(person)
DJ must have used tweezers and a microscope to set up this shot of this microscopic breakfast burrito, which he says have been hit by a Grocery Shrink Ray of sorts. At its side is a salsa packet.
These breakfast burritos are getting ridiculous. You will get more
sauce than burrito if this trend continues.DJ writes:
I didn’t even know they made tortillas that small.
If you eat McDonald’s breakfast burritos, how does their size compare to the one DJ shot? And how many dozen does it take to fill you up?
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How do I know that’s not a 1lb bag of salsa?
By not trying hard to be funny?
that was actually pretty easy.
Is that from the dollar menu?
That was my first thought…the dollar burritos are only about as long as an iTunes card.
Burritos that small should be from the dime menu. Anything you can eat in one bite should be served by the dozen if you ask me.
Well, just sayin’, dollar menu items are pretty notoriously small.
I haven’t had the one from McDonalds, but I have had the one from Sonic.. And I must say, that it couldn’t have been much larger from the one pictured above. I was very disappointed, especially considering the fact that their $1 “Frito chili burrito” is easily twice the size (at the same price).
what’s the problem? if you don’t like it you can open your own burrito shop and sell burritos 10x the size at 1/3 the price if you want. it’s a free market (except for the bailout money McDonald’s received) and we are all free to compete!
Thank you for the “if you don’t like it create your own ___” comment.
Now if you don’t like the article, you can go make your own consumer-centric website and have only articles that are important to you.
“I make my own consumer-centric website at home”?
No, I make my own breakfast burritos at home …
Actually, I buy them by the case at Scam’s Club. For the price of eight of the Crackdonalds variety, I get 30 of them … enough to keep me in breakfast burritos for a month, and they taste better than the ones the Clown sells.
i make my own too…Eggbeaters, salsa, mushrooms, peppers…maybe some cut up baked nathans crinkle fries( if i Have a low points lunch planned) 1/4 cup shredded low fat cheddar
I make my own comments at home
What’s the problem? If you don’t like the articles, you can open your own blog that reports consumer issues. It’s a free internet and we’re all free to blog.
Don’t think they said they didn’t like the articles…………
In the same vein, the OP didn’t say he didn’t like the burrito
Bailout money? For Hamburglar, I presume?
I’ve had the breakfast burritos before and they were underwhelming. Then Subway started doing breakfast (egg white omlette and bacon to counteract the egg whites on flat bread) and now I don’t go to McDonalds.
Reminds me of that old joke: The food here is terrible, and the portions are too small.
that’s a good one:
I also like the football coach who said “we may not be the biggest guys but we’re slow”
Or “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded”.
“never been and I’m never going back”
As much as we hate the grocery shrink ray, a shrink ray that targets fast food portioning is probably a good thing for us.
You make a damn good point!
Yea, don’t worry – The Consumerist should have an article about how another fast food place is bring another too-big item to their menu soon. Fast Food can’t win no matter what they do.
Except restaurants probably won’t reduce costs relative to the smaller portions.
Were they bigger before and have slowly shrunk?
The tortilla they used to make that must be custom, for the standard sizes follow for that flat bread:
Burrito: 10 inches diameter, Soft taco 8″, and fajitas are 6″. That looks more like a 4″ to me.
Yeah, but I convinced my wife it was 6″.
That works great until she learns to use a ruler.
I have twelve inches, but I don’t use it as a rule.
Can always use the Johnny Bravo line.. “I’m not small, I’m just far away..”
Is it sad I was waiting for someone to say this? And here it is.
Is there an International Prototype Tortilla made out of platinum/iridium somewhere that we can use to compare them to?
They could have used a larger tortilla and just folded it more.
What size is a DVD? Is that 4″? I’ve never seen tortillas that small, but it seems like it would be about the right size to make something that small. That thing is eggroll size…
4 11/16 inches or about 120mm or so.
I was actually going to say, that size reminds me of the fajitas we used to make way back when I worked at mcdonalds. They were only folded on one end, so if you folded both ends, they’d probably be around that size.
I make my own breakfast burri… Oops, Sorry.
