US vs Italy McDonald's | Food Wars | Insider Food

Claudia: From calorie counts to portion sizes, we wanted to discover all the differences between McDonald's in the United States and Italy. This is "Food Wars." McDonald's drinks in Italy come in three sizes: 250 milliliters, 400 milliliters and 500 milliliters. Now let's measure a 500 ml Coke to see if that's true. Ah, ah. I think we're getting over that. It's just below the 600 mark, but almost there. Very generous. Drinks in the United States also come in four sizes. The extra small, which measures 355 milliliters or 12 fluid ounces. The small one, 474 milliliters or 16 fluid ounces. And the medium, 621 milliliters or 21 fluid ounces. And the large one, 946 milliliters or 32 fluid ounces.

Since we were the ones who filled this at the restaurant and I don't think we filled it all, I'm going to go ahead and fill this with what I think is reasonable. I can't reach the top because the lid is recessed. OK. 32? I'm sure you're joking. But there is line 32. Not even close. It's closer to 24 than 32. Therefore, French fries in Italy come in three sizes. The regular one, which is technically the small, the medium and the large. Here in the United States, our potato chips come in four sizes. Kids, it comes in the Happy Meal. Look at this little guy.

Little guy! The small, the medium and the large. Everyone who watches "Food Wars" knows that in the China episode, our large McDonald's fry weighed 175 grams. In the Japan episode, our large McDonald's fries weighed 190 grams. Clearly there is some difference in the weight depending on, I don't know, the McDonald's we go to, the Scooper, who knows? So let's weigh our size large right now. Ready? Fantastic. Hey, let's go to 185. Not a bad scoop. This time we got a good scoop. It actually looks quite small. What about McNuggets? In Italy you can get a bag of four, a box of six pieces, nine pieces and 20 pieces.

Claudia, in the United States, our McNuggets are available in these sizes: four pieces, six pieces, 10 pieces, 20 pieces, which you also have, but here in the United States we go up one more. Our largest size, 40 pieces. Now, if my calculations are correct, this is twice your largest size. The iconic Big Mac. Both countries have it, but let's compare ours with Italy's by weighing it up. 226 grams for an American Big Mac. And here's an Italian Big Mac, or Il Big Mac, as it's written here, and now let's weigh it up. 209 grams. Here are all the McDonald's Italy menu items you won't find in the U.S.

And here are all the McDonald's U.S. menu items you won't find in Italy. Take a good look, Claudia. Let's start with the burgers. We have a lot of Italian burgers that you won't find in the United States. The first one we have here is a chicken Big Mac. Correct. I just destroyed the Big Mac chicken. Has that been reversed? Is it supposed to look like this? The cheese helps a little. Sauce too. Moving on, we have a Big Mac with bacon. Yes, there are two strips of bacon, but they're not very big, so it looks like maybe it's just one cut in half.

We got a crispy McBacon, which is like a cheeseburger, a double burger, and some bacon again, a little bit on the side. It's actually funny because when I was a kid I thought the Crispy McBacon was the iconic McDonald's item, and it's weird that it's actually an Italian exclusive. Here are all the burgers from the US that you can't get in Italy. Starting here, the Quarter Pounder with cheese. It's really just a cheeseburger that has a quarter pound of meat. It's a great burger to go. Meat, cheese, onion, pickles, ketchup and mustard. And if you want more meat, you can get the double Quarter Pounder.

Correct. Not the half pound, the double quarter pound with cheese. Two burgers, more meat, more cheese. Fantastic sandwich. And then we have the first of the My Selection range, which is a range designed with Joe Bastianich. He is an American chef and television personality. This one is mota and Asiago, so yeah, very traditional. Speck is a type of sausage. It's like a smoked ham. Yes, it is a smoked ham from northern Italy. It's actually very, very nice, very salty with that smoky flavor. It is one of my favorites. And then we have Asiago, which is a cheese made in practically the same area.

