McDonald’s head chef says: ‘I don’t see anything on the menu that’s unhealthy’

Maybe he thought the rest of the world wouldn’t be listening, but when McDonald’s senior director of culinary innovation, Chef Daniel Coudreaut visited Cleveland this week to assist in the unveiling McDonald’s new banana nut oatmeal with fresh blueberries, he clearly stepped in it (by “it” we mean the pink goo they were using for their chicken nuggets.)

Let us say first that context is always important, and it’s possible this quote was pulled out of a very long explanation within which the following statement might not have seemed so brazenly deluded. But in defense of the McDonald’s menu, Coudreaut really did say:

“I don’t see anything on the menu that’s unhealthy.”

We’d love to hear about his definition of “unhealthy” foods. Bath salts, maybe?

Chef Coudreaut explained that he and his children eat at McDonald’s once a week or so, and added America’s number one fast food joint wasn’t the only restaurant to serve fattening food. “I’m sure I could eat a 2,000 calorie meal at Thomas Keller’s French Laundry,” he is quoted as saying in the Akron Beacon Journal.

But we’ll hand it to the guy. As much as McDonald’s has made unhealthy food extremely cheap and accessible, blaming one chain for a national problem is the easy way out. Coudreaut rightly said, “I feel that if we were to close our doors of all of the McDonald’s tomorrow, the obesity problem would not go away.”

Because our other perennial favorites, Wendy’s, Burger King and Dominos aren’t that far behind. And then there’s this, this and that, too.