Realfoodology - 17: Organic for Everyone: The Quarter Pounder with Cheese Meal

Episode Date: January 6, 2021

On this months episode of my new segment "Organic for Everyone," my producer Drake Peterson and I break down the cost and ingredients of a McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Cheese Meal. Our goal is to recreate it with all organic, real foods all while making it cheaper than what you would pay at the popular fast food restaurant. We take you to well known grocery store chains and give you options to order things online if your local grocery store doesn’t carry the items. Can we do it?  Listen in and find out! Show Links: https://www.realfoodology.com/realfoodology/2016/2/26/avoid-canola-for-the-health-of-it https://mcdonalds.fandom.com/wiki/Al_Bernardin https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/en-us/our-stories/article/ourstories.changes_to_burger.html https://www.delish.com/food-news/a28185616/mcdonalds-quarter-pounder-sales-increase/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/219454/mcdonalds-restaurants-worldwide/ https://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/trans-fat https://www.economist.com/news/2020/07/15/the-big-mac-index https://thegoodhuman.com/what-is-polysorbate-80/

Check, check. Do you hear yourself, Courtney? Are you on? Check, check. One, two. Yep, we are good to go. Hi, I'm Courtney Swan of the Real Foodology Podcast, and this is organic for everyone. On average, Americans eat out nearly six times a week, which gets costly, and the majority of that food is not even organic. I pick one popular food item from a national food chain and try to recreate it for the same price using organic, real foods. This won't be easy. And we are going to run into obstacles,

whether it be accessibility or affordability. But there's always a solution, because organic is for everyone. Today on Organic for Everyone, Drake and I are going to attempt to make a McDonald's quarter pounder with cheese organic and hopefully cheaper, but at least comparable in price if you were going to go to McDonald's. But we're going to do everything organic and we're going to go to, where should we go today? We went to Vons last time. Yeah, we could go to like Whole Foods or Ralph's.

I think we should go, let's do Whole Foods. All right. Yeah. I'm all about that. Are we going to do, is this going to just be a quarter pounder with cheese? Or are we going to get like some fries and things with it? Oh, I think we have to have the fries. And when you just buy organic potatoes, it's very cheap.

It'll be like $2. Yeah, $1 or $2. And what do we fry it in? Well, we will not be frying. For those listening, if they have an air fryer, I highly recommend. Otherwise, we're just going to spray them down with avocado oil, and we're going to bake them really high and get them nice and crispy. Oh, my God.

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actually been talking about this for so long. Back in 2006, my mom came to my dorm room and made me get rid of all my nonstick pans because she was concerned about me being exposed to something called Teflon. Teflon is a coating that is used on nonstick pans and a lot of these appliances that I just named. So I've avoided Teflon, nonstick, PFA coated appliances, pots and pans, you name it for a very long time. And the only option for a very long time was just stainless steel pots and pans. So I was really excited when a company like our place came out because they started creating really beautiful cookware and

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All right. So before Courtney breaks down the ingredient list, I'm going to tell you a little bit about McDonald's and a quarter pounder with cheese. So McDonald's has about 38,000 restaurants worldwide, and they claim to serve 69 million people every single day. According to its operations and training manual, McDonald's sells, quote, more than 75 hamburgers per second of every minute of every hour of every day of the year. Okay, so I'll let you do the math. So what's in a quarter pounder with cheese?

Well, it's a quarter pound patty of 100% beef with two slices of cheese, onions, pickles, mustard, and a dollop of tomato ketchup in a sesame seed bun. According to their website, it is irresistible. The quarter pounder with cheese was invented by a man by the name of Al Bernardin. He was a franchise owner in Fremont, California, and he basically explained that he felt that McDonald's needed an item on their menu that had a higher ratio of meat to bun. So he made that in 1971, and then in 1973,