It also contains mayonnaise and zucchini. A little dry, I think. If you try the cold cuts, the speck. It just brings that salty, smoky flavor. Very good, and the cheese is pretty good too. Yeah, I actually don't know if you've noticed, but it's a lot bigger than the others. You can even take, for example, a Big Mac with bacon. Although it is supposed to have two patties, it is much larger. And then we have another My Selection burger. This one is called My BBQ. This one has barbecue sauce, yes, I see it, gouda cheese and bacon, and it's all topped off with a little balsamic vinegar.

It still has the same kind of fancy burger we had before. Well, and after these delicious and elegant burgers, we have a gluten-free burger. Oh. Wait, why does it come in a bag? Oh. Yes. Very... ooh. Yeah, I'm not excited about this. I just don't like bread. I'm sure you can find better gluten-free bread. There are so many around. And if for some strange reason you want vegetables in your burger, you can order the Quarter Pounder with luxury cheese, with lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise. Oh, did you see that stream come out? Put like a bag of mayonnaise on that one.

That's a little strange. Tastes good. And if you just want to go all out on the meat, you can get a double quarter pounder with bacon. Watch this. Good? Is very good. Enough talk. And, surprise, another thing on our menu that you don't have: the McDouble. McDonald's has a Double Cheeseburger, which contains double the meat and cheese, but there is also a McDouble on the menu. What's the difference, you ask? Well, McDouble only has one slice of cheese. As you can see from here, you have ketchup, mustard and pickles on top, no cheese. The cheese is in the middle here.

I understand. These are tough times in this economy, but guys, have an extra helping of cheese. Come on. I mean, we're not robots here. We have to have some pleasure in our lives and I think you should get that extra slice of cheese. Absorb the cost of it. It's perfectly fine. You're doing great. Come on! The following is another of those My Selection. It's a chicken, avocado and bacon burger. Hm, this one has a different bun. Oh, elegant. Alright, yes, the avocado is there. There is like cabbage. Mm, a little less excited about that. And this one has caciocavallo Silano cheese.

I don't know. We can call this, you know, salsa talk. The talk about cheese. Caciocavallo comes from the same family as mozzarella. They are called pasta filata cheeses and it is basically the way cheese is made, when milk is divided into curds and whey. It's done in a different way. And you could say that caciocavallo is like aged mozzarella. So it is a very versatile cheese that I think is not very well known abroad. So yeah, thank you McDonald's for putting it on their menu so everyone can know. Here's the cheese we were talking about. It's always a shame.

They put it there with avocado and this cabbage. Next up, we have double roast chicken. After seeing all these big ones, they seem pretty small. And then we have a chicken burger. This differs from the McChicken because it has Caesar sauce and not lettuce. I think this is glue. There seems to be a type of glue that looks exactly like this. We also thought it would be fun to compare Happy Meals. Here is the one from the United States. Open this box, take a look around. I'm pretty sure this is Pokémon. This one comes with chips and nuggets, which we have six pieces, and this is their Pokémon toy.

So, they get the six-piece. It's funny, a six-piece suit still seems like a lot for a kid. Pokémon-themed toys are coming to you these days. What is this? Okay, so we have Pikachu. Does this have any value? Because there are rare ones. There are some that have a lot of value for them. But not the McDonald's ones, right? Cycle? Any value? We have Tandemaus. Yes. And, of course, Sandaconda. After this I'll look on eBay and see if they're worth anything. Culturally, I have no idea what this is. I don't know what... is this a thing?

No, I have no idea who. I don't remember any of those names. Charlizard? Ciligarto? Is this Cylizard? Charmagarg. OK. In a Happy Meal in Italy, you can find four elements. Obviously there is a drink, then there is a main dish which can be either some nuggets or a burger. And unique to Italy is a chicken burger and a McToast, which is what we have today. We'll see it in a moment. Then there is a side. It can be French fries or baby carrots. And a dessert. It can be fresh fruit, Actimel, which is technically a drink, but here it's a dessert, and parmesan.

