Making A US Big Mac Using All 54 McDonald's Ingredients | Fast Food Chemistry

this is a big mac and this is everything that's in a big mac welcome to fast food chemistry now i've been desperate to try an authentic american big mac but unfortunately there's no way i can get my hands on one in the uk the simple solution was to get hold of every ingredient which goes into one there are over 50 and then to build one myself whoa whoa whoa whoa you're not making a u.s big mac without me i'm going to oversee this whole operation and see how close you actually get what i love about this show is that it combines all the things i love about making food wars and also i do literally nothing so i am a fan of this format [Laughter] i've always wanted to say this but please do not try this one at home this one right here is alum this is potassium aluminium sulfate and it's primarily used in things like leather tanning in dyeing and in fireproofing textiles it's pretty strong stuff for example if you boil some of this it can actually dissolve steel in just a few hours okay we're one we're one chemical in and already we're talking about dissolving steel did he say um no harry please be careful put on some gloves for god's sakes this one right here is soy lecithin you've probably heard my food wars co-host joe mispronounced this one a million times lechofen lecathon lecithin lectin lechethan leachaton soy lecithin it's a lubricant and an emulsifier it's considered safe for consumption but there have been some preliminary studies to suggest that overconsumption may promote depression which is kind of the last thing i need but what exactly do we mean by emulsifier well as we all know oil and water don't usually mix an emulsifier is something which helps you get around that problem in the big mac it's used in the cheese and the sauce just to kind of help everything stay together and finally we have polysorbate 80 otherwise known as polyoxyethylene sorbitan monoliths or the more catchy tween now this might come in a handy applesauce style pouch but it's probably our most controversial chemical here studies have shown that it can lead to an increase in colon cancer and infertility and mice that's not a guarantee to say that it'll do the same to humans but it's probably not the best sign okay ah jesus slice pasteurize american cheese ingredients are milk cream water sodium citrate salt cheese cultures citric acid enzymes soy lecithin and colors added get a load of this guy right here this one's a little tricky we don't have an exact recipe for the pasteurized processed american cheese which mcdonald's uses in the states what we did find are the fda requirements for processed cheese now to meet the legal definition of american cheese it must be made of cheddar colby granular or washed curd cheese we're choosing to go with a mild cheddar because it already kind of tastes similar to the big mac cheeses that i've had in the past from the ingredients list we can see the ones that belong to the cheese and the ones which are added at a later stage the cheese itself is basically just made of milk salt cultures and enzymes whereas later on you will add the sodium citrate as an emulsifying agent the citric acid as an acidifying agent and the soy lecithin as an anti-sticking agent the fda requirements also specify how much of each of these you're allowed to have in the finished cheese for example we know that the soy lecithin can only be 0.03 of the finished weight if it's chemical time the chemicals have changed the consistency of the cheese almost immediately it's gone from what was a very liquidy melted cheddar with some cream in it to like a very shiny looking almost like a squeezy cheese and last but not least the color let's go so in a relatively short space of time we've turned this cheddar which is quite a firm inflexible very pale cheese into this classic american cheese it's amazing how little sodium citrate it took and how quickly the change took effect honestly it was a tiny amount and as soon as it was sprinkled in made a whole world of difference obviously it looks like american cheese but this is how we test if this is real authentic american cheese ready let's check it out damn it's hoping it would stick let's see if our cheese passes the test the pickle slices at an american mcdonald's contain cucumbers water distilled vinegar salt calcium chloride alum potassium sorbate as a preservative natural flavors polysorbate 80 extractives of turmeric for color now some of these chemicals can actually be quite dangerous calcium chloride can lead to burns in the mouth and throat excess thirst vomiting stomach pain and low blood pressure so i'm gonna put some gloves on now despite its potential dangers calcium chloride is actually a great way to improve the saltiness in food without increasing the sodium content alum is one that we've mentioned before and apparently this improves the crunchiness of pickles potassium sorbate as it says on the label is a mold inhibitor which will give the pickles a longer shelf life and finally we have polysorbate 80 now this is an emulsifier which will thicken liquids however it is also the one that gives mice cancer it's forming like can you see this it's forming like crystals like stalactites oh it's like solidifying or something right now what is happening get away from it i i feel like i'm watching someone making an explosive i just the way he's shaking it it's like it's gonna explode looks like this is the first time harry's ever cut a cube hamburger still quite lumpy the big mac bun in the us contains the following ingredients enriched flour which is multi barley flour nice and iron and diglycerides enzymes and vinegar we'll start with the flour this is british white bread flour which contains wheat flour calcium carbonate iron niacin and thiamin so we're missing the malted barley flour the riboflavin and the folic acid none of these are two suspects malted barley flour contains enzymes that break down starch to sugar and riboflavin and folic acid are actually just vitamins b2 and b9 so let's fortify our flour the only way to actually get the extra ingredients that we needed was in vitamin form so we've got some folic acid and some riboflavin tablets here it's like a pregnancy supplement you're supposed to take them when you're like trying to get pregnant now that we have a fortified flower the next few ingredients are fairly simple water sugar yeast and soybean oil now these might seem fairly normal but we actually had some difficulty finding soybean oil here in the uk in the us apparently it's one of the most common cooking oils but in the uk it's used for two things massage oil and as a horse supplement so i'm going to need clarity on this when you say a horse supplement you're giving it as a supplement to a horse or you take it as a supplement instead of eating horse which is it both are really weird nailed it we looked up soybean oil in the usa and it was a much lighter color than this so this might not be as refined as the soybean oil that you get in the us but fingers crossed it should still be edible and finally the extra ingredients now the ingredients list has these as less than two percent so we have some idea of how much of each of these we should be adding oh is