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McDonalds admits 'veggie' chips had beef fat, causes riots in India and Hackney

Tomato | 23.05.2001 23:56

Just out today - McDonalds admits cooking chips with beef fat, and then pretending they were vegetarian - causes riots in India and Hackney (ok maybe not riots in Hackney, just baliffs and eviction attempts - see other story :)

From the BBC News Wed 23rd May

McDonald's in a stew over 'veggy fries'

Fast food giant McDonald's has expressed regret for not giving the public what it calls "complete" information about the way its potato chips are cooked.

With a multi-million dollar court case on the way, the BBC has learned that McDonald's has conceded that it may have confused customers over whether its fries were vegetarian, and so acceptable to Hindus.

In 1990, McDonald's announced with much fanfare that it would switch to cooking its fries in vegetable oil, making them acceptable to vegetarians who will not eat food cooked in beef fat.

However, it has now emerged that this is only part of the process.

In North America, the fries are first cooked at plants using beef fat, and then frozen before being shipped to the restaurants for further frying.

American Hindus have started legal action seeking damages, which they say could run to millions of dollars.

In India the revelation caused rioting until the company assured local people that the method of cooking there was strictly vegetarian.

McDonald's has nearly 30 restaurants in India, selling chicken, lamb and vegetarian products

Apology

McDonald's has now conceded ground. The corporation's website on nutrition says it regrets if customers felt information was incomplete.

A spokesman for McDonald's said: "We're not too big to apologise."

The company has also clarified its policy, saying that in predominantly Muslim countries it conforms strictly to Halal standards with no beef or pork flavouring.

But the apology is unlikely to head off the lawsuit in the United States being brought by the Hindus, for whom the cow is a sacred animal.

In America, non-Hindu vegetarians are divided on the issue.

Some say they are outraged, but others say that the name McDonald's is synonymous with beef - so what did customers really expect?

Tomato
- Homepage: http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/world/newsid_1348000/1348296.stm

Comments

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mclies

24.05.2001 21:43

I'm sorry, but for so many reasons, the least of which is the non-vegetarian content of its food, MacDonalds should be avoided and treated with the contempt it deserves.
During the first rounds of the BSE crisis, the 'veggie deluxe' was introduced in the UK, advertised as I remember by a large carrot beckoning consumers to a, new, quick, veggie alternative. This for me has always symbolised the joke status vegetarian culture has had with the upper echelons of Mcbusiness. We are all carrot munchers as far as they are concerned, but carrot munchers with pockets like everyone else.
Vegetarianism is an aberration as far as they are concerned, a daft, hippy 60's throwback and we are patronised into thinking they think otherwise.
The point about being veggie is that we are concerned not just about the dangers of industrial agribusiness or because we wax sentimental about the fate of individual calves (which as a PR ploy helped end the media interest in the foot and mouth crisis), but because we are lovers of food. 'We live to eat', not 'eat to live' (as the french say). As such, personally, I don't see why veggies bother with the fast food alternative in the first place.

leon