Here is our McToast. Nice. The surprise of the day. Yes, they are only collaborating with Hot Wheels. So let's take a look at what it is. I don't know, do you think I can find a Vespa here? Oh, pretty skateboard, pink. Nyoom. We also have an exclusive wrap option here in Italy. It's a McWrap with crispy chicken breast and Parmesan or Parmigiano-Reggiano. It is made in collaboration with Giallozafferano, which is the number one recipe website in Italy. To be honest, I think they could have come up with a better recipe, perhaps, for the wrap. The wrapper looks very sad, just the actual bread.

The chicken looks good. Italy clearly has plenty of unique chicken sandwich options, but we've got a few of our own here, namely the McCrispy and Spicy McCrispy and a deluxe version of each sandwich. We'll see. It's more like a chicken sandwich you'd find at Chick-fil-A, and I think Burger King has the chicken king now. McDonald's did all the research they did to launch this McCrispy sandwich. Now, as you can see, there are only pickles here. A crispier, more natural-looking piece of fried chicken, and no sauce. Doesn't it always have sauce? I do not like that. I don't like a place that gives you

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and meeting requirements.

For the most part, you should get the sandwich how it's supposed to be. So put your own sauce on it, it's like, no, you put it on. Here is the luxury. Yes, it has mayonnaise. Oh. This to me is like, yeah, do this every time. This should just be the sandwich. I don't... If you're like me and you want to spice it up, oh, they have the spice... oh, come on. There's hot sauce in here somewhere. Then of course they got the deluxe spicy, which of course has hot sauce and all those vegetables. So yes. I think McDonald's is still a contender in the chicken sandwich game.

Now we move on to the exclusive sides here in Italy. The first one we get is cheese fries. The same fried ones, just with a little more bacon than we have here. Yes, cheddar cheese and bacon. This is, I don't know, a very sad Italian version of poutine. In the following menu to accompany, we have panzerotti. I'm actually really excited about these because, ooh, panzerotti are from my hometown of Bari in southern Italy. The main difference is that normally the panzerotti, the traditional ones, are this big. They are usually quite wide. It's like a main meal.

Panzerotti usually have tomato and mozzarella is the most common filling, but in Bari, where they are from, you can get them with ground beef, mozzarella and cooked ham. These are actually my favorites. I used to go pick them up after school. Of course, they are the perfect snack. Pretty good, actually. The filling is okay, but I think that in a real panzerotto, when you bite into it, basically almost all of the filling should come out. It should explode. The first reaction when you eat a panzerotti is this, and then you put your hand here and avoid a complete disaster.

This brings us to the next snack, which is Parmigiano-Reggiano or Parmesan. This is one of the most counterfeited cheeses in the world. In Italy, but also in Europe, because of this whole protection thing, anything called Parmesan, even if it's not the real name, Parmigiano-Reggiano, is in fact authentic, so at least we're safe on that side. That being said, I believe that most of the Parmesan, Parmigiano that you will find in supermarkets, has been aged for a minimum of 12 months. So it's good, it's authentic, but if you have the choice, choose something that's aged a little more.

I think in Italy we snack on a lot of cheese, and I definitely have memories of coming home from school and then in the afternoon grabbing some cheese from the refrigerator and eating a couple of slices or even more than that. I think my mom still does that, so sorry for exposing you, mom. I love it. Here we have another exclusive. There are actually three salads on the menu. One is just a salad, one is a salad with tomatoes and then we have another with crispy chicken breast and parmesan. We were also able to select a dressing and add olive oil.

You can also get a small bottle of balsamic vinegar or just plain vinegar. We don't really have exclusive sides in the United States. All of the side options on our menu can also be found in Italy. I will say, though, that I love that they have a stick of cheese on the side, like it's a palate cleanser. I would love that. I would love to snack on cheese. I love eating cheese as a snack. We should have more cheese, is whatI try to say. We can bring it with the sauces. It's time to talk about salsa, Italy edition.

