Herb Peterson received McDonald's (and Sarah's) Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006 for inventing the Egg McMuffin and changing the course of fast food breakfasts forever.

Peterson died of natural causes in Santa Barbara, CA at age 89.

Peterson was the VP of the company that did the advertising for McDonald's in the early 70s, D'Arcy Advertising. He was the guy who came up with the first national slogan for the fast food chain, "Where Quality Starts Fresh Every Day" (anyone remember that?). Peterson loved Eggs Benedict and wanted to push McDonald's into serving breakfasts so he came up with the Egg McMuffin, and the rest is history.

So today or tomorrow, go to McDonald's and get an Egg McMuffin in Herb's honor.

Over the past few years McDonald's has faced some pretty tough criticism about the quality of their food. In fact, the movie 'Super Size Me' single-handedly changed how many of us view the fast food giant - or more accurately, the fast food industry as a whole. Now, in what has to be an attempt at clearing their name from some of the negative publicity, McDonald's has hired six "Quality Correspondent" mothers to visit the supplier facilities, restaurants, kitchens, and attend development meetings - then blog about their experiences.

Really though, it seems pretty transparent. Can you honestly imagine any other outcome from this than the mothers going to visit the various facilities, seeing everyone on their best behavior with everything running smoothly, then undoubtedly rave about how wonderful McDonald's really is? I'd say ask any 15-year old who has ever worked there if you really want to know what goes on.

Personally, I'd love to just see them finally admit what they really are and roll with it. Stop trying to convince us you are healthy. Admit we probably shouldn't eat there five times a week, but it is a good place to indulge every once in a while. I love stopping in at McDonald's once every month or so to enjoy something a little sinful, something that isn't good for me, something that cures my craving for grease and fat and calories. I don't want their salads or their wraps - I want a Big Mac. I want fries with extra salt and McChicken Sauce on the side for dipping. I want a Sausage and Egg McMuffin with TWO sides of hash brown patties. I just don't want it everyday.

If they would just admit that they were a little bit naughty, I'd love them just a little bit more.

Speaking of the Egg McMuffin for breakfast -- I'm not sure how good this will be for my health or my figure, but McDonald's has just announced that it may start serving breakfast all day long. Sausage Biscuit for lunch? Those horribly delicious hash browns at dinner?

In the last few years, McDonald's breakfasts have been the "strongest performer" in their business, so it certainly makes sense to offer it throughout the day. Currently, the fast food restaurants are forced to stop making the breakfast items in order to start preparing the regular burgers for lunch and dinner. However, CEO Jim Skinner says that the company is planning to implement a new restaurant layout with a flexible operating system that will allow for preparing breakfast alongside the regular menu.

Can you imagine getting an Egg McMuffin at 2 am from a 24-hour drive-thru? Wow.

It seems a little bit like cheating to call McDonald's Egg McMuffin the classic because in essence, it's a mass-market-ized version of a true classic - Eggs Benedict. However, the humble ham, egg and cheese hiding out inside an English muffin still paved the way for fast food joints that followed with variations on the theme and is somewhat the standard in the breakfast-on-the-go world. The inventor definitely deserved his Lifetime Achievement Award.

Back when I made my home version, I have to admit that I hadn't actually eaten an Egg McMuffin in a long time. I went back recently just to make sure that I remembered it correctly. It was the same -- same strangely chewy bread, same slightly dry ham, same unnaturally shaped egg, and same weirdly bright yellow cheese.

Hey, I never said the Egg McMuffin was fabulously delicious, I just said it was a classic.

McDonald's may be rolling out premium coffees to compete with popular coffee chains, but now coffee chains are introducing their own breakfast sandwiches. The Associated Press revealed that Starbucks is expanding its efforts to sell hot breakfast sandwiches in stores. For the past three years, the coffee company has been testing and retesting various combinations of ingredients for their english muffin sandwiches, including black forest ham, peppered bacon, sausage, cheese and, of course, eggs. Some of the more popular combinations include Eggs Florentine with Baby Spinach and Havarti and Herbed Sausage and Egg with Sharp Cheddar. The sandwiches are delivered to stores every morning, as are their pastries, and heated up in special counter-top ovens. It takes about 3 minutes to heat up a sandwich, only slightly longer than it takes to get a latte.

The hot sandwiches have been tested in Washington, DC and Portland, OR, as well as in selected other stores. Starbucks will be increasing the number of stores that sell the sandwiches from 250 to 600 over the course of the year, expanding into San Francisco stores in early April and Chicago in the fall. The egg sandwiches retail for $2.95. For comparison, McDonald's charges $1.99 for their Egg McMuffin and Dunkin Donuts charges $2.74 for their breakfast sandwich.