Can You Eat McDonalds?

As a kid I used to love going to McDonalds, especially when they had different toys in their Happy Meals. Collecting those was fun. I probably even have some of the old Little Mermaid toys packed away in a box somewhere. Those are the ones I remember the most, probably because it was the first Disney Movie I saw in theaters. Actually, now that I think about it, it was during a second or third viewing of that movie when I had my first ‘diarrhea while at a theater’ experience as well (more on that in another post). Now, as an adult, I still love going to McDonalds, but I have to be careful with what I eat. For instance, if I consume a burger or their French fries I will suffer for it, no questions asked. Five times in the last year I have experimented with this and five times I have found myself folded over on the toilet a few hours later. It never fails. Eating a burger or French fries from McDonalds is like the equivalent of taking Go-Litely or Fleet phosphsoda during a colonoscopy cleanout, just better tasting. What’s odd is that burgers and French fries from other places don’t do this. In fact, my experiences with these two foods when it comes to places other than McDonalds is so good that I won’t hesitate to eat them while on a road trip, my destination still several states away. Also odd, not everything on the McDonalds menu does this to me. I have no problem eating their different chicken sandwiches, my only request being that they remove the lettuce. Everything else is fine with me, including the mayo which most people with Crohn’s Disease tell me to stay away from. I never have a problem with it unless my body is in one of those ‘flush everything out’ modes (a week ago this seemed to be the case - remember the Bill Pooped Here, Bill Pooped There, Bill Pooped Everywhere post?). I also don’t have a problem with any of their breakfast items and more often than not will find myself walking in to the establishment around ten o’clock to order a Bacon, Egg and Cheese bagel with a hash brown thingy and a medium cup of coffee, five creams and five sugars please! (the coffee part always seems to be the hardest thing for them to get right some reason). This breakfast item is also a common purchase on my road trips whenever I’m forced to leave during the early morning hours, and was the only thing I ate for breakfast back when I was forced to ride my bike to work every morning because there simply wasn’t anything else within riding distance on the way. Now I know what you’re going to say to that, why not eat before you left? The answer is simple; I didn’t want to eat anything before riding the five miles, not when I would probably leave it all over the sidewalk somewhere on one of the uphill parts. Hey, at least I was riding a bike ten miles everyday, right.

So, does anyone else out there have a problem when it comes to eating McDonalds? If so are you able to eat anything from their menu or does everything kick your butt. Also, are the things that kick your butt unique to McDonalds, or are you unable to eat those items no matter the restaurant serving them to you? With me the items on the menu from McDonalds that I can’t eat are pretty much isolated to this particular establishment. What’s funny about this is that some of the menu items I can eat from McDonalds are items that I can’t eat from other places. Take the Bacon Egg and Cheese bagel that I talked about. Ordering one from McDonalds doesn’t cause a problem, but if I order one from Dunkon Donuts I’ll be paying for it a few hours later. Never fails. I don’t have a problem with their donuts, however, but such foods aren’t really my favorite thing to eat in the morning. Sweet pastry items of any kind have never been high on my list as a breakfast food. Of course this doesn’t stop my parents from always buying me a coffee cake on the morning of my birthday for some reason and then voicing surprise when I don’t want any. That in itself is a rant for another post, however.