And that's because all over the world, pretty much everyone loves the taste of McDonald's French fries.

So what's the secret?

The fries.

What about them?

They're 5% too crisp.

Oh, they're perfect.

Well, today, we're climbing over the counter to figure out why McDonald's fries are so different.

But before we get started, be sure to subscribe to the Weird History Food channel.

After that, please leave a comment and let us know what other iconic fast food menu items you would like to hear about next.

OK, time to keep your eyes on the fries.

Crispy on the outside, soft and buttery on the inside, the McDonald's French fries are about as close to perfection as humanity has ever come or probably ever will.

Originally created by the franchise's founders, Richard and Maurice McDonald, the fries made their debut in 1949 at the very first McDonald's location in San Bernardino, California.

McDonald's, it should be noted, wasn't the first fast food chain to sell fries.

That honor goes to White Castle, who put them on the menu in the mid-1940s.

French fries actually started becoming popular in the US after GIs developed a taste for them during World War I.

But it took a while before the restaurant industry caught up.

And back in those days, it was still pretty rare for fast food places to serve fries because they were time consuming to prepare and it was difficult to keep the quality consistent over various batches.

Potato chips were much easier to make and were, therefore, far more common.

But the McDonald's brothers were pretty clever guys and they eventually came up with a system for making fries that would become so successful, it would make, do you want fries with that, a permanent part of the American lexicon.

According to an employee who worked for the brothers at the original McDonald's, their method of fry production started with locally sourced Idaho russet potatoes.

Those potatoes would sit outside for several days to cure in the San Bernardino desert air.

And there are folks who credit that air with giving those original fries their extra crispiness.

Once the potatoes were ready, they would be brought to a shed located right behind the original restaurant, where they would be peeled and chopped into shoestrings.

Those shoestrings would then sit in water for about an hour prior to cooking to rinse them of excess starch.

After that, they would be dried and then tossed into a fryer that was filled with oil the brothers purchased from a company called Interstate Foods.

At that time, most French fries were made with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, which, long story short, has a longer shelf life than oil that isn't partially hydrogenated.

But the equipment needed to partially hydrogenate the oil was crazy expensive and Interstate couldn't afford it.

So instead, they sold a blend of 7% vegetable oil and 93% beef tallow.

And it was that beef tallow which is generally credited with giving McDonald's original fries their classic taste.

After the fries came out of the oil, they would be salted, shoveled into small paper bags, and sold to delighted customers.

Those customers included a traveling salesman named Ray Kroc, who liked the fries so much, he decided to get into business with the McDonald's brothers and turn their little hamburger stand into a fast food empire.

In 1954, milkshake mixer salesman Ray Kroc became curious about why a little hamburger stand called McDonald's needed so many of his mixers.

So he set off for San Bernardino.

There, he got his first look at McDonald's, met the brothers, and fell in love with their food, particularly the fries.

I love them.

Golden brown on the outside, fluffy white inside.

And they're not too oily, salty, crunchy.

Who are you?

After buying the franchise, Kroc from the McDonald's brothers in 1955, Kroc would become borderline obsessive about making sure those fries were always up to the company's high standards, regardless of which restaurant a customer walked into.

In fact, in his autobiography, he would later recall, the fry would become almost sacrosanct for me.

It's preparation, a ritual to be followed religiously.

We feel the same way, Ray.

But ensuring consistency was no small task.

For starters, most locations didn't have a desert in which to dry their potatoes.

And to conquer that hurdle, Kroc would have to invent entirely new methods of curing.

He also began dispatching teams of specialists to his restaurants to keep tabs on whether or not their spuds had the correct water content and solidity levels.

But that was only part of the problem.

You can't give them an inch.

The organization cannot trust the individual.

The individual must trust the organization.

Because it was quickly discovered that no matter how well individual locations adhered to Kroc's carefully calculated cooking times and temperatures, the fries would still vary in crispiness.

To address the issue, in 1962, Kroc hired a Motorola engineer named Lou Martino and put him to work doing mad scientist French fry research at the McDonald's R&D lab.

Long story short, Martino eventually determined that placing cold fries into hot oil lowers the temperature of the oil a variable amount each time.

The oil then needs to recover a certain amount of that lost heat before the fries will come out right.

To make sure that happened every time, Martino invented a so-called potato computer, which would alert employees as to when the ideal temperature had been achieved.

And sacrilegious as it may seem, Kroc would even tinker with the recipe for that oil, changing it over to a most cost-effective mix of vegetable oil and beef tallow.

That mix was named Formula 47, a reference to the $0.47 price of the original McDonald's meal and the average life expectancy of anyone who eats too much of them.

Only the good die young.

Once standardized across the country, McDonald's fries quickly became the most popular item on the menu.

And they were so iconic, they were even embraced by usually more discriminating culinary influencers like Julia Childs and James Beard.

That being said, not everyone was over the moon about them.

In 1966, after surviving a heart attack, businessman Phil Sokoloff founded the National Heart Savers Association, which immediately went to war against foods high in cholesterol and fat.