McDonald's added it to the national American menu. And today, it's one of the most popular signature items. I have to scroll to read them. That's always a bad sign, which means there's a lot of ingredients in here. So the Quarter Pounder Beef Patty is 100% pure USDA inspected beef. I want to remind you guys, that doesn't mean anything. When you're looking at meat, you want to see organic and grass-fed, pasture-raised. Pure USDA-inspected beef means that this cow came from a factory farm, 1,000%. Americans alone consume 1 billion pounds

of beef at McDonald's in a year. That is 5.5 million cows. Moving on. Quarter pound bun, enriched flour, which is wheat flour, malted barley, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin, riboflavin, folic acid. So those are a bunch of synthetic vitamins. Water, sugar, yeast, soybean oil, gross. And then it has less than 2% of sesame seeds, salt, wheat gluten, dextrose, which is another form of sugar. May I remind you, we already have white sugar in here and now we have more sugar. Gorgom, vinegar, vegetable proteins, pea and potato and rice, sunflower and or canola oil, gross. Maltodextrin, another sweetener. Natural flavors and then one or more dough conditioners. So datum, ascorbic acid, mono and diglycerides enzymes, and modified food starch. I'm not even done with the whole ingredient list.

Jesus. That was literally just the bread. That's just the bread? Mind you, I'm still scrolling. Good God. This is really exciting. Organifi now has kid stuff. They just released two kid products. One is called Easy Greens, and it's a refreshing green apple juice where kids will never know that it's packed with veggies. And the other one is called Protect. It's a delicious wild berry punch like the Kool-Aid that we used to have as a kid, but without any sugar. This is really exciting and if you've

listened to the podcast for a while you know that I'm a huge fan of Organifi and most specifically because every single product that they make is glyphosate residue free so you know that you're going to be able to give these powders to your kids and know that they will be able to consume them safely without any glyphosate in it. So let's break down each one. The easy greens is a nourishing and delicious blend of superfoods and veggies that provides essential nutrients, probiotics, and digestive enzymes to bring balance to kids growing bodies without fillers, additives, or junk. It helps to fill in nutritional gaps, aids in growth and development, supports digestive health, has a rich micronutrient profile, and includes digestive enzymes. This would be a great way to

sneak in greens for your little one without them actually knowing that it's healthy for them. And the second one, which is the wild berry punch similar to Kool-Aid, is called Protect, and it is to support your child's daily immune health with food-derived nutrients that work to strengthen their body's first line of defense. I know just through girlfriends of mine that have children that when your kids are going to school, going daycare they're coming home sick a lot more often just because they're getting exposed to different kids and different viruses when they're out in the world playing with kids so this would be a great way to help to support your little one's immune health it's organic and it's also made with real whole food ingredients it has a delicious berry

taste and it's low sugar and it's gentle enough for kids to take every single day. And I really love the ingredients in this one. It's orange and acerol cherry, which is a powerful source of vitamin C and antioxidants. Astragalus, elderberry and propolis. These are all really great for overall immune health. If you wanna try the products that I talked about today or any of the Organifi products,

go to organifi.com slash realfoodology and use code realfoodology for 20% off. Again, that's Organifi. It's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com slash realfoodology. Do you want to hear the biggest discovery of our time for promoting healthy aging? Of course you do, because all of us are concerned about aging. There is a class of ingredients called senolytics that were discovered less than 10 years ago, and they are being called the biggest discovery of our time for promoting healthy aging and enhancing your physical prime. Now, when I'm talking about aging here, I'm not just talking about on a superficial level, wrinkles and saggy skin. I'm talking about energy, joint pain, your ability to show up for your life, cognitive function. I'm talking