Talk about la la la sauce! That had to offend someone. Salsa talk. We have several signature sauces here in the United States, including spicy Buffalo, and then we have ranch, honey mustard, and sweet and sour sauce. Now I have two because apparently one is from the movie "Loki." And of course you only get honey. Of all of these, I would probably choose the sweet and sour, but the barbacoa, which they do have, is my favorite. We have an exclusive sauce in Italy, which is spicy mustard sauce. Yes. Yes, it is a little spicy. Although not so much.

It doesn't numb your tongue. I think it actually has a sweet aftertaste for some reason. For early risers, there are plenty of unique breakfast items at McDonald's USA, and they're all tasty. Now, the first thing I'm going to talk about is cookies. I'm not the person who describes American cookies to the rest of the world. They should have hired a poet. This is the bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit, but you can get a biscuit version of any meat or cheese combination you like. Here in the middle, however, Italy, Claudia, everyone, look what I'm going to show you.

You already know what pancakes are. You already know what syrup is. You obviously know what breakfast sandwiches are. This here is a McGriddle and they replaced the rolls with this. These bread pancakes. This is a pancake, Italy. A pancake. These, here. And they somehow injected syrup into them, so it's not like a syrup like a sauce, it's just, in a way, already syrupy, and it's savory and sweet at the same time. It's so delicious. It's a McGriddle. It's fantastic. I love these. This is a Bacon, Egg, and Cheese McGriddle, but again, you can get it in any combination of sausage, egg, and/or cheese you want.

McGriddles. Look at them. I'm the number one McGriddle fan here. And the OG breakfast sandwich, this is the Egg McMuffin. They were given the Big Breakfast with or without pancakes. I went with hot bread. You've got eggs, bacon, pancakes, English muffin, this is fantastic. And if you just want to eat pancakes and sausages, you can do that too. And every order of pancakes comes with our pancake syrup. I think an unsung hero of McDonald's breakfast menu, I've been a fan of this for years, is the sausage breakfast burrito. Now, let's be honest. Italy, in case you were wondering, this in no way represents a real burrito.

I want to make it perfectly clear. I wouldn't put this in the same category as any type of burrito, breakfast or otherwise, but it's something unique and I think it's fantastic. It's in a flour tortilla. Scrambled eggs, sausage, yes I know, peppers, cheese and the secret weapon is this, their Mexican style sauce. Again, there's nothing authentically Mexican about this, but it tastes delicious. This was an option for years. I could save about four of these. McDonald's also offers oatmeal, specifically maple fruit oatmeal. Forward. The Italian McDonald's also sells breakfast items. We have... That's very sad. They gave us scrambled eggs with bacon and a muffin and bread, which looks more like a muffin.

And then we have a bacon and egg McMuffin. Yes, Italians don't really have tasty breakfasts. It's definitely a habit. You simply associate breakfast with sweet products. Alright, America has its own exclusive McCafé items too. Where did they go? The McDonald's near our study did not have McCafé

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s. McDonald's in Italy has made a big effort with McCafé menu items, and there really are a lot of items on the menu here. So let's start with the croissants. We have quite a few on the menu. I think this one here, because it looks a little brown, this is the cocoa one with sourdough.

Pretty safe to eat. This is the simple one. It looks more like a French style croissant. Nice layers there too, some air. It's quite hard to tell here, but there is a subtle layer of jam. These are berries and cereals. So the dough is a little harder and, yes, it smells a little more like cereal. Same amount of jam as in the others. Actually, it's not very generous. I think this is the last one we have, so it's the custard. It looks like we have a little more there. Obviously, it's hard to tell because the cream is the same color as the dough and has turned it yellow.

Nice. There's a lot of lemon there. Another pastry option that you can get is this cream braid. This is also quite typical in Italy. For example, you get these types of cakes. You can also get them salted in different regions of Italy. Let's see if they were generous with the cream here. Mm, yes, I'll say it. I prefer this cream. In Italy you can also get some pastries. We have tiramisu, which is, yes, a traditional Italian thing, but not a breakfast item. I really wouldn't have tiramisu for breakfast. I know you want to hear an Italian's opinion, so let's try this tiramisu and see if it's good.

