The Big Mac® is a handy punching bag, nutrition-wise. It’s made of meat, it’s fatty and it’s often the default bad guy in calorie comparisons. But did you know that a typical MacDonald’s meal (Big Mac®, fries and coffee) “contains at least 19 plant species from 12 families” which “originate in all of the eight global centers of cultivated plant diversity?” The current issue of the journal BioScience has an article detailing these attributes, Serban P, Wilson JRU, Vamosi JC, Richardson DM (2008) Plant Diversity in the Human Diet: Weak Phylogenetic Signal Indicates Breadth. BioScience: Vol. 58, No. 2 pp. 151-159, which you can read if you’re an LU person. The authors call the Big Mac® a “symbol of globalization.” So, please, a little more R-E-S-P-E-C-T.