But seriously, Sometimes I do make a bunch on Sunday and freeze them for the week. But I don’t think I could make them that small.
A while back my wife made and froze breakfast sandwiches with bacon, egg, and cheese. My only problem was remembering they were there as we rushed out the door in the morning. I should buy some sausage and make some more. Thanks for the reminder!
I’ve done that, too. Breakfast is hard when you have to get up at 4 am!
I haven’t made them in a long time but I used to scramble an egg w/ some milk in a coffee mug and then microwave it. It would come out in the perfect shape and size for a quick breakfast sandwich.
I used to do this all the time, except with some butter instead of milk. Comes out the perfect shape to put on a roll or english muffin
I do that too. Refrigerator biscuits, several eggs mixed with milk and baked in a small cookie sheet in the oven, and slices of deli ham or precooked bacon. Cut the egg up into squares and throw it all together with a slice of cheese. I like to put them in my lunch sometimes too.
Mmmmm. Now I want to make some!
I bought one this morning and noticed it was much smaller than I remember. It’s been at least 4 months since I bought my last one. When eating it, I am overwhelmed by powered eggs and a cheap slice of processed american cheese.
C’mon. “Processed American Cheese” is the good stuff. The government sets standards for that.
What you had was no doubt “Pastuerized Process Cheese Food Product”, something for which there are no standards. Thanks, Kraft!
Lol, my mom taught me that lesson as a child: if it says “American Cheese”, it makes a good grilled cheese sandwich, but if it says “cheese food” or “cheese product” then it’s more plastic than food.
The same goes for “chocolate” vs “chocolate flavored”
My theory is that “Cheese Food” is what they feed to actual cheese.
I can understand why you would be overwhelmed by powered eggs–most people unplug them before eating them.
Without knowing what the burrito costs, or what size the burrito used to be for the same price, I am having difficulty seeing the problem. It looks like a smaller-than-normal burrito, yes. But Chipotle burritos are more than twice the size of what a normal adult “should” be eating for one meal. So your burrito mileage varies, and our expectations probably fall in the “enormous burrito the size of a baby” range. Besides, MacDonalds’ breakfast foods were never giant like their fries/burger monstrosities, if I remember correctly.
If the burrito was twice as large last week for the same price, or if that were a $4 burrito, I would understand.
Pro-tip: Try a Jack in the box bfast burrito. They are larger and available all day (assuming you have JITB near your neck of the woods).
Alas, no, we don’t have one here.
Oh how I wish. They were even running ads on local TV stations for a while, but the closest JITB is about 300 miles from here.
>>Without knowing what the burrito costs, or what size the burrito used to be for the same price, I am having difficulty seeing the problem.
I doubt he would be complaining if they shrunk the burrito by 50% and dropped the price by 50%. The grocery shrink-ray tales are always “product shrunk, price didn’t” stories so that is the problem.
They didnt fold this properly, they made it too short!
I’ve been fairly religiously eating McD’s breakfast burritos for the better part of two years.
While they are at times unevenly heated, misshapen, and filled with varying quantities and qualities of ingredients, I’ve never seen one this small.
This is the dollar menu burrito. Their other burritos are significantly larger.
Sausage Burrito
Serving Size: 3.9 oz (111 g)
I don’t take it subby has a scale handy?
Now hold the phone – something’s screwy with McD’s serving sizes. I went to compare the size of this to other breakfast $1 menu items:
Sausage McMuffin®
Serving Size: 6.2 oz (111 g)
Sausage Biscuit (Regular Size Biscuit)
Serving Size: 4.1 oz (117 g)
That’s some real interesting unit conversion.
The biscuit is just using bigger ounces.
See my post below. we need to find a .pdf from before 12/30/2010.
I don’t care how big it used to be – I’m just curious if it’s smaller than is being currently advertised.
It’s really 2 issues – has it shrunk in the last few months, or is it smaller than the nutrition info says it should be.
OP only commented that it seemed small.
http://web.archive.org/web/20080402133203/www.mcdonalds.com/app_controller.nutrition.index1.html
From 2008
Sausage Burrito 3.9 oz (111 g) 300
Doesn’t look like it’s changed a wit, outside of a name revamp.
