Mark Bittman: How McDonald's Screwed Up Oatmeal

Mark Bittman in the New York Times:

There's a feeling of inevitability in writing about McDonald's latest offering, their "bowl full of wholesome" -- also known as oatmeal. The leading fast-food multinational, with sales over $16.5 billion a year (just under the GDP of Afghanistan), represents a great deal of what is wrong with American food today. From a marketing perspective, they can do almost nothing wrong; from a nutritional perspective, they can do almost nothing right, as the oatmeal fiasco demonstrates.

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Comments

[Bechange]

03:37 AM on 03/01/2011

People are wakeing up and getting healthy, and mcdonalds and other ff restaurants are figuring out whats sounds healthy... Hmmm.., oatmeal everyone loves oatmeal kids, health nuts moms trying to feed there kids something healthy but have to work two jobs and not much time to cook between trips to school and work its a way to get people in the door nothing more they dont care about health just $

[spytheweb]

01:26 PM on 02/27/2011

I tested it and it's alright. I don't like the apples. I also got them for free with coupons. I will be buying my quick oats at the store. This item is $2.00 at McDonalds and at the store you can get 42oz for $2.00 and put in your own fruit.

[IMDATRAINER]

11:48 AM on 02/27/2011

This is a ploy by McDonalds to make it look as though they are offerning healthier foods. They've essentially taken oatmeal and ruined it. How many of you really know the calorie count in those burgers? Fries? Do you know of anything to eat there that is remotely healthy?

http://www.angrytrainerfitness.com/2011/01/fast-food-fix-mcdonalds/

[xstevejx]

05:56 PM on 02/27/2011

It doesn't matter. Any time fast food places TRY offering healthier foods, PEOPLE don't want them and those items end up going away. It's consumers' faults for wanting the worse-for-you food. It's not about changing the fast food chains' offerings (they just sell what people want), but about changing consumers' behaviors in what they choose to eat.

[KawaiiNoire]

05:49 AM on 02/28/2011

But, but....the fries are soooo good! :p

[jaslyn]

11:35 AM on 02/27/2011

people who frequent McDonald's have a palate that's geared for the textures and flavors that fast food provides. I don't think they'd enjoy a real bowl of oatmeal. People, you KNOW what you're getting at McDonald's, and real food is not it.

[Ionakr]

03:13 PM on 02/24/2011

McDonald's oatmeal is actually Quaker Oatmeal. I thought it would be like Jamba Juice who has great oatmeal. Unfortunately I saw them actually open up the packet which was either Quakder or a no-name brand, put it in the cup, pour some hot water on it, stir it up and put the top on it and give it to me. I said exactly the same thing "why did I pay this much for something I could have done at home." If you have a Jamba Juice store by you - try their oatmeal. It's great. Even Starbucks oatmeal is exactly the same as McDonald's - a packet that they open and pour in a cup and charge you an arm and a leg.

[Tim Naylor]

03:56 PM on 02/24/2011

Please, not the price argument or the I could make it at home. You can make anything at home cheaper, given the time. Hell, Jamba juice can be made with a juicer for the fraction of the cost. A prime aged steak can be cooked in my kitchen for half the price I'd pay at Peter Lugers. Bittman's rant about price is a sham. When he pals with Mario Battalli, does he moan about how he could buy his cookbook and make his food for a fraction of what he charges at his restaurants. Bittman is the embodiment of food snobbery combined with ill informed self righteous alarmism.

[Tim Naylor]

02:36 PM on 02/24/2011

Last week, he took a turn to the dark regions of journalistic fraud last week when he cited a case in which he stated GMO's were responsible for more suicides. Had he actually read the source, he'd see that the suicides were due to business failures, but had nothing to do with an inherent "suicide" gene in the GMO crop. Yet his cursory reference would make the passive reader think there's something in the DNA that caused suicides.
But the ultimate disingenuousness is Bittman's "I'm shocked, utterly shocked" angle. To expect low cal, low fat fare from MD's is like going to Coney Island for Organic Cotton Candy. So long as no one can prove any toxic effect of MD's (and he didn't), I say, Bravo! Hypocritically, he never attacks the likes of Balthazar for their indiscriminate (and tasty) butter binge.
To blame MD's for America's Fat Epidemic is like saying Mad Dog 20/20 or Boone's Farm is responsible for the bums on my block. Americans are fat because of farm subsidized cheap food and an ever increasing sit on your butt lifestyle. Yet oddly enough, since the introduction of McDonalds in the 50's our lifespan has increased by almost 7 years. If I were trained in the Bittman School of Journalism, I'd hail this as proof positive of age defying traits of the Big Mac.
Bittman may be a decent cook (albeit self-rightous) but his lack of facts while writing on food policy, impugns the NYT's credibility.

[Pleroma]

01:41 PM on 02/24/2011

It's always a good idea to read what Mark Bittman writes.

[xstevejx]

06:02 PM on 02/27/2011

He's usually amusing, even if not always right.

[lafouhuff]

09:32 AM on 02/24/2011

It's dirt cheap to make yourself - why buy that mystery goop.