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try qualia synolytic, go to neurohacker.com slash real foodology for up to a hundred dollars off and make sure to use code real foodology at checkout for an additional 15% off that's neurohacker N E U R O H A C K E R.com slash real foodology for an extra 15% off your purchase. Thanks to Neurohacker for sponsoring today's episode. Next, we have pasteurized processed American cheese. Ingredients, milk, cream, water, sodium citrate, salt, cheese cultures, citric acid, enzymes, soy lecithin, and color added. Gross. So they're adding in coloring afterwards because they want to give it that like bright yellow color to give it the classic cheddar cheese look. Once again, you have to remember with

dairy, when you look at the ingredient list, what they're not listing that's in that cheese is the growth hormones and antibiotics that were given to that cow. What does pasteurized mean, Courtney? Pasteurization is one of those things that I believe really started out with good intention because what they do in pasteurization is that they treat whatever the product is. So let's say milk, for example, they pasteurize it by treating it with mild heat. And there's a specific temperature that they have to get it to in order to kill off pathogens and it helps extend shelf life. The problem with pasteurization, this is controversial. So I will probably have some people come at me about this, but the reason why pasteurization in milk is not great and why a lot of people are now going for raw milk is because pasteurization

kills off all of the good bacteria and all the good enzymes in the milk that actually hold all the nutrients in the milk. And that's kind of what makes milk healthy for us. But it's tricky because now we're shipping milk all across the country, and they're concerned about pathogens and bacteria, and we don't want anyone to get sick. And because our milk is not traveling such long distances, you have to pasteurize it in order to make it safe for human consumption. But think about back in the day when we were just living on farms, getting our milk from the backyard, from the cows in the backyard,

you were just getting the milk straight from the teat. All right. So what other ingredients are there? So you covered the bun, you covered the beef, and you covered the cheese. What else is on a quarter pounder with cheese? Ooh, we got bun, meat, and cheese. These pickles are cucumber, water, distilled vinegar, salt. That's where I would stop. Calcium chloride, alum, potassium sorbate, which is a preservative. Yuck. Natural flavors. Why are we flavoring our pickles?

Anyways, polysorbate 80. Ew, what is that? And extractives of turmeric. What is polysorbate 80? Okay, so polysorbate 80 is an emulsifier, which means that it helps blend foods that don't normally blend together well, like water and oil, for example. And, you know, I know we're getting into the little gritty details here, but these all

matter, especially when we're talking about food versus real food. Like the example I brought up earlier, you don't need all these ingredients and pickles. And you know what? Okay. While we're on the subject, it's fine if you're like exposing yourself from time to time. You know, no one's perfect. We're all going to eat junk food at some point. The thing that I'm concerned about are the people that are eating this on a daily basis and getting this consistently in their diet. And even if you're not like consistently just eating McDonald's every day, it's so rampant in our food right now in processed foods and fast foods that

we're getting such high doses of this from every angle. And that's what I'm worried about. And that's why I'm making a big deal about it because none of this stuff should be in our food in the first place. Wow. I found an article in The Good Human about polysorbate number 80. And they're telling us that it's, so yes, it's an emulsifier and a defoamer, which is disgusting. Gross. Defoamer. And so you can find it in food shortening, chewing gum, ice cream, gelatin, vitamins, soap, shampoo, cosmetics, skin creams, medicines, and vaccines. And it's slightly flammable, slightly hazardous in case of skin contact. May cause adverse reproductive effects based on animal test data.

May cause cancer based on animal test data. So the only thing that is nice is the onions. It's just onions. Yep. And then the ketchup, of course, has tomato concentrate from red ripe tomatoes, distilled vinegar, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, water, salt, and natural flavors. I can't believe that we're still using corn syrup in anything. It's so hard on the liver. Let's figure out how much these cost. So what are we going to cook for? Are we thinking like maybe four burgers? Should we try to make four burgers? Yeah. I mean, are we thinking like for a family of four? Yeah, let's do for a family of four.

All right, I'm going to download the app, Courtney. I really don't want to do this, but I'm going to download the app and sign up for the McDonald's app to get the real price. Damn it. Okay, fine. So that took about 10 minutes to sign up for the McDonald's app. Not a fan. All right.