that how chemistry works just eyeballing it what are you doing we have yeah just a little bit of this little bit of that again there's nothing too surprising until we get to this one which is datum now datum is diacetyl tartaric acid ester of mono and diglycerides now if you've ever wondered how mcdonald's gets their buns so kind of soft but also quite springy this might be the difference maker it improves the strength of the gluten network it's like it's like really soft right i know it's not supposed to be that way but it's kind of like it's kind of like it's gonna bounce to it right so our buns have risen we're going to put them into some ring moulds top them with sesame seeds and then bake it appears that harry has raided someone's dorm room and stolen their microwave hot plate combo i don't know i don't know how this is gonna turn out okay here we go so here is the bomb we made today and here is a bun we made earlier now the differences between these two are that this one has all the chemicals mcdonald's uses whereas this one is literally just water flour and yeast visually the one we've made today looks like a much better color it's a nice even golden brown all around as you see with the one on the left without the chemicals it's actually got this big tear around the side as well now it's unclear exactly why this happened but it could be because this one has some chemicals which help the gluten stay strong and withstand the expansion in the oven but that looks actually looks pretty good i'm very surprised by that the big mac big sauce is made our american big mac sauce contains soybean oil from before remember that sweet relish which is diced pickles sugar high fructose corn syrup distilled vinegar spices onion powder salt extractives of paprika and soy lecithin i kind of like the soybean oil we had some real difficulties getting hold of high fructose corn syrup in the uk it's just really not used at all we were able to track down some regular corn syrup but only as a kind of specialty imported product but the only difference is that high fructose corn syrup goes through a process which converts some of its glucose into fructose which makes it even sweeter yep corn syrup is very common in the united states you can get it in the baking aisle i've gotten it before it's good for when you're making like barbecue sauces like pulled pork i could not get high fructose corn syrup i looked it up and sure enough you can only get it at industrial level you know five gallon drums it's pretty cheap now we've already talked about what some of these chemicals do but we haven't talked about xanthan gum yet something gum is a thickener and i can understand why you might want to put it into a sauce to thicken it up but just before we do that we're going to test it out on some water to see how effective it is harry my friend you just invented thick water which we got here in the states [Music] so this is for people with swallowing issues it actually makes it easier i mean is it like really like it doesn't [Music] oh that's weird it's like a gel where have you been on my life thick water silky smooth props to the people over at thickets they're not a sponsor you make a hell of a thick water just about a half a teaspoon of it turned about 100 milliliters of water into this so now we've made our sweet relish but that's just one of the ingredients in the big mac sauce now we have to make the rest now it's worth pointing out a couple of the chemicals in there and noting what they do so we'll start with the propylene glycol algonate now this is usually used in the beer making process and it will also give our sauce a nice glossy finish as for the hydrolyzed vegetable protein we have this small bottle of it here now what this is is primarily a flavour enhancer but it's also a not too distant cousin of msg the main component of this is glutamate which is the same as the g in msg and last but not least we have this which is caramel color now caramel color is worth pointing out because one of the byproducts it can contain is on the state of california's list of chemicals known to cause cancer what we don't know is if mcdonald's uses the specific type of caramel color that contains that byproduct that chemical that is on california's list of cancer-causing chemicals just pick a different color i don't i mean i know you eat with your eyes but it's okay if the color is a little different [Music] aren't you supposed to like stream in the oil very gently more than that loads more just like oh god that's a bit aggressive [Music] feel free to get involved i'm hearing lots of criticism from you guys not many solutions it's like when you first started living on your own and you had a roommate and you like tried cooking something you're both like i don't you hold it i'll mix it having no idea having no skill on how to do this just watching you guys do this is just like oh my god wow look at that nailed it guys and with that we have our big mac sauce the color looks pretty good the consistency is pretty good it was very hard work trying to emulsify that by hand but honestly not too disappointed with the result wow that that looks like big mac sauce i have to say um i'm very surprised by that that actually looks just like the sauce in the u.s our big mac beef patty is made up of 100 beef patty it is prepared with grill seasoning which is salt and black pepper harry get a spatula man you knew you were going to do this why are you using a spoon making like a meat calvin i gotta i gotta say you know this is a very sad sight to watch you try and make this burger on this hot plate with a spoon in an office so after all that we've made all of the components of a big mac the only things we've added are some freshly diced onion and some shredded lettuce these thankfully are just made of onion and lettuce there's no additional chemicals okay he hasn't even put it together yet and i honestly am pleasantly surprised at this point before assembly my hat's off to you that actually looks pretty good that's so springy so there you have it can you tell which one is ours visually harry i'll give you a six if i got a big mech at mcdonald's and that's what was in the box i'd be like what the hell is going on back there but it looks a lot closer than i thought it was gonna be the fact that that bread and that sauce and that cheese looks the way it did is very impressive the last thing to do is taste our burger to see how it stacks up against an actual big mag i think the bun is good it's a great homemade bread i don't think i've ever made bread this good at home without those chemicals however it doesn't quite have that real soft pillowiness that the mcdonald's one does there's not a huge amount to say about the beef the lettuce and the pickles are also pretty good honestly no real difference noted and i think i actually almost prefer the cheese that we've made i don't know if that's because we used better cheddar but i actually like our cheese we've got a nice thick slice kind of holds up and also has a good flavor i think the sauce on ours is not quite as good as the original big mac sauce while we followed the ingredients list as exactly as we could there are still some herbs and spices which they keep as a closely guarded secret you

