--- title: McDonald's Ad Shows How McRib Is Made description: Social media has not always been kind to McDonald's. And so, the fast food chain hired MythBusters co-host Grant Imahara do disprove Twitter-feuled myths of... canonical: https://time.com/3556598/mcdonalds-mcrib-video/ author: Laura Stampler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-11-04T19:01:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T09:01:59.265Z og:title: Watch McDonald's Prove the McRib Is Made of Actual Food og:description: See how a McRib is made og:url: https://time.com/3556598/mcdonalds-mcrib-video/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt16caba2e99feaaa6/6987640dcd1bba50ba6f2fa5/screen-shot-2014-11-04-at-1-24-21-pm.png?branch=production&width=578&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 578 og:image:height: 325 og:image:alt: Screen Shot 2014-11-04 at 1.24.21 PM og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch McDonald's Prove the McRib Is Made of Actual Food twitter:description: See how a McRib is made twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt16caba2e99feaaa6/6987640dcd1bba50ba6f2fa5/screen-shot-2014-11-04-at-1-24-21-pm.png?branch=production&width=578&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Watch McDonald's Prove the McRib Is Made of Actual Food > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=f3fa9766-e74d-42de-903e-5debf067dec5&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Our food. Your questions. What are McRib patties made of? [Watch (HLS stream): Our food. Your questions. What are McRib patties made of?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/SOwr0bUO.m3u8) (5:28)  _Published 2014-11-04. Our food. Your questions. What are McRib patties made of?_ by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Nov 4, 2014 7:01 PM UTC by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Nov 4, 2014 7:01 PM UTC Social media has [not always been kind to McDonald’s](http://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-twitter-campaign-goes-horribly-wrong-mcdstories-2012-1). And so, the fast food chain hired _MythBusters_ co-host Grant Imahara do disprove [Twitter-feuled myths of pink slime and other gross rumors](http://time.com/3505675/mcdonalds-fast-food-health-pink-slime/) as part of a new ad campaign. The latest target in McDonald’s marketing campaign is the McRib. Although the seasonal menu offering has a [cult-like following](http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2010/10/the-cult-of-the-elusive-mcdonalds-mcrib/64505/), the company took a PR hit last year when an alleged image of the uncooked food went viral. Headlines ranged from: [“Frozen McRib Photo Will Make You Question Everything In Life”](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/12/frozen-mcrib%5Fn%5F4260461.html) to [“Picture of frozen McRib goes viral, churns stomachs”](http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2013/11/13/picture-frozen-mcrib-goes-viral/): 1 reason I don't eat a McRib . it tastes gross & this is how it looks frozen [pic.twitter.com/RgWqbaC6jV](http://t.co/RgWqbaC6jV) — Kelly (@GoldenFreaux) [November 12, 2013](https://twitter.com/GoldenFreaux/status/400388788876087297?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw) And so McDonald’s flew self-proclaimed hater Wes Bellamy, who had tweeted the picture and discouraged people from ever eating the McRib, out to Oklahoma City to see how the sandwich is made. Although Bellamy calls himself a skeptic, the video chronicling the production process portrays him as quick to give McDonald’s-friendly soundbites. “This looks a lot different from a picture that I saw on Twitter,” he said. “So that’s how you keep it tasty like my Grandma’s barbecue!” According to the McRib makers, the sandwich consists of only a few key ingredients: pork, water, salt, a sugar compound and preservatives to “lock in the flavor.” _Read next:_ [_McDonald’s Restaurant Owners Want to Banish These Menu Items_](http://time.com/money/3678914/mcdonalds-menus-change-franchise/?xid=time%5Freadnext) [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/?sl%5Fautoplay=true&xid=spl-fullbrief-article) ## Transcript My name is Wes Bellamy. I'm from Charlottesville, Virginia. I'm a teacher at Avonmore High School, I'm also the executive director of a nonprofit entitled HYPE, helping young people evolve. Right now I'm in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, a place I've never been before, and McDonald's brought me here because of a tweet that they saw. Someone sent me a picture of what I thought was a McRib. And I put Woooowwww with a bunch of Os and Ws, and that looked disgusting. And I was encouraging everyone to never eat anything from McDonald's again, so think you all want to bring me here so I can actually see how the McRib is made and see if my mind can be changed a little bit. I don't know, though. I'm a skeptic. I'm Grant Imahara. McDonald's knows you