Yeah, pretty good, actually. We also have other cakes. We have this one, which is torta della nonna in Italian and which literally translates to "grandma's cake" in English. This one has lemon cream and pine nuts. I think it's a bit of a joke that this is called grandma's pie just because every Italian grandma who is good at cooking will be able to make something like 100 times better than this. We have a strawberry cheesecake. Let's move on to this three-layer chocolate cake. It's an absolute beast. It's too much. I wouldn't have this for breakfast. And then we have a few more items here at McCafé in Italy.

We have a marshmallow donut that looks like the most artificial thing I've ever seen. Then we have a Nutella muffin. It's true that Italians love Nutella and eat it all the time. Again, when I was a kid, my parents used to hide it. Mmm, sad. And the last item we have is macaroni. We have chocolate macarons, raspberry macarons and pistachio macarons, or pistachio, as we say here. Oh, the inside is dangerously green. To be honest, they don't taste that much like pistachio. Desserts, McDonald's US, we have these exclusives. Starting here, the baked apple pie. The day they stopped frying them is the day I stopped eating them.

Now they are making this trying to make it look like a homemade cupcake. It's not. This just spat out of an AI oven machine. Blip, blip, blip. One per second. No human. I'm the first human hand to touch this. Also chocolate chip cookies. They come in orders of one, three, the trilogy, or a total of 13. One good thing about the McDonald's we went to today is that the McFlurry machine was working perfectly, and I bought this one, the M&M McFlurry. We use mini M&Ms, which are better than regular M&Ms, I don't know why, they just are.

Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream. Maybe my favorite when I was a kid, caramel ice cream. Hmm. Oh, that's my childhood right there. And you can get a sweet one too. For signature Italian desserts, we have a Pistachio McFlurry and then a Baci Perugina McFlurry. Baci Perugina are very popular chocolates. They are made in Perugia, which is in the center of Italy, a central town. And here we have a coffee ice cream. It's great that they gave us the espresso so we can make our own. A bit like an affogato, in a way. The other sundaes are caramel, red berries, another Baci Perugina again and the fior di latte, which is basically the Italian version of vanilla.

Oh. Good yes. Now let's move on to the cold drink options, starting here, all the soda options found here in the US. Of course, we have a lot more than Italy. Starting with Dr. Pepper. It's okay. Fantastic. Diet Coke. No. Ugh. This completely unnatural looking thing is Hi-C Orange Lavaburst. It's not carbonated, but it's not juice either. I can not explain it. I'm Hi-C. You can also get unsweetened sweet tea and iced tea at McDonald's. What I wanted to receive was this, the frozen Fanta blue raspberry. God, it's so sweet and so syrupy. Don't drink this, don't give it to children, don't ever take it.

They also have a Coca-Cola version, frozen Coca-Cola. Don't bother either. Lemonade, yes. So, we found that lemonade in America is the least different from lemonade in the UK. Again, this is not carbonated, it's not really juice, it's something different. I don't know what lemonade is like in Italy. Oh man, it's so tart and so good. Let's move on to coffee drinks, or should I say cold coffee drinks, from here to here. I understand that doesn't happen in Italy, which I think is very funny. This giant glass here is iced coffee. You can also get it in caramel flavor or French vanilla flavor.

I chose black, the ace of spades right here. Hmm. Oh man, they do something with their coffee there. They make something that tastes like it's really roasted. I mean, I'm sure it's not. You can also order an iced latte. This here is a frappe. You can get a mocha frappe or a caramel frappe. Basically, if you're an adult and you want a shake, you get a frap. You can also get milkshakes at McDonald's. We have a mango pineapple smoothie and a strawberry banana smoothie. In Italy we have some exclusive drinks. Let's start with the cold options.

