A trip through a McDonald’s meat factory

Sausage are like laws, you should never watch either being made. Apparently Otto Von Bismarck said that in the 1890s. A few years later Upton Sinclair proved him right with The Jungle, his book about the meat industry.

But in the 100 years since The Jungle‘s publication, the meat industry has changed to the point that McDonald’s actually released a video of its hamburgers being processed.

The film goes inside McDonald’s supplier Lopez Food in Oklahoma City. Don’t worry, it’s not a slaughterhouse — I don’t think any company is dumb enough to show videos of that! — but a processing plant, where the various parts of a cow come in and then leave as patties.

The entire process is thoroughly explained in this six-minute video.

I’m desensitized to meat but I could see how people who have never worked in kitchens would still find the process disgusting. Although the center is clean as can be, machines still spit out thousands of pounds of raw bloody beef at a horrifying pace.

Readers with queasy stomachs shouldn’t watch, but for the rest of us it’s a rare look into how McDonald’s runs its empire.