[joezydeco]

No, they go moldy too. I've seen it happen.

Now let's see what's in the bread at Panera, or the bun at Five Guys or Shake Shack, or the tortilla at Chipotle. If you're expecting artisan bread baked early that morning by a master chef, you're going to be sorely disappointed.

Here's Chipotle's large tortilla ingredients:

Flour, Water, Organic Whole Wheat Flour, Non-GMO Canola Oil, Salt, Non-GMO Baking Soda (Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Baking Soda, Monocalcium Phosphate), Wheat Bran, Fumaric Acid , Calcium Propionate , Sorbic Acid , Sodium Metabisulfite.

And how about the ciabatta bread that Panera uses in their sandwiches?

Unbleached enriched wheat flour (flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, country base (natural wheat sour, salt, rye flour, wheat gluten, malted barley flour, sunflower lecithin, ascorbic acid, enzymes), olive oil blend (extra virgin olive oil, canola oil), natural base (calcium diphosphate, malted barley flour, dextrose, distilled monoglycerides, rye flour, sunflower lecithin, wheat flour, enzymes, ascorbic acid), yeast (yeast, sorbitan monostearate, ascorbic acid)

Five Guys is, um, pretty open too. I wonder what the "secondary" ingredients are:

Our bread is a proprietary recipe. The primary ingredients are: Water, Salt, Sugar, Vegetable Shorting (Contains: Soy), Milk, Eggs, Bleached Bread Flour, Yeast, Sesame Seeds

[rmxt]

I agree... I don't think that other chains necessarily make more "natural" food than McDonalds and I wasn't really trying to draw out that comparison. I'm not a paleo/organic advocate by any means. "Country base" and "natural base" are euphemisms if I've heard them. Those places do have a better marketing tact though.

Just stumbled across this response from McDonald's themselves... maybe it's less about preservatives and more about dry and salty food (a la beef jerky) http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/your_questions/our_food/why-d...

[joezydeco]

But if you scan this entire thread as it grows (like the previous 6 "McDonald's is in trouble" threads on HN over the past year), you'll see that mantra repeated over and over. The food is shit. The upscale food is better.

It's an image McDonald's knows they need to combat and their newest ad campaigns are already working on that angle.

I'm not defending MCD by any stretch of the imagination. But it's amazing how the food was just fine when the economy was in the shitter and people got by on $1 McDoubles. Now that things are turning around and wages are microscopically better, suddenly everyone's a foodie and that $11 2000-calorie Chipotle lunch is a feel-good while the McDouble is dog food.

The cycle will repeat.