So, Courtney, we are going to feed a family of four right now at mcdonald's and we are going to give everyone's going to get a quarter pounder with cheese all right okay so that is one of those we're going to do four of those that is five dollars and 69 cents each wow really yeah that's not even that cheap that is not cheap at all i remember like in college and 69 cents each. Wow. Really? Yeah. That's not even that cheap. That is not cheap at all. I remember like in college when we like that's strictly all

we would eat is fast food because at the time I feel like it was cheap. You could go and get like a dollar hamburger or something and then you'd be fine. I mean, yes, it's garbage.

Yeah. But you could you could legitimately get a meal for like two 50 or something, you know, with tax and everything. And you add on French fries and whatever. No, I remember that McDonald's, I think it was McDonald's used to have dollar burgers. That's another thing that I think that a lot of people don't realize fast food is not as cheap as it used to be. We have this mentality and we think that it's really cheap because like you said, I remember in college you could go get a burger for a dollar.

People are going to McDonald's and getting burgers for $6 almost now. So The Economist has something called the Big Mac Index. And it's basically how various foreign currencies are valued against the U.S. dollar. So essentially they've been tracking the price of the Big Mac. And so in 1960, it was 45 cents. 1970, 65 cents. 1980, $1.60. 1990, $2.45. In the 2000s, it was $2.39. Then in the 2010s, it is all the way up to $4.19. And now today in 2020, it's about $4.95. Okay. So we've got our four burgers. All right. Now let's get some French fries. We got to have French fries. We got to get the fries. Should we do medium? Sure. I i mean what do you think people normally get and if you get a standard meal

it comes with medium great okay so we have four medium french fries and then let's just do four drinks perfect okay so the grand total is wow for four people four quarter pounders, four medium fries, and four Cokes. $37.52. Oh, my God. We are going to blow this out of the water today. Dude, that's going to be so easy. We're going to make four burgers for like $25. Is that what you're estimating?

That's what I'm assuming, yeah. Okay. I think that's... And I'm going to try to make it cheaper because I love a challenge. Before Courtney goes into the nutrition facts, I wanted to throw this into Postmates and Uber Eats because a lot of people, especially right now, are ordering takeout through these apps. And this is insane. If you were to do this exact same meal on Uber Eats, it would be $52.21. And that's not even with a tip.

That's a $0.99 delivery fee. So it would be $41.76 for the meal, $0.99 delivery fee, $4.50 for the service fee, $0.99 for a California driver benefits, plus $4 in taxes. And then if you want to tip the person like maybe five bucks, you're almost at $60. And now back to Courtney's nutrition facts. Wow. Okay. So one burger is 520 calories, which when you think about a burger, that doesn't worry me too much. I'm more worried about the ingredients than I am the calories, but it is always good to be mindful. 520 calories, 12 grams of saturated fat, which I'm not super worried about. It has 1.5 grams of trans fats, but we went over this last time with Taco Bell. I believe that that probably is coming from naturally occurring in the meat.

Trans fats, I only worry about them when they're in the form of man-made fats, which are hydrogenated oils. Two grams of dietary fiber. Wow, there's 10 grams of sugar in this burger. There shouldn't be sugar in your hamburger. Oh, my God. There's 42 grams of carbohydrates in this. Whoa. And that's not even with fries or the Coke.

Well, exactly. And I was going to say that, too, the 520 calories for the burger, then you add the fries on top, and that's not even with fries or the Coke. Well, exactly. And I was going to say that too, the 520 calories for the burger, then you add the fries on top and that's like, that's going to put you well over probably into a thousand calories for one meal. That's a lot. And I'm not a calorie counter, but I'm mindful of calories. Sodium is 50% of your daily value, meaning you're already getting 50% of the recommended amount of sodium in one meal. 1,140 milligrams, 30 grams of protein. That's a lot. I mean, protein's good,

right? It is. You always want to be careful to not have too much protein because it puts a strain on the kidneys. But yeah, I mean, 30 grams of protein is probably about standard for a hamburger. Okay. Now, if you're going to get some French fries, I'm going to read about what the French fries are. Okay. 320 calories. And inside the French fries, you have potatoes, vegetable oil, which is a combination or it doesn't really say what it is it just says canola oil corn oil soybean oil hydrogenated soybean oil natural beef flavor wheat and milk derivatives and so that's just the oil that they flat fry it in um and then it's dextrose sodium acid pyrophosphate. What is that? To maintain the color, it says.

