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 McDonald’s Corp.’s plans to lift its U.S. sales will apparently include a secret ingredient: kale. 
 
 According to Janney Capital Markets Analyst Mark Kalinowski, the Oak Brook, Ill.-based restaurant chain is planning to add kale as an ingredient in a to-be-named product at some restaurants later this year. 
 
 A spokeswoman for the big burger chain would not confirm or deny the kale reports, saying only that, “As we continue to listen to our customers, we’re always looking at new and different ingredients that they may enjoy.” 
 
 It’s a small ingredient, but it does show the extent to which McDonald’s is going in its effort to improve its sales and its reputation. The company’s February same-store sales fell 4 percent in the U.S., despite better weather, lower gas prices and an improving economy. The company said it has an “urgent need to evolve with today’s consumers.” 
 
 Kale would be an evolution. The leafy green has been increasingly popular in the past couple of years — the number of farms raising kale more than doubled between 2007 and 2012. 
 
 Kale could be part of an effort by McDonald’s to appeal to more health conscious consumers. It would also in theory give the brand a health halo, giving consumers a better perception of the brand even when they order Big Macs and large fries. 
 
 It also comes as the company is clearly shifting gears to appeal to younger consumers and evolve into a “modern, progressive burger company.” The chain is phasing out human antibiotics in chicken and will stop selling milk treated with growth hormone, which in theory would appeal to younger consumers that have apparently turned against the big chain. 
 
 Still, it remains to be seen whether this is where the brand should truly go. Throughout its struggles, McDonald’s has been underperforming its primary competitors, Burger King, Wendy’s, Jack in the Box and Sonic. Those four competitors have reported average same-store sales numbers of 5.4 percent in their most recent quarters — more than 700 basis points ahead of McDonald’s fourth quarter sales. And since then, McDonald’s sales have only gotten worse. 
 
 As we’ve said before: Consumers aren’t rejecting traditional fast food. They’re just rejecting McDonald’s. 

 Looking for some kale in that Shamrock Shake from McDonald's? 
 
 It's not going to happen in time for St. Patrick's Day next week. But maybe in 2016? That's what one Wall Street firm is suggesting. 
 
 Janney Capital Markets restaurant analysts wrote in a report Monday that "one of our industry sources indicates that McDonald's U.S. plans to roll out kale as an ingredient in its restaurants at some point in the not-too-distant future." 
 
 One of the analysts, Mark Kalinowski, added that McDonald's (MCD) could use kale in salads or possibly a smoothie. 
 
 "McDonald's clearly aims to raise consumers' perception of the quality of its food. Adding kale to the menu in some way could help be a step in this direction," he wrote. 
 
 So is McDonald's really getting ready to put the hipster vegetable of choice (McKale chips, anyone?) alongside its hamburgers and fries? 
 
 A spokesperson for the company said that "as we continue to listen to our customers, we're always looking at new and different ingredients that they may enjoy." In other words, McDonald's neither confirmed nor denied the kale report. 
 
 Related: McDonald's CEO Don Thompson retires as sales suffer 
 
 But in a commercial for the Big Mac that debuted in January, McDonald's featured the words "Will Never Be Kale" in a shot highlighting the iceberg lettuce on its most famous burger. 
 
 Still, that ad ran before new CEO Steve Easterbrook took over the company earlier this month. 
 
 McDonald's definitely needs all the new customers it can get. It just reported on Monday that same-store sales in the U.S. were down 4% in February and 1.7% worldwide. 
 
 Global same-store sales were down in January too. And they fell 1% in 2014. 
 
 The company has acknowledged that it must adapt ... now. 
 
 Related: McDonald's brings back Chicken Selects 
 
 In Monday's sales release, McDonald's noted that "consumer needs and preferences have changed, and McDonald's current performance reflects the urgent need to evolve with today's consumers." 
 
 The Easterbrook era is already off to a promising start from that standpoint. 
 
 Last week, McDonald's announced that the chickens it uses for its food would only be on antibiotics for legitimate health reasons only. McDonald's will also begin to offer low-fat white milk and fat-free chocolate milk that come from cows not treated with the artificial growth hormone rbST. 
 
 Related: McDonald's to cut back on chicken raised on antibiotics 
 
 McDonald's added in its February sales release that it must reassert itself "as a modern, progressive burger company." 
 
 That sounds like McDonald's recognizes the growing threat from so-called "better burger" companies. 
 
 The toughest competition isn't so much the established fast food giants Burger King (QSR), Wendy's (WEN) and the KFC/Taco Bell/Pizza Hut juggernaut Yum (YUM) anymore. It's companies like Habit (HABT) and Shake Shack (SHAK) -- two gourmet burger joints that recently went public and made splashy debuts. 
 
 McDonald's also faces a big challenge from companies that are defining the "fast casual" dining revolution, such as Panera (PNRA) and Chipotle (CMG) ... which McDonald's actually spun off in 2006. 
 
 So whether it's kale, spelt or that new Sriracha-flavored ketchup from Heinz, it's clear that McDonald's needs to add more new menu items to get sales back on the right track. 
 
 The stock has pretty much done nothing over the past three years. And it has lagged the S&P 500 pretty badly since the market bottomed in 2009. Wall Street's patience is definitely McLimited.
– In January, a McDonald's ad for the Big Mac made a point to make fun of kale. Funny how fast things can change when a new CEO comes aboard amid declining store sales. A market analyst says McDonald's will be adding kale as an ingredient to something on the menu in the "not-too-distant future," reports CNNMoney. A spokesperson for the chain wouldn't confirm or deny. The idea would be to appeal to health-conscious customers, though a blog post at Nation's Restaurant News wonders whether the menu is truly the problem. Sales are fine at Burger King, Wendy's, Jack in the Box, and Sonic, observes Jonathan Maze. "Consumers aren’t rejecting traditional fast food," he writes. "They’re just rejecting McDonald’s." (The chain also is phasing out human antibiotics in chicken.)