It's fucked that McDonald's didn't disclose its fries' beef ingredients TWICE! I'm not vegetarian, but I have vegan friends who basically can only get the fries when we all decide to go to McDonald's. It's almost like a betrayal: they felt an odd mixture of shame, guilt, anger, despair… but maybe that was just the beef juice.
Plus this direction McDonald's is pursuing where they're making burgers "to order" or whatever the fuck—it just doesn't have that same sitting-under-the-heat-lamp je ne sais quoi.
McDonald's was my first legit job as a teen (I used my first paycheck to buy a pair of Gazelles and a Planet Earth deck); my favorite part was hauling all the older burgers that have been sitting under the lamp for hours over to the dumpsters. You best believe I was clandestinely munching those bad boys in the slimy, dark garbage room. Sure, they gave me $3.45 credit to use for food per shift (the "Extra Value Meals" were $2.99 back then), but your boy was hungry.