Salt. And then it says the natural beef flavor contains hydrolyzed wheat and hydrolyzed milk as starting ingredients. Huh? Wow, this ingredient list is incredibly concerning. So we talked about this on the Taco Bell episode. I can't believe their french fries have hydrogenated soybean oil in it. Hydrogenated oils are technically banned now. So it must just be a small percentage, right? Yeah, but still, they're not supposed to be allowed to put any hydrogenated oils at all.

And if you didn't hear last week's episode, hydrogenated oils are trans fats, but they're manmade trans fats and they make them by heating up whatever. So for example, the soybean oil, they heat it up to such high temperatures that it changes the molecular structure of the oil, turning it into a trans fat and it wreaks havoc on our arteries. I always, when I explain this to people, I always say, it's like, think about you're just drinking plastic, essentially. Gross. And then alternatively, the french fries that we're going to make today, three ingredients. Are you ready for them?

An organic potato, avocado oil, and salt. And that's it. Done. It's literally all you need for for medium fries it's 320 calories 15 grams of fat 43 grams of carbs 5 grams of protein but you're gonna probably dip it i mean i will say when i go to mcdonald's i dip it in their ranch dressing oh yum i love ranch i know i love ranch too but those little like cup things those little ramekins uh, like the whole label, it says like ranch at the top and the whole label is just ingredients. I know.

I feel like it almost runs off the label because they can't even fit it all. McDonald's Ranch fuses the flavors of onion and garlic to create a perfectly creamy dipping sauce. Try our ranch dip with your favorite McDonald's menu items like Chicken McNuggets or World Famous Fries. There are 110 calories in McDonald's Ranch. And 110 ingredients.

I was just going to say that. Soybean oil, water, cultured low-fat buttermilk, distilled vinegar, sugar, egg yolk, contains 2% or less of sea salt, garlic, whey protein, lactic acid,fat buttermilk, distilled vinegar, sugar, egg yolk, contains 2% or less of sea salt, garlic, whey protein, lactic acid, xanthan gum, modified guar gum, black pepper, potassium sorbate, onion powder, natural flavor, autolyzed yeast extract, salt, parsley, calcium disodium, EDTA. And I'm looking up autolyzed yeast extract right now, which is often used as a less expensive substitute for MSG because it naturally contains free glutamic acid or monosodium glutamate.

Natural flavors are really concerning because when they appear on food packaging, people tend to form like a positive opinion around the word natural and they think that it's healthy. They equate natural with healthy, but the FDA actually hasn't officially defined the term natural, and they think that it's healthy. They equate natural with healthy, but the FDA actually hasn't officially defined the term natural. And the thing with natural flavors is that it's just really a blanket term. There's a whole different list of ingredients that companies can use from under that list. And then they just have to put natural flavoring on there. If you're really truly seeking health, you want to live in a healthy state, you want to feel better in your body, ditch the inflammatory vegetable oils. And that is soybean oil, canola oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil. The problem that I have with all these oils, more specifically, the ones that I'm most concerned about from a nutrition and health standpoint are canola

and soybean oil. They're both incredibly processed, highly processed. Canola oil is super high in omega-6s and that's a huge problem in the United States with what we call the sad diet or the sad American diet because we have so much omega-6s in our diet and the way that it works in our body is that we should have a ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s. And you want your omega-3s to be higher than your omega-6s because when it's reversed, so when your omega-6s are higher in your body, that's what leads to inflammation. And then that's why we're seeing such extreme cases of chronic inflammation in people because we're eating these highly processed diets with way too many omega-6s and we're throwing the balance off. Not to mention, if they are not labeled as organic, you can 1000% assume that

they are genetically modified. We haven't been eating them long enough to really know the long term effects of consuming this genetic material. Not to mention, GMOs means that we're using more pesticides. Another concerning thing about canola oil is that they have to use a chemical solvent in order to extract it. And so they're using hexane. Hexane is a significant constituent of gasoline. Okay. Ew.

