Have you heard of Jollibee? It’s a popular Filipino fast food restaurant in the California bay area and many other locations around the globe. When I first ran across one of these restaurants I actually thought it was a joke. The mascot is a giant cartoonish looking bee, something you would imagine a trendy Japanese teen hanging out at (bring your Hello Kitty purse and DOMO backpack).

Jollibee Yum! Burger

Just peering in through the window I could see the food on the menu, Jollibee Yum Burger, Jollibee ChickenJoy, Jollibee Spaghetti, BurgerSteak with Rice, JollyHotdog, Macaroni & Cheese Soup and Tuna Pie, yes, seriously, you read that right TUNA PIE!

To me, none of the food looks appealing in any way what-so-ever. When watching people actually eating this stuff, it looks like it’s microwaved GMO plastic food with likely tons of MSG to doll it up taste-wise just as one would put lipstick and a skirt on a pig. Now I didn’t want to immediately start ripping on this place until I had proof of MSG but I needed to do some investigating regardless.

A while back I wrote Jollibee  to see if I could get a copy of their ingredients list for their menu items (you know how I do).  The following is the email exchange:

Hi Jollibee,

Hi, I was looking around and I can’t find any nutrition facts for your food on your website. Do you have nutrition facts and an ingredients list available? Thank you.

-Mike

Response:

Dear Mike,

I would like to acknowledge your e-mail dated December 7.  Thank you for taking the time to write to Jollibee.

Jollibee Tuna Pie

In response to your query, we regret to inform you that we do not have the data of nutritional content of each product that Jollibee has. But rest assured that we serve the highest quality products that provide basic nutritional value through a variety of food choices depending on customer needs.

Nevertheless, I have forwarded your concerns to our Research and Development Department.

Hope I was able to address your needs. Again, thank you for keeping Jollibee in mind.

Best regards,

Kathy Manganti
Customer Care

My response:

Hi Kathy,

Thank you for the prompt reply. Could you at least tell me if there is MSG (monosodium glutamate) in any of your products? Thank you.

-Mike

No reply back to date.

2 weeks later I write another email to Jollibee:

Hi Jollibee,

I wrote back on December 9th inquiring if your food contains monosodium glutamate (MSG) but I haven’t received a reply regarding this issue. I understand you don’t release your nutrition or ingredient facts, that’s okay, but as a person that has a sensitivity for MSG I really need to know if you add it to your food. If you could please reply back it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

-Mike

It’s been 6 months and I’ve never received a response back other than their initial blanket statement of just “trust us” we use the highest quality of ingredients, oh but don’t ask us about MSG, we won’t answer questions on that.

If a company didn’t use MSG and added glutamates in their food they should have no problem at all clearly stating so. At the very least they could release their ingredient list so that their patrons could know what in the hell they are eating. In my opinion, this practice doesn’t sound very honest to me. We are living in an increasingly health conscious world so it’s natural that folks are going to ask “what’s in your food, dude?”

In my opinion, I can speculate that there are several things that will most definitely contain MSG: Gravy/Mushroom Sauce, the crispy coating on the Chicken, the meat on the burgers, virtually any sauce they use and possibly the tuna pie (can we say yuck?).  And you can be assured that just about everything is going to be genetically modified with gobs of preservatives, emulsifiers, artificial colors/flavors, thickeners (probably Carrageenan) and other assorted hydrogenated oils/trans fats etc. Who wants to eat all of that garbage anyways? This is fast food!

This of course is all my own speculation based on my research and experience with MSG. But believe me, I’m right.