--- title: Woman Eats 20 McDonald's Cheeseburgers in 16 Minutes: Video description: A video that might make you rethink your next meal canonical: https://time.com/4029504/woman-20-mcdonalds-cheeseburgers-16-minutes/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-09-10T16:55:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:03:00.368Z og:title: Watch This Woman Devour 20 Cheeseburgers in 16 Minutes og:description: A video that might make you rethink your next meal og:url: https://time.com/4029504/woman-20-mcdonalds-cheeseburgers-16-minutes/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch This Woman Devour 20 Cheeseburgers in 16 Minutes twitter:description: A video that might make you rethink your next meal twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Watch This Woman Devour 20 Cheeseburgers in 16 Minutes > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ## Video: Our food. Your questions. What are McDonald’s fries made of? [Watch (HLS stream): Our food. Your questions. What are McDonald’s fries made of?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/nGOOAY0j.m3u8) (5:05)  _Published 2015-01-20. Our food. Your questions. What are McDonald’s fries made of?_  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Sep 10, 2015 4:55 PM UTC  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Sep 10, 2015 4:55 PM UTC A New Zealand woman has amazed the Internet by posting a video that shows her consuming 20 McDonald’s cheeseburgers in just over 16 minutes. Nela Zisser, a former beauty pageant winner and current competitive eater, attempted the stunt as part of a one-on-one competition with a friend, [Erik ‘The Electric’ Lamkin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=%5Fi%5FBnupbrSo). Zisser defeated Lamkin by more than two minutes. “This was a lot of food and was seriously not easy,” Zisser wrote on YouTube. “I ate the first 5 in [1:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yamVYngWayE#) and I had finished 10 by [3:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yamVYngWayE#) which I was pretty happy with but as they got colder it became a lot more difficult.” Zisser has been on a competitive eating binge recently, according to [The Huffington Post](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/woman-eats-20-mcdonalds-cheeseburgers-isnt-lovin-it%5F55f186eee4b093be51bdbfad). She took on Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest in July for the first time and has posted several other challenge videos to her [YouTube page](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO9-JxPuNA4UhhlGVwY%5FVdQ). A notable few include her consuming [five pounds of Kiwiyo frozen yogurt](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6FOgaoy2Wo) in 9 minutes 45 seconds, [five Subway Footlongs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zo3mEQxvps) in 9 minutes 17 seconds and over [8000 calories of cheesecake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQQqBZP8psA) in 16 minutes 44 seconds. ## Transcript After graduating college I worked a lot of late nights as an engineer. And when I'd get out of work the only thing that was open was McDonald's. My favorite thing was the fries. But, the thing is, I stopped eating them. I felt guilty about eating their food. So that's why when they asked me to help you find answers I was little skeptical at first. But then I thought. Maybe this is a chance to get to the truth. Now, as an engineer I normally take a bunch of components and put them to gether to form a machine. Any machine can be deconstructed. And by looking at the assembly process in reverse, you can get a better idea of how it's made. And that's what I'm gonna do with McDonald's french fries. I'm gonna reverse engineer the whole process. I'll start with the fully finished fry, and in the end, hopefully. I'll have a potato that came straight out of the ground. So Coco, Ive been asked by people, " Are the fries even made out of potatoes ?" " Are they ground up and mashed into the fries shape ?". Sure, that is why I am glad you are here today. We are going to take you through the whole process so we can make sure you have your answers. Ok, so from the very end, all the way back to the beginning Yes. We are at the end of the freezer tunnel. Now I know what you are thinking. These look like potatoes, but are they really potatoes? Let's go check out the rest of the process. All right. So this whole thing is the freezer tunnel. Yes, it's about 50 yards in length. So the fries go in unfrozen, they come out . >> Frozen. What about me. What if I went in one side and came out the other? It would turn you a Grantcicle. [ LAUGH ]. SO what's before freezing. So these are actually cooked. Yeah they're partially frying and then the final preparation is done at the restaurant. WHy do you partially fry them. Well we want to make sure we get that crisp outer shell. Yes, I like that part. Yeah. So before they're partially fried what happens? This is the ingredient dip where we control the color and we're adding dextrose, a natural sugar to make sure we get a consistent color no matter what time of the year it is. Also, a sodium acid pyrophosphate. What is that? That's gonna make sure that we control the grain after freezing. So this is all about maintaining. Consistency all throughout this process. Yes. It's no wonder that the fries always taste the same. They always taste really good. Well let's keep going back. All right Coco so here's a big one. Now, I've been asked by people to show them the machine where you take the mashed up potato goo and you inject it into these molds in order to make the perfect french fries . >> They don't do that here. Behind us you can see whole potatoes coming at us . >> Yes, and I see this thing that, that looks like a cannon . >> It works similar to a cannon. We're lining up the potatoes in a tube with high pressure water. And shooting them through a water knife here. It's precision cutting. What? Check that out. This is crazy. How fast do they fire through here? 60 to 70 miles per hour. So Coco. Where does the ammo for the potato gun come from? Let's go find out. So these are all the potatoes coming in. I think some of these are huge. That one's as big as my forearm. Are you using GMO potatoes? No. We don't use GMO potatoes for McDonald's fries. But we do use different varieties. So we have russet, burbanks and umatillas. Potatoes are just like people. They come in different shapes and sizes. [ LAUGH ] And they're all beautiful. They're all beautiful. So I've been all through this factory and I've seen the potatoes come off the trucks. I got one final question, where does this come from? So all around us, under these vines, we'll find what makes Mac fries. All right. Clear the vines away, start digging. Am I doing good? [ LAUGH ] You're doing well. It's like an Easter egg hunt. > [ LAUGH ] Oh, this is like the worst Easter egg ever. Oh, look. This is it, right? See? A real potato. This is where it all begins. So you wanted to know McDonald's fries come from, or if they're even made out of potatoes. So I went to. I went backwards through the whole process, saw exactly how they're made and traced it all the way back to here, to this potato. Pretty simple. I know you have questions. I have questions, too. 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