Being a super rich guy, Sokoloff was able to pour millions of dollars into the effort, which was mostly directed at McDonald's, particularly the French fries.

McDonald's did their best to fend him off.

But in 1990, they finally caved and agreed to cook their fries in vegetable oil rather than beef tallow.

The substitution drastically changed the taste of the fries, which McDonald's tried to mask with something called natural beef flavor.

But the difference was as plain as the googly eyes on a fry guy's face.

And fans of the original recipe have never stopped complaining about the change.

But at least they were healthier, right?

Well, not so much.

Turns out the trans fats in hydrogenated vegetable oil aren't much better for you than beef fat.

So in 2007, Mickey D's had to change to a different oil with less trans fat in it.

Maybe they should have just left well enough alone.

Thanks to McDonald's, French fries quickly became standard fare at pretty much every fast food place.

Somewhere around the 1980s, that situation turned into a heated competition between major fast food chains over who could lay claim to having the best fries.

And at the end of the 1990s, that competition erupted into a war, the Great French Fry War of 1998, that is.

It all started in January of 1998 when Burger King, confident that it had finally come up with a fry that was superior to McDonald's fries, initiated a PR blitz enticing customers to come try some of the new fries for free.

And the move definitely brought customers in the door.

There was just one problem.

Those customers did not really like the fries.

Despite giving away somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 million orders of fries, Burger King failed to make a dent in McDonald's business.

And they weren't the only ones.

During this period, several of McDonald's competitors, such as Wendy's, attempted to dominate the fast food fry market to varying results.

Hearing chains boast about changes to their fry recipes, seasoning, crispiness, or even shape became a regular occurrence.

And several franchises even changed things up more than once due to customer dissatisfaction.

That being said, we can find no hard evidence that any of them surpassed McDonald's fries in popularity.

OK, so we've given you the whole greasy history of these delicious golden wedges.

But what exactly is in them?

And how are they so damn tasty?

Obviously, it all starts with potatoes.

McDonald's only uses what they call premium potatoes, which includes varieties like Russet Burbank, Russet Ranger, Umatilla Russet, and Chepity.

Those potatoes are first peeled, then blanched, and then cut with a tool called a water knife, which shoots them along at a mind-boggling 60 to 70 miles per hour.

But potatoes are just one of the ingredients.

Depending on how you count them, McDonald's fries actually contain anywhere from 10 to 19 ingredients.

And the next two added are dextrose and sodium acid pyrophosphate.

The dextrose is basically just sugar.

It affects the taste and is partly responsible for the famous yellow color of McDonald's fries.

That's also the function of the sodium acid pyrophosphate, which are added during the second phase, ominously dubbed the ingredient bath.

After that, the fries are dried out and then partially fried before being frozen for shipping.

This initial fry is what gives the fries their crisp exterior.

The rest of the frying, which takes place at a steamy 325 degrees, is done after the fries arrive at the restaurant.

That's also when the rest of those ingredients are added, which, for the record, include salt and vegetable oil, which in turn contains canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, and some chemicals that help preserve freshness and keep the oil from splattering.

There's also that natural beef flavor we mentioned earlier, which contains wheat and milk derivatives.

And yes, that means McDonald's fries are not vegetarian, vegan, or gluten-free, a fact that costs them $10 million in a false advertising suit.

That being said, if you happen to be in the United Kingdom, McDonald's fries, or chips as they're called, aren't made with any animal products.

So if you're really in the mood for some of Ronald's vegan stash, you can always hop the pond.

The inclusion of ingredients that use animal products obviously limits who wants to eat McDonald's fries, to some extent.

But based on public sentiment, it's not all that much.

Because when it comes to fast food fries, McDonald's remains as dominant as ever.

In fact, while rising prices have brought down fast food sales overall, one study showed that 50% of fast food consumers still favor McDonald's fries over all others.

Meanwhile, competitors like Wendy's, Chick-fil-A, Burger King, Arby's, and KFC didn't crack 15%.

Even Gen Z customers, who apparently favor Chick-fil-A over McDonald's in general, preferred McDonald's fries to any other brand.

Also worth mentioning is that while no one would ever call McDonald's fries a health food, they're actually not as bad for you as most other fast food fries.

In fact, a recent WebMD study found only Sonic Drive-In's fries had less calories and fat.

Since then, Sonic has allegedly changed the recipe in a way that ups both of those.

So strange as it may sound, McDonald's might have the healthiest fries around.

So what's behind their unique flavor?

The exact components are a secret.

But the simple answer is that mysterious beef flavoring, which was meticulously developed by the McDonald's brothers and Ray Kroc.

And if it took three guys to invent the greatest fried potatoes in history, maybe there's no such thing as having too many cooks in the kitchen or too many clowns.

So what do you think?

Do you love McDonald's french fries?

Or does another fried potato have your heart?

Let us know in the comments below.

And while you're at it, check out some of these other Weird History Food videos.