have a lot of questions about their food so they've asked me to help find the answers. Hey, are you Wes? I'm Wes, are you Grant? I am Grant, nice to meet you man. Are you ready to get to the bottom of the McRib. Let's find out what's really in that stuff. Alright. Alright. Grant. Wes [ UNKNOWN ]. Kevin [ UNKNOWN ], nice to meet you. Pleasure. What do we have here? We have a boneless pork picnic, which is the main ingredient in the McDonald's McRib patty. This looks a lot different than a picture I saw on Twitter. So this is the good stuff? This is what we purchase and, and bring into the facility to create the McRib. Well I'm anxious to see what happens next. Yeah. Very good. All right. Cool. Let's check it out. So, where are we heading now? So, we're gonna go ahead and watch. The pork be introduced to the process. Come on up! This is the same cut of meat that we saw up in the kitchen earlier. Have you ever seen this much meat before? There's no bones. No bones in there. No gristle. It's all meat. Wait, I don't know. Let me feel one of the pieces in the back. You know, they, they try to hide the stuff in the back! [ LAUGH ] Let me try to get one of these pieces, yeah. Get in there! Get in there! Let me get at the bottom, one of these pieces. There's nothing in it, that's, this is good. So this will be lifted up and, and go up there to be grinded. Yes, let's go take a look at that process, okay? We're going to come on this vantage point so we can see the entire production floor. Okay. This is a great vantage point to survey your meat empire. [ LAUGH ] Every piece of meat that we're grinding [ UNKNOWN ] is visually inspected by highly trained individuals. This seems pretty cool, I must admit, this is not like I thought it would be. So Kevin, I see there's a lot of things being mixed in there, what exactly is in there? The only thing in the McRib patty is pork. Water, salt, dextrose, which is a type of sugar, and preservatives, which are BHA, pulpogally, and citric acid. What are the preservatives for? The preservatives are used to lock in the flavor all the way until the restaurant. Oh, so that's how you keep it tasting like my grandma's barbecue. We're following the recipe just like she does at home. All right, let's see. All right. Wes, your grandma makes a McRib? [ LAUGH ] Cuz if so, I want a taste that. [ LAUGH ] So after this is mixed, you're going to form it into that McRib shape. You turn around behind you. You will see where we're forming McRib in the iconic form, that resembles a rack of ribs. That's awesome. I never knew. I just thought it was some weird shape. We're putting a really fine mist of water on the product so when we flash freeze, we keep it from dehydrating. So Wes, is this what you saw in that tweet? Yeah, I think it is, but you know what? It's, it's kinda crazy because it's different now that I know what actually goes inside of it, and I know what actually, what the process is in terms of making it. It's actually good pork. So when Gai cooks 'em, we wanna make sure we are preparing the product just like it's being cooked in the restaurant. So we're cooking it the exact same way. Ok. So that this would be the exact same experience? The exact same experience and restaurant. How many McRib's do you eat in a day? A lot. Sometimes I eat extra. [ LAUGH ] [ LAUGH ] Now's the time to see exactly what's gonna happen. It's the moment of truth. That looks a lot different from the picture that I saw on Twitter. So. So actually when we evaluate it we look at the sear on top side and bottom side. We grade that. Mm- hm. Juicy. Great texture. So I've never eaten a McRib. You never did? And Wes hasn't either. Yeah. Want to go have the opportunity to make your own sandwich and taste it as a complete build? Yeah let's do it. After we toast the roll we're going to add. The McRib patty that's been marinating in the barbecue sauce. Is that just like they have it at? Just like in the restau- yep. Yeah, I'm a pickle man Ready? Alright let's do it. Hm. Only thing is it's a lot. It's a lot messier than a lot of the other things. That's how I like my bar- b- que. Messy. Mm. That's, I guess that's how it should be. I think we'll have to make another one of these. I'm gonna finish mine pretty soon. Me too. Mm. All of my questions have been answered. The sandwich is pretty good, man. It's actually really good. You know what we are now? What are we? We're McRib buddies. [ LAUGH ]. I know you got questions. Send them in. And I'll find the answers. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3556598/mcdonalds-mcrib-video/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3556598/mcdonalds-mcrib-video/"},"headline":"Watch McDonald's Prove the McRib Is Made of Actual Food","datePublished":"2014-11-04T19:01:31.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-01T09:01:59.265Z","description":"Social media has not always been kind to McDonald's. 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