Channel: Food Insider

Views: 771,618

Rating: 4.924931 out of 5

Keywords: INSIDER, FOOD INSIDER, Fast Food, Food, McDonalds, Chemistry, Science, Food Science, Big Mac, Kitchen, Chemicals, Burgers, Fast Food Chemistry, Pickles, Bun, Cooking

Id: RgIfypeptJw

Length: 17min 9sec (1029 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 21 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Ph0ton]

What the fuck is this Japanese daytime TV bullshit with the inset reactions to what is happening. I don't need some American douche to tell me how to feel. I wouldn't mind seeing his reaction at the end but this is excessive.

[u/Pontus_Pilates]

I really dislike this sort of 'chemicals' bullshit. It leads to the whole 'There's yoga mat in subway sandwiches' nonsense.

It's all about dosage and how you use it. There's cyanide in apples. If it was manufactured by a company, people would be freaking out. But because it's 'natural' instead of 'chemicals' nobody cares. And rightly so.

Or the very liberal usage of anything linked to cancer. Coffee is linked to cancer. But these assholes don't make funny faces when talking about coffee.

[u/Mad_V]

This was definitely worth watching, if for nothing else then to learn that thick water exists.

[u/mikesum32]

I wish Youtube would fix its encoding bugs.

[u/BringBackLabor]

Alum (the one that dissolved steel) is found in baking powder. Literally just used to leaven the buns. Like all these horseshit videos, the issue isn’t the chemicals it’s the saturated fat and corn syrup.

[u/abstlouis96]

I love McDonalds.

[u/Tersphinct]

I love how the cheese just stayed there.

[u/AidilAfham42]

This kinda..makes me wanna have a big mac right now, with all that chemicals n stuff

[u/scoyne15]

I am very concerned with that bright orange horse oil.