Yeah. Also, I read, so a couple years ago, oh God, not a couple, like five years ago now, I did a YouTube video all about canola oil and I really like dug into the processing of it if you want to see that video of Courtney from 2016 check out the show notes I put that video in there all right so should we go shopping yeah so we're going to Whole Foods yeah okay so we're gonna go to Whole Foods and we are going to buy all the ingredients to make the double quarter pounder. No, no, just the quarter pounder with cheese. Oh god. To make the quarter pounder with cheese, all organic, and I feel like it's going to be super

easy to keep under that price point. Whole Foods Market is an American multinational supermarket chain headquartered in Austin, Texas. They sell products free from hydrogenated fats and artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. The chain is very popular for their organic selections. Year-round Whole Foods Market's private label 365 Everyday Value has grocery and pantry staples, which is most likely what we're going to be getting when we go to the store today. They have 470 stores in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. And in August 2017, Whole Foods was acquired by Amazon.com, which means you can order a lot of this stuff on Amazon.com. Prime members in more than 2,000 cities and towns

can receive unlimited free two-hour delivery on more than 170,000 items from Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market on orders of $35 or more. So this was a very easy grocery shop. We were in and out of there in about 10 minutes. We're not going to play any of that for you because you know exactly what happens in a grocery store. But here's what we were looking for.

Ketchup, mustard, some sodas, some meat, potatoes, onion, pickles, buns, and cheese. Straight ahead, McDonald's meal. You guys are going to be blown away by what we just did. So Courtney, this was way easier than the last Taco Bell challenge. Would you agree? So much easier. The ingredients were easier to source and it was significantly cheaper. We got an onion for $1.06, three potatoes for $1.80. This is all organic stuff, by the way. Dill pickles were $4.99. I would just say if you're really on a budget, don't buy the pickles. You can easily make a burger without pickles.

The cheese singles, organic, were $4.49. We got the Horizon brand. Is that correct? Yep. And then organic hamburger buns, $2.79. And the beef, which was organic, grass-fed, pasture-raised, and grass-finished, $7.99 for one pound. So we got the Zevia Cola sodas, which are Stevia sweetened. That was $4.80 for four of those.

All of that stuff added up together is $27.92 for four people. And that is a $6.98 per meal. That's how much that costs. That's really incredible. And it's all organic, guys. That's so cool. So our $37 price for the four McDonald's meals comes out to around $9 and 25 cents for each meal. So we won. We beat it by over $2. That's so incredible. I'm also really shocked because I always, you know, you think about fast food being super cheap and the dollar menu, like I always envision someone going to McDonald's and spending like $3 on like a hamburger and fry situation. The fact that it's $9 is mind-blowing.

That's not cheap. When we were making this, we assumed that everybody had mustard and ketchup in their pantry. Yeah. But we went ahead and just got some organic mustard for $1.79. It was a big thing of Whole Foods, 365 brand, and organic ketchup, which is $2.79. And we're going to just go ahead and throw that in here just to show you. And that comes out to $32.50. Divide that by four people, four meals, $8.12. We had some people telling us that we needed to really give them a

price per unit and I broke it down intensely. Here we go. I'm so excited. This is going to blow your mind. So, per cheese slice, 37 cents. Per bun, 35 cents. Pickle, 22 cents.

Onion, 10 cents. Potato, 45 cents. Soda, $1 soda dollar 20 the meat dollar 99 per serving mustard this is if you add the mustard and the ketchup uh two cents per serving ketchup three cents per serving all right this is insane all of that together for an entire McDonald's meal that we have made all organic. $4.73. Woo! Wow, you will never find anything that cheap anywhere. Never.

