[ad_1]
A few months ago, McDonald’s added seven words to its Egg McMuffin pitch — “packed with 17 to 20 grams of protein.” That small shift said something big about where consumer psychology has moved.
This week, McDonald’s took that same idea and ran with it across the entire menu.
Starting April 21, the chain added visual “protein callout” badges to 17 items in its app and on in-store kiosks:
- The Egg McMuffin: 17 grams.
- The 10-piece McNuggets: 23 grams.
- Larger sandwiches: up to 30 grams.
The menu itself is unchanged.
Swim team theory
Let’s focus on the Egg McMuffin part, because Egg McMuffins have a special place in my memory.
About the only time it has ever fit in my schedule to pick up breakfast at McDonald’s has been on the way to do something athletic, or at least outdoorsy:
- In high school and college, it was on the way to early-morning swim meets. Back then I was burning so many calories that I’d wolf down two Egg McMuffins, most often in the backseat of some teammate’s car, or sandwiched between two other swimmers on a beat-up old university van.
- Later, when I was more into distance running than anything else, it was a routine on Saturday mornings before long runs — 10 or 15 miles or more. Frankly, there wasn’t much else open that early on a weekend, and I learned the hard way not to skip breakfast before that kind of workout.
- And more recently, it’s become a ritual on the way to midweek ski trips — one of the benefits of being self-employed, even if a day on the mountain doesn’t quite demand the same fuel as a swim meet or 15 miles on foot.
In almost all of that time, my rationale had to do with the idea that you need carbohydrates and some kind of breakfast before these kinds of activities. But even though I eat a lot of eggs at home, the idea of counting Egg McMuffins for protein never quite took hold.
[ad_2]
Source link