We have Lipton iced tea in both lemon and peach. Then we had some fruit juices. We have the pear, the ace, which is very popular here in Italy. It should be very orange. It is a mixture of orange, carrot and lemon. Yes, very orange. And it's called ace, which is A-C-E, because of the three vitamins that these fruits or vegetables contain, I guess, these carrots. And then we got peach juice. And here are our hot McDonald's coffee drinks. "Coffee", right, Italy? Okay, we understand. We go a little overboard with our coffee drinks here in the United States and McDonald's, of course, is no different.

You can get a caramel macchiato, a caramel cappuccino. Why do we make so much candy in America, right? Ah, caramel latte. You can also get it in vanilla. No. You can also order a mocha latte. We have a premium roasted coffee. Like I said before, I don't know what they do at McDonald's, but I like the coffee. But you can also order, lastly, a hot black tea. What is this? The United Kingdom? Yuck. Italy's exclusive hot drinks are obviously the king of hot drinks: espresso. Then we have a Moroccan coffee, which is not Moroccan in the sense that it is not Moroccan-style coffee, but interestingly, and to be honest, I never understood this, it is named after a type of Moroccan leather that looks like this. color.

Honestly, it's like an espresso with a little milk. And then we have ginseng coffee and barley coffee, which technically shouldn't be called coffee because it doesn't contain coffee, it just has barley, and this is like an alternative for people who can't drink coffee and still want to have something like a little espresso after lunch. Yes, it smells very like cereal. I don't know. I'm not a big fan. And then we got just a standard latte macchiato. This is the closest thing to a latte you'll find here in Italy, so it's just a lot of milk with a little bit of coffee and a little bit of foam on top.

In Italy, a Big Mac will cost you 6 euros and 10 cents. In dollars, that's about $6.76. A Big Mac in the United States will cost you $6.29. That's a 3% price increase from Italy to the United States. What happens if you make it a combo meal? In Italy, a small Big Mac meal with medium fries and a medium drink will cost you 8 euros 90, or $9.86. Does a combo meal make a difference in the US? A medium Big Mac combo meal here will cost you $11.42. You can also save some money if you buy in bulk. Here in Italy you can get a Mac menu for two people, which includes two Big Macs, two large portions of fries, two large Coca-Colas and six nuggets, for 18 euros.

In the US, we only do Big Mac combo meals, as mentioned above. So to get the same order in Italy, you'd have to order two Big Mac meals plus six nuggets on the side. It would cost about 36 dollars, which in Italy is about 33 euros. Price wise, I think they are definitely better value than other fast food chains. Well, you don't have to believe Five Guys, I know they have a reputation for being quite expensive, but I think the burger is like half the price. For the panzerotti, I think it was more like 3 euros, 3 euros or so, which, honestly, for three of them as a team, is a little sad.

But, I repeat, I grew up in the city of panzerotti and I used to have a complete one of this size for about 2 euros. That was 15 years ago, so maybe now it would translate to something like 5 or 6. Once upon a time, McDonald's was the cheapest option. It was a lot of food for little money. As many people probably pointed out on social media, this food is no longer cheap. It's not expensive. Maybe because of competition, maybe because of inflation, probably because of corporate greed, I think McDonald's and most fast foods are no longer a good option.

Let's compare some items to see what the nutrition of McDonald's food is. A sandwich that exists in both countries and is theoretically identical is the Big Mac. In the United States, a Big Mac contains 590 calories, 34 grams of total fat, 46 grams of carbohydrates and 9 grams of sugar. How about an Italian Big Mac? One of those here contains 509 calories. Of these, there are 26 grams of total fat, 42 grams of carbohydrates, of whichwhich 9 grams are sugars, and then there are 920 milligrams of sodium. What if we make it a combined meal? Starting with French fries, a medium fry in the US contains 320 calories, 15 grams of total fat, 43 grams of carbohydrates, no sugar, and 260 milligrams of sodium.