For an entire meal. Never. That's so cool. Okay, so what are we going to have left over, Courtney? We're going to have four hamburger buns, eight slices of cheese, half of an onion, and pickle slices. Like almost a whole jar of pickles. What we did for the french fries. I got a couple tips and tricks for you to get them nice and crispy, just the way we want french fries, in the oven.

So we don't even have to use a fryer. So get basic russet potatoes. I bought organic ones. We peeled them. We rinsed them off. We peeled them. And then I chopped them really thin. The thinner, the better because they will crisp up easier. We can't do the steak fries here. I love the steak fries, but if you want crispy, steak fry is going to be a no-go. So we're going to thinly slice, and then you want to put them in a bowl of water and let them soak for at least 20 to 30 minutes. So you're going to have to plan ahead a little bit. You can skip this step if you want, but it helps to break down the starch a little bit, and it's going to help them make them crispier. Okay, so then once you drain that, then you want to make sure you pat dry all of the French fries. Make sure they're pretty dry because this is also the key to crisping them up. You don't want them to go in wet because then

they'll steam up and they won't get as crispy. So, oh, and I should have said this before, while you're cutting, preheat the oven to 375. And then after you pat dry them, you throw them in a bowl, toss them with avocado oil generously. You want to get a lot of oil on these babies. And then you'll spread them out across your baking sheet. And then you want to salt them really well. And then you'll bake them for 20 minutes at 375. After that 20 minute mark goes off, move your oven up to 425 and then bake them for at least another 28 minutes. You want to watch them, though, because after that point, it's going to kind of depend on like the altitude you're baking in and your oven. So the patties, we have one one full pound of meat.

So 16 ounces. I measured each of them out. I let the patties get to room temperature because that is the key, in my opinion. There's a huge debate about it. But anyway, so I weighed each one out to four ounces each. I put them on parchment. You can use wax paper as well. And I rolled them into balls. And then I took a dinner plate and I smashed them. And the key is to have them very thin. You want to season both sides with salt or salt and pepper, whatever you prefer. Or if you want to get crazy, you can use like onion powder or garlic powder too to make them a little different or steak

seasoning. And you're going to cook them for three to four minutes per side. Courtney has prepared all of the buns. She toasted all the buns face down. Face down, bun up. That's the way we like to eat. So by this point, we were so hungry, but I'm going to let you know exactly how to prepare the burger, the McDonald's style. So you're going to take both of the toasted buns.

You're going to spread ketchup and then mustard on the top bun. Then you're going to take both of the toasted buns. You're going to spread ketchup and then mustard on the top bun. Then you're going to add the onion and the pickle. They do pickle slices and they do little slivers of onion. Then you're going to place one slice of cheese on the bottom bun, then the beef patty, then the other slice of cheese. Top off the sandwich with the top bun. And there's your burger. All right, Courtney, we have everything done and ready to go.

The moment of truth, right? Let's eat it. Oh, my God. I'm so excited. Oh, my God. That crunch. Oh, my God. I mean.

Let's try the fries. Mm-hmm. Mm. Mm. Mm. This is dirty. Not only do these taste better than a McDonald's burger, they're cheaper. And they're healthier. Yeah.

This is like some ASMR for real. This is so tasty. Yum. Stevia sweetened cola? I don't even know this existed. Oh, yeah. All right, so what are we going to do next organic for everyone? Let's do chicken nuggets.

Who has the best chicken nuggets? Wendy's? Let's do Wendy's chicken nuggets. Can you do a chicken nuggets? Wendy's? Let's do Wendy's chicken nuggets. Can you do a frosty too? Yeah. Oh my God. Thanks so much for listening to Organic for Everyone, part of the Real Foodology podcast. If you haven't already done so, please subscribe to the show in your podcast app so you can get reminders when new episodes come out. Also, if you have a little extra time, please give the show a rating and review. It helps us out so, so much. Please send us your stories to realfoodologypodcast at gmail.com. We'd love to hear how it went. See you guys next week. Bye.