Juicy Ammonia Burgers

Aileen says:
Ok…now are you sitting down. I’m going to reveal something that may make you scream out loud and make my patients seriously reconsider that detox I just put them on. I LOVE HAPPY MEALS FROM McDONALDS. Yes. It’s true. I know….groooooooooooooooss!! But I can’t help it. Happy Meals actually make me happy…giddy in fact. I still take the toy and pretend it’s for my little (non-existent) niece but I have a secret stash of Happy Meal toys in a box in our crawl space. It could seriously make me some good cash on e-bay as some of them are circa 1982. The Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine is located a stone’s throw away from a McDonalds and when I was a student there, I would wear disguises to go for late night McDonalds runs in the middle of exams week. Of course I know how nutritionally unsound, if not down right harmful for my health McDonalds food is but it used to be on my sacred list of emergency foods for major stress days (only second to extra frozen Haagen Daas Coffee or Chocolate ice cream).

I now strive to only eat dairy free gelato and only crave McDonalds every once in a blue moon. But when I do, I drag Makoto to our nearest McDonalds for a Happy Meal. He is, of course, mortified and makes us sit in the darkest corner of McDonalds while he instructs us to face away from the other restaurant patrons in fear of being “found out” as he sips on his bottled water and tells me to eat faster. Well, my love affair with my beloved McDonalds Hamburger came to an abrupt halt after watching the documentary Food Inc. The scenes showing the mass cattle production factories were horrifying enough but it was the bit on how they pump ammonia through all the rotten meat that fast food companies purchase at rock bottom prices to use as hamburger filler. Ammonia is used as a potent chemical that is used to kill the bacteria E.coli in rotten meat. Instead of admitting that this food is not fit for human consumption, this is their solution!! UGH! Yucky, yucky, yuck, yuck. That alone has snapped me out of my dark place and has led me to see the light….and not the glowing ones of distant fluorescent yellow arches.