While a medium fries in Italy contains 330 calories, 16 grams of total fat, 41 grams of carbohydrates, of which 0.4 grams are sugars, and 212 milligrams of sodium. And let's add the medium Coca-Cola to the mix. It contains 210 calories, without fat, 56 carbohydrates, 56 of them are sugar and 55 milligrams of sodium. It's funny that there is salt in the soda. We'll do the same here. This is what's inside a medium Coca-Cola in Italy. It's 168 calories, zero grams of fat, 42 grams of carbs, 42 grams of sugar, so it's all sugar and zero grams of sodium. That leaves the total for Italian food at this: 1,007 calories, 42 grams of fat, 125 grams of carbohydrates, 51.4 grams of sugars and 1,132 milligrams of sodium.

While in the US, the total ends up looking like this. Now let's talk about ingredients. In fact, McDonald's Italia shares a lot of information about its ingredients. This is because most of the dishes on the menu are made with 100% Italian products. Beef, like that used in the Big Mac, comes from more than 15,000 different farms located in northern Italy, around the regions of Lombardy, where we are now, whose capital is Milan, and Piedmont. There are apples from South Tyrol, which is where speck is made, right on the border with Austria. And just to give a little recognition to the southern regions, because I'm from there, so without prejudice, we have some apricots from the Vesuvio National Park, in Campania, and Sicilian oranges.

And when we talk about DOP, this red label here, is what you are looking for. It is a label used for many traditional products in the EU, and that means that they must be made following certain specific standards, most of the time in a very artisanal way. That also means that certain products like parmesan cannot be made outside of a specific area. That has to do with the weather. So, for example, for cheese, the main argument is that it is a raw milk cheese, and in raw milk cheeses, you know what cows eat. Obviously, weed tastes different depending on where you are in the world.

But we do have some American-sourced ingredients for McDonald's. The potatoes used for our fries are grown in Washington, at 100 Circles Farm, which is apparently owned by Bill Gates. They grow potatoes in circles so large they can be seen from space. The potatoes are then cut into chips at 70 miles per hour, which is faster than a cheetah. Is that the unit of measurement? That not-so-secret ingredient in McDonald's fries is meat flavoring, something they've been doing since the 1950s. Want to see if there are any differences between America's Big Mac and Italy's? These are all the ingredients of a Big Mac in the United States.

In total, there are 68 ingredients that make up a Big Mac. That's a lot. 28 of those ingredients are in the bread, which is quite a lot for bread. Big Mac sauce also has a lot of ingredients, 26 in total, and we seem to add a lot of seasoning to ours, which increases the volume of the ingredients. In Italy, a Big Mac has 54 ingredients. Are here. We actually only have 20 ingredients in the bun, because we don't fortify the flour like they do in the U.S. Our Big Mac sauce has 15 ingredients, nine less than the American Big Mac, Joe.

Most of the other ingredients are similar, but we don't have as many colors or thickeners as in the U.S. Some of the ingredients in our American Big Mac Sauce caught our attention, so we wanted to explain what they are. Firstly, propylene glycol alginate is derived from brown algae and is a thickener used in foods to give a smooth, natural texture. Next we have hydrolyzed corn, which is a vegetable protein from corn and is used as a flavoring for its umami flavor. Sodium citrate helps the cheese melt without becoming greasy. I grew up with McDonald's. I definitely celebrated a couple of birthdays there.

I had my share of Happy Meals with lots of little girly toys. It's definitely considered healthier than other fast food chains because it's been around for quite a while, but also obviously because it's become very Italianized over the years, incorporating things like parmesan or traditional cheeses and cold cuts. So I appeal a little more to the taste of the Italians. I've been to stores in the US and the UK, and the Italian McDonald's seems, I don't know, a little fancier. It's everywhere, making burgers, fries, and soda to go with the country's most popular food, and then how many places followed suit?

With Burger King and Wendy's and all that. And now we have the chicken sandwich version, we have fried chicken. McDonald's McDonald's unified the entire country and the world. McDonald's is like Nike or Christianity. It's everywhere! Number one? Yuelei: She's like the mascot of the show. OK. And it's called Pokémon? Yuelei: No! Pokémon is a type. It's like the animal. Oh.