The Dangers of "Freshness"

Lots of things are dangerous. Knives are dangerous. Bears are dangerous. Women driving cars are dangerous. But I was fairly certain, until today, that freshness was fairly benign; a positive, even. Apparently I was wrong.

As I am wont to do, I went to the McDonald's Drive-Thru to get some chicken McNuggets (I love those things. They're like deep-fried crack) and some fries. Sounds boring enough, doesn't it? Well it was boring, thanks especially to the prolonged wait at the window. I know that as a sign that they're making a fresh batch of food - otherwise, there would just be an hours-old pre-made box of whatever your ordered sitting under one of those futile heating lamps. This didn't bother me because, fresh or old, McDonald's tastes exactly the same.

But then the food was done and the drive-thru attendant handed me my bag of grease-soaked, slow death-inducing deliciousness and he looked me in the eyes and solemnly said "Be careful. It's fresh". As if freshness posed a threat to my well-being. Now I can understand that nuggets and fries might be a little hotter than usual when they're right out of the fry-u-lator, but let's recall the situation: I was at the drive-thru. I still had to drive home before digging into the food. Theoretically this would give said food time to cool down. Considering how cold the interior of my car tends to be, it would be downright lukewarm by the time I got to eating it. The risk seems minimal.

I considered the potential danger if I had been an eat-in customer, diving into my fatty foodstuffs right away. Even then, though, the risk seems almost nill. I mean, really. The stuff just ain't that hot even when it's straight out of the oil. The coffee is hotter than any of the food ever gets (and bears a warning label as such). So finally I conclude that this man was not warning me about burning my fingers on my nuggets.

So, what was he talking about then? After careful thought all I can assume is that he was warning me against freshness itself. This food must have been too close to it's original form. It had not been processed and by-processed enough to save me from the very real danger of eating something actually resembling chicken and potatoes.

It's official folks: Real food is just too dangerous for us.

And really, think about it. We live in a society that thrives almost entirely on processed products. We don't eat organic food all that much, and in fact if we did try it it would be so foreign to our systems that we might go into some kind of shock. Craving trans-fats, saturated fats, batter and salt, our bodies would seize up when actual meat or veggies were consumed. The stomach would reject them, leading to terrible illness. Can you imagine if one of those millions of obese Americans (yours truly included) ate an apple or a piece of free-range chicken? We'd fall into fits of retching and vomiting. Our muscles might cramp, leaving us to fall paralyzed to the floor, where we would helplessly drown in our own health-food spew. It would be tragedy on a widespread scale as yet unparalleled in the annals of human history. It would be like introducing breadcrumbs to the air filtration system of a spaceship: doom and catastrophe would follow from such callous tinkering with such delicate and finely-tuned equipment.

So thank you, McDonald's drive-thru man, for warning me of the freshness of my food. Of course, the process of becoming McNuggets and french fries had removed the food from it's true form sufficiently enough that I could offset it with a tall glass of coke and lots of generic brand mustard that was a color of no mustard I'd ever seen before. And it sure tasted fake. Ultimately, I got through the meal safely, and came out of it full. And it's all because McDonald's really cares.