[GraceNotes]

11:23 AM on 02/24/2011

That was part of Mr. Bittman's point. It is cheaper to make at home and certainly healthier.

[Raymond Chuang]

07:33 AM on 02/26/2011

Better yet, I myself am a big fan of steel-cut (Irish) oatmeal--yes, it takes longer to cook but sprinkle some raisins on top after cooking, it works for me! :-)

[IsabelRingin]

09:10 AM on 02/24/2011

Based on the picture above, it doesn't really look all that appetizing anyway. But more sugar than a Snickers Bar. That's outrageous.

I eat oatmeal every day during the week, but even if I forget and leave it at home, I will never stop at McDonalds to get oatmeal.

[Sara Lira]

11:24 PM on 02/23/2011

The other day while waiting at a hospital I had to EAT something and to my surprise the hospital cafeteria had a large McDonald's and almost no "healthy options". The own hospital's cafeteria was serving lasagna loaded with cheeses and grease and bland vegetables. The line for McDonald's was very long and being a vegetarian my options were either yucky chips and a water or oatmeal and a coffee. I bought the oatmeal and it was incredibly sweet.. maybe i was better off buying a chocolate bar for breakfast! I love love oatmeal but McDonald's oatmeal was sickening. And why would anyone think of putting a McDonald's inside a hospital!!!???

[jsarets]

12:33 AM on 02/24/2011

"And why would anyone think of putting a McDonald's inside a hospital!!­!???"

Sounds like a great business model to me...

[Pleroma]

01:39 PM on 02/24/2011

Create and treat ill health. Profit at every turn!

[dahpunkster]

06:21 PM on 02/23/2011

I like it creamy with a pinch of 2 percent milk & brown sugar and if i am out of that I will put nuts and bananas in it instead.

[Aimee Bellefleur Hogan]

04:32 PM on 02/24/2011

That is how I make my oatmeal. I don't like it too thick. The nuts and bananas sounds really good!

[WoollyMittens]

04:14 PM on 02/23/2011

Hey, if there are health concerns, just lobby congress to slacken the standards for nutrition again.

[rpr]

03:59 PM on 02/23/2011

They have to justify the ridiculous markup and make it a real "meal", which to their sugar and fat addicted clientele has to be junk. Their customers would never buy real oatmeal.

[Phoebe917]

05:11 PM on 02/23/2011

i love me some oatmeal. i like the steel cut oatmeal. takes a little while but worth it. it you crave a little sweetness, sprinkle a little spenda. i like mine with a dollop of cream, and some blueberries. i wouldn't eat at mcdonalds unless i was literally starving.

[Three-Cookies]

03:36 PM on 02/23/2011

I suppose not everyone reads the list of ingredients so they will imagine they are eating healthy wholesome food. Oats takes minutes to prepare, its almost as easy as making tea or toast. So if someone prefers to buy oats from McD's they are different from you and I and this is the customer base that McD's is targeting. Without trying to defend McDonalds, I wonder whether McD's oats is better than the alternatives offered at McD's? If a customer orders oats instead of the big breakfast and other fat and sugar laden breakfasts, it is an improvement, although only slight. Lesser of the two evils?

[angrymanspokane]

03:06 PM on 02/23/2011

It almost seems that this company is intentionally trying to poison it's customers. Save yourself, don't go to McDonalds!

[Tim Naylor]

02:50 PM on 02/24/2011

Do you honestly know one case of someone being poisoned from McDonald's ingredients? Can you cite one peer reviewed study that proves any ingredient at MD's has any toxic effect? Would you risk your children by having them consume di hydrogen oxide and ascorbic acid? Sounds scary doesn't it. Until you realize I'm referring to water and vitamin C. So before you whip people into a scare fest, know what it is that we should be scared of. Bittman's rhetoric on GMO's, Organic, and now, McDonald's reminds me of Jenny McCarthy's screed on vaccine's causing autism. It now stands thoroughly debunked yet the results of her well intentioned, self serving, and ill informed campaign has cost lives. Bittman's rail against GMO's is baseless. The world's need for them grows as they use considerably less water, energy and land. Conversely, organics on a universal basis is environmentally unsustainable because its low yields, high energy and land requirements. Bittman, from his somewhat isolated food salon, has no idea how the pressure of NGO's to eliminate GMO's from developing world's food production has a direct hand in starvation and food shortages. The NYT's needs to get its house in order and assign someone to writing about food policy to someone with some journalistic credibility. Being a celeb chef doesn't cut it.

[KT31]

11:31 AM on 02/25/2011

I think he's talking long-term, sherlock. McDonald's is probably ok now and then, but do you honestly know anyone who eats there regularly who is healthy? And yes, some of us are smart enough to know what hydrogen oxide and asorbic acid are - you don't have to look down your nose at anyone who disagrees with you. I'll even grant you that some of your Bittman criticisms have a point (I preferred his cooking columns) but I think it's good that we have people questioning our agricultural system, which has some obvious flaws if you do a little research. It isn't all or nothing- and your pro GMO screed is just as bad as Bittman's scare tactics.