It’s been a long time since I had one, I do remember the dollar menu burrito being larger than that.
Does anyone have the old nutrition information on these so we can verify shrinkage?
I used to make these burritos. They use a standard size tortilla (6 or 8 in.) and are supposed to be open at one end. However, when I first made one, I tucked both ends in as seen above. That, plus a new worker using the wrong scoop size for the filling, could easily result in this.
They only have one burrito on the menu, a breakfast burrito, inside is a scoop of a sausage, pepper, and onion filling and a slice of American cheese. If I am remembering correctly, these guys cost about $1.30 or so each, normally 2 is a breakfast. I think they may have slightly shrunk since I worked there and was making them 15 years ago, but not that much.
To help speed the cure of a horrific hangover, I stopped by McDs on the way to work a couple of weeks ago– the first time in years– and bought 3 of these little breakfast burritos for 99 cents each. Each was about as long as the width of my hand, about as big around as an “ok” sign with thumb and forefinger, and actually quite yummy w/ the picante sauce.
I’d say the pic is about right.
I don’t eat fast food very often, but the whole thought of it, all greasy and spicy and warmy, while writing this thread is making me hungry. Time to go have a clementine!
Do you know what you ate in those three burritos?
2490MG of sodium. The RDA for healthy people is 2400, so those three burritos put you over the line in one meal. Everything else you ate today was over the line. If you had McD again for lunch and something else for dinner, you might have taken in 5000 to 6000MG, or three times the RDA. That’s scary stuff.
What else did you eat?
48 grams of fat, 21 of them saturated. That’s 75% of the RDA for fat and 99% of the RDA for saturated fat. Again, any other saturated fat you eat today is probably going to put you over the line.
900 calories. That’s a little less than half of what most people need per day, so no worries there. There had to be some good news out of this breakfast. This might be it.
Is this post seriously here? Really?
thanks for the info; I’m convinced more than ever that after a night of soaking my brain in suds, it needs a hyperdose of salt and fat, just as you described.
TLDR..
have a spare ketchup packet btw?
I love how almost everyone going to McDonald’s hasn’t “been there in years” lol
I’ve seen lumpia bigger than that!
(lumpia is a delicious little deep fried Filipino egg roll)
Those are awesome. Our IT chick is Filipino and we always beg her to make them every time we have a potluck. Last time I only got two, as the boys in the shop hoovered them up before I got there.
Stop calling her “chick” and maybe she’ll save you some next time.
Lumpia!!!!!!!!!!!
At least it looks properly folded. Normally you open the wrapper and whatever they call what the filling is somehow winds up all over the place; and I have never had one that actually rolled the ends up. You’d think they would do this so that you don’t have to actually look at what your eating before you take the first bite.
The “proper” way of making them actually leaves one end open. I have no idea why.
I eat fast food burritos fairly often (much larger than this shrimp), usually from the same place, and about half the time, they make it sideways. Put all the ingredients in, roll it, and flatten it out… but they flatten the wrong side, so you end up with all the meat on one side, all the tomato/lettuce/etc in the middle, and all the cheese on the other side. So one bite you get nothing but meat, the next you get nothing but veggies and cheese. Annoys the crap out of me.
You can of course squish it the right way yourself, but since you have to bite into it first to see, this tends to be messy, and since it’s already been squished once, it tends to tear the tortilla.
Actually, this is a result of all the liberal, “we must tell you what and how much to eat” program.
Therefore, if you eat McDonalds you must be a fatty and as such we will only allow you an itty bitty boritto. Limit 1. NO TOY
Yes. This is a liberal plot. Definitely.
+1
You can’t tell me what to eat! You’re not my real dad!
It is not the size of the burrito that matters.
you, sir, deserve a lol.
It’s funny that you say that. The last time some of these burritos came home, I couldn’t help but compare them to tampons.
Go to Burger King. They give you 2 in the meal, and they are 4 times that size! Actually, it’s way too much food!
Only Mcdonald’s could pack 300 calories and 16g of fat into a bite sized burrito.
