This Is What Makes Your McDonald's Hash Browns Taste So Good

The secret, as Better Homes & Gardens reveals, is the oil used to fry the hash browns. Originally, McDonald's were frying their hash browns (and French fries) in a mixture of cottonseed oil and beef tallow which, because it's a rendered fat, is majorly unhealthy and makes whatever was fried in it extremely high in saturated fat.

While trying to make their products somewhat healthier, in line with changing times, McDonald's began frying them in vegetable oil beginning in 1990. Then, to substitute the delicious but unhealthy beef tallow, they used natural beef flavoring. The flavoring is listed as one of the official ingredients in the fast food chain's hash browns and fries, and the change goes some way towards explaining why certain people fondly remember their fried potato sides tasting much better back in the day.