Over the years, there has been a LOT of back and forth on gluten free sites and forums as to whether or not McDonald’s fries are safe. They’re not. I don’t know if they’ve ever been. I got severe food poisoning from a McDonald’s in 1997, made worse by being on a 12-hour road trip – – that became a lot longer with all the stops we had to make! After that, I didn’t touch McD’s again until 2009. I had moved to be with my then girlfriend (later wife, now, late wife), and we didn’t have a place to live yet. We were staying with friends of hers, but I couldn’t stand being cooped up there all day. So I’d take her to work at 2pm, and then go sit at Starbucks for most of her shift, then drive the 20 minutes back to town, go shopping for microwave dinners, eat in the car with her (I couldn’t go in the office), and then either sleep in my car until she got off at 1am, or go somewhere to sit for awhile if I needed internet.
One night I went to McDonald’s because they had free internet, and I was starving. And I thought . . . fries should be okay. (I was less than a year into being gluten free at this point, so I was still learning the right things to ask.) Separate fryer? Good. Gluten free? Yes, I was assured this was true. So I ordered some – and had one . . . and boy, did it have a lot of flavor for a “plain” fry. So I looked up their menu online. Nope. Not safe at all. Luckily, I only had the one so I wasn’t as sick as I could have been. But when you don’t have your own place to live, being any amount of sick really, really sucks. The manager didn’t care that one of their employees lied to me. At all.
Ingredients: Potatoes, Vegetable Oil (canola Oil, Corn Oil, Soybean Oil, Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Natural Beef Flavor [wheat And Milk Derivatives]*), Dextrose, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate (maintain Color), Salt. *natural Beef Flavor Contains Hydrolyzed Wheat And Hydrolyzed Milk As Starting Ingredients.
Cooked In The Same Fryer That We Use For Donut Sticks Which Contain A Wheat And Milk Allergen.
As of the year 2020, people are still reporting that McD’s is telling them their fries are safe, when they are absolutely not safe at all. Remember that I am in the United States. I do not know if this is true or not for McD’s in other countries. If you are Celiac and live outside of the US, does your McD’s have actually gluten free fries? Please comment and let us know! Please be sure to include which country you’re in for reference.
PS: If you’re needing to avoid MSG, you’ll want to avoid anything autolyzed, hydrolyzed, or lipolyzed.