What is it with you people and this strange preoccupation with size?!
Does size really matter *that* much?!
What difference does size make as if it does it’s job well?!
Size is unimportant if you utilize it properly!
That’s what you small people always say.
It hasn’t changed in size. It’s not a taco bell burito but it’s ok. That’s a bad picture because people don’t know that the sauce they give you is actually a long packet. Someone who hasn’t had one will think it’s probably the size of a ketchup packet but really it’s more like the length of two of them or more.
The last time I got a BB about a week ago I too thought it was smaller. Not as small as that one, but nothing like they used to be.
In other news, Starbucks just announced a new size, called the “TRENTA”, which will be 31oz of coffee goodness. That’s just 1oz. shy of a full QUART of coffee.
Woohoo!
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/7385328.html
Nuh uh. It’s half a quart of coffee and half a quart of ice.
I’ve never understood yucky iced coffee drinks–I worked for years at a NON chain espresso shop in Seattle, and we *always* made our iced lattes by first adding the shots to the milk, then stirring the ice into the now-cool coffee mixture. Most places, including I’m assuming Starbucks but correct me if I’m wrong, will dump ice into the cup and then throw the freshly-pulled shots on top of them. Yuck. Fine, fine espresso + stale-tasting melted ice cubes. Grody.
Never order from the breakfast menu from a fastfood place, if you compare the grams to the lunch foods, you are getting about half the food at most for the same price or more
Ah, yes. Complain that portion sizes are too big and it is making people fat, then complain that serving sizes are shrinking.
People don’t need as much food as they think they need, and part of the reason they think that is that large serving sizes (which are offered because food is cheap and it increases the perception of “value”) have distorted their overall thinking about what is an appropriate portion. This is a good thing. The nutritional content and the calorie count on that burrito matters much more than the overall size, but that information is absent from this piece.
So true. Compare various foods to their sizes 30 years ago and everything is much larger now.
Not only is it small, the nutritional content indicates it must be mostly made of fat and sodium. Inedible food ought to at least be visible.
it is only 99 cents. i get those burritos when i am not very hungry but the person i am with is.
It’s a shame you folks don’t live in the south where you could feast on a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit from Biscuitville. 780 disturbing calories with 54 grams of fat (almost two ounces!) half of them saturated. Enough salt to make a piece of steel float in a sink full of water. An aroma that fogs your car windows for three days! Top it with packets of ketchup, mustard, mayo, pickle relish, barbecue sauce or Texas Pete. Man, that’s some eatin’! Once a month tops.
Stick a wick in your ear and you’re a tallow candle.
BTW, next door is a Krispy Kreme!
I buy based upon calories per dollar. At Micky D’s you gotta go with the sausage biscuit.
Honestly just looks like they used a Taquito size flour tortilla… not that uncommon here in south Texas.. Any Breakfast burrito i get tends to be made with a small tortilla.. maybe they just utilized a smaller size due to availability.
The value meal comes with 2. I think it’s actually a perfect size, about one egg and sausage in each one.
I noticed they were getting smaller, but I haven’t eaten one in a while. They used to be big enough that one burrito, a hash brown and OJ was enough for me. Now I would have to eat two. Better I just skip them or make my own.
where do they get such cute little tortillas?
I could eat like, 50 burritos that size.
yet it still will make you sick for the rest of the day. This little think packs a punch.
Lessee….
10 Pack o tortillas: $1.50
Can o twice-fried beans: $1
Block o cheddar: $2.50
Small thing o sour cream: $1.50
= $6.50 for 10 burritos = 1 for $0.65
How much did you pay for your micro burrito? $2?
*If you complain about the price of food you didn’t't assemble yourself, sorry, but you’re a sucker.*
I have been buying the breakfast burrito meal deal for years. Recently our McDonald’s closed for remodeling and today was my first trip back. Nobody is imagining anything — the burritos are WAY smaller than they used to be! Yet they are the same price (if not more). NO FAIR!!!
Yes, better that it be a foot long and stuffed with fake eggs and fake cheese and procesed meat and three days worth of fat and calories. That’s the American way!