturated fat
A saturated fat is a type of fat in which the fatty acid chains have all single bonds. A fat known as a glyceride is made of two kinds of smaller molecules: a short glycerol backbone and fatty acids that each contain a long linear or branched c ...
s and the beef tallow they were using, in 1990, they switched to vegetable oil with beef flavouring. McDonald's has not disclosed whether its beef flavouring contains meat, but it is known to contain milk byproducts. In 2002, McDonald's paid US$10 million to settle lawsuits that accused the chain of mislabeling its french fries as vegetarian.
The "thin style" french fries have been popularised worldwide in large part by McDonald's and Burger King
Burger King (BK) is an American-based multinational chain store, chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. Headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the company was founded in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida–based res ...
.
In 2008, McDonald's ceased using trans fats in both US and Canadian markets. In 2013, McDonald's Canada introduced poutine nationwide, after having it in Quebec for 10 years.
Product
In the United States, McDonald's french fries are made using 19 ingredients, which includedextrose
Glucose is a simple sugar with the molecular formula . Glucose is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, a subcategory of carbohydrates. Glucose is mainly made by plants and most algae during photosynthesis from water and carbon dioxide, using ...
, TBHQ
''tert''-Butylhydroquinone (TBHQ, tertiary butylhydroquinone) is a synthetic aromatic organic compound which is a type of phenol. It is a derivative of hydroquinone, substituted with a ''tert''-butyl group.
Applications Food preservative
In food ...
, polydimethylsiloxane, citric acid, and sodium acid pyrophosphate. The restaurant uses non-GMO russet and Shepody potatoes.
As of 2019, the french fries sold in Germany use a different recipe, with the ingredients being listed as potatoes, sunflower oil, rapeseed oil, salt, dextrose, disodium phosphate and polydimethylsiloxane.
As for the manufacturing process, the potatoes are first brought to the plant, where they are mechanically cut, blanched, partially fried, flash-frozen, and then shipped to individual restaurants of the franchise.
References
{{McDonald's McDonald's French fries Products introduced in 1949