McDonald's to donate $10 mil over fry mislabeling

June 5, 2002 11:06 AM

McDonald's to donate $10 mil over fry mislabeling...to vegetarian and Hindu groups over the fact that the "natural ingredients" in the supposedly vegetarian fries included some beef. They have also posted an apology on the corporate website, and created a Vegetarian Advisory Panel. Can the McVeggie going national be far behind?
posted by ClydeCrashcup (28 comments total)

Good god, I hope not. Not unless they can make it substantially less awful than the BKVeggie!
posted by Fenriss at 11:11 AM on June 5, 2002

I wish I could feel that this was enough. But then, how can you put a price on a Hindu soul?
posted by BlueTrain at 11:18 AM on June 5, 2002

I like the way McDonalds apologized for any "hardships" that may have been caused. Speaking as a long, long, long-time vegetarian, I can assure everybody that accidentally eating a meat product is not a hardship, nor is it the end of the world. Of course, if it's your religion, that's something else. But how fastidious can a Hindu be who eats at McDonalds? The very air in those joints is misted with microscopic meat particles. From a PR point of view, this is just offensive. Why should McDonald's have to kiss vegetarian butt over this? What percentage of its market will ever be vegetarian? McDonald's could afford to lose every last vegetarian customer it ever had, and never suffer the slightest injury to its bottom line. I know McDonald's probably doesn't want to appear arrogant. But, you know, a little arrogance can be attractive sometimes, if you know what I mean.
posted by Faze at 11:19 AM on June 5, 2002

No matter what god says, once money is involved, who the %$^& really cares? Surely these people weren't complaining for the destruction of their invisible and mystical essence that will one day join the invisible ones in the air who watch over us, they just wanted a piece of that McDonalds ass.
posted by Satapher at 11:25 AM on June 5, 2002

According to Fortune magazine, McDonald's seems to be slowly crumbling financially. I am not sad about this.
posted by arielmeadow at 11:27 AM on June 5, 2002

In Seattle, at least two McDonalds have gone belly-up in the past year or two. It's a little unsettling to see empty storefronts with the golden arches out front only because they seemed to have such a crazed will to live, but like ariel, I'm not sad either.
posted by jessamyn at 11:43 AM on June 5, 2002

Well, the way I heard it, this case was just the appetizer, something to stimulate the palates of litigious folks everywhere. The ultimate goal? Why to stop Amerricans being fat, of course.
posted by MUD at 11:52 AM on June 5, 2002

The Veggie Surprise scares me. You can see one here.

My hindu soul, has a price, a very definite price...but I'm not telling any of you...excuse me while I rush off to Wendys...big bacon classic for me, that way I am an equal opportunity offender of my indian soul :)
posted by bittennails at 12:07 PM on June 5, 2002

one would think one would not frequent an establishment that slaughters cows if slaughtering cows is bad for ones religion.

but it is good to see McDonalds making good.
posted by clavdivs at 12:18 PM on June 5, 2002

one would think one would not frequent an establishment that slaughters cows if slaughtering cows is bad for ones religion.

but it is good to see McDonalds making good.
posted by clavdivs at 12:19 PM on June 5, 2002

sorry, i dropped my Big Mac
posted by clavdivs at 12:20 PM on June 5, 2002

Yes, the lawyers are salivating at the prospect of all the juicy food company profits.

On a similar note this woman is filing a $50 million dollar lawsuit against the makers of a snack called Pirate's Booty. The cause? They mislabeled the fat content of the snack- what should have said "8.5" grams of fat, was actually labeled "2.5".

If you've had the Booty in the last couple of years, nows the chance to get yer share of the dough.
posted by jeremias at 12:23 PM on June 5, 2002

Mickey D's pile-on! Yeah!

I'm pleased that Ariel's link shows that McDonald's is getting serious push-back about their stupid fresh-grilled policy that eliminated the heat-lamp burger-slides. Good idea in principle, disaster in execution. If I go inside a store now, I expect that a) there will be a dozen people milling around, some of them having ordered, others not, with no clear lines; b) even people who have been waiting will be confused about whether they are in an active server line; c) to compensate for the wait the server will ring up three customers before going for your burger; d) due to three other people helping your server in the course of the order there will be massive confusion about drink sizes, accessory items, and the like; e) complete service meltdowns, with yelling customers, happen all too often.

IMHO most of this could be solved by the simple expedient of retrofitting most of their stores with a single customer queue, a la BK or Wendy's. D'oh!
posted by dhartung at 2:28 PM on June 5, 2002

First paragraph: "McDonald's Corp. has agreed to donate $10 million to Hindu and other groups to settle lawsuits filed against the chain for mislabeling french fries and hash browns as vegetarian."

Last paragraph: "The Oak Brook, Ill.-based fast-food giant responded to the lawsuits by saying it never claimed the fries it sells in the United States are vegetarian. But the company apologized for any confusion surrounding the use of beef flavoring in the production of fries."

Well, now that that's all cleared up...
posted by mrbula at 2:29 PM on June 5, 2002

I suspect the fries have about as much real meat in them as the burgers do...
posted by Ty Webb at 3:05 PM on June 5, 2002

They used to have more beef fat than the burgers, back when they fried them in it. If this does turn out to be the first of a barage of food lawsuits, I'm leaving the country.
posted by Nothing at 3:17 PM on June 5, 2002

Remember the old lady who spilled hot coffee in her cootch and won a gazillion dollars? Wasn't that from McDonalds?
posted by evanizer at 3:31 PM on June 5, 2002

'Twas indeed, evanizer. One of my flatmates from when I was at university claimed that it was his aunt but I think he was telling porky pies.
posted by MUD at 4:16 PM on June 5, 2002

Mmmm, "essence of beef" *drool*

Hang on....what the!!!! Cootch?
posted by Catch at 5:27 PM on June 5, 2002

Oops! I meant crotch! Nothing to see here, move along...
posted by evanizer at 5:34 PM on June 5, 2002

Funny, I read right past it, knew what evanizer meant, thought nothing of it.
posted by Ty Webb at 6:54 PM on June 5, 2002

The state of health in America, the obesity, is now so grotesque, that you can only hope new torts are developed for suits against McDonalds and their ilk.
posted by ParisParamus at 9:22 PM on June 5, 2002

The coffee-spilling suit is largely urban legend, and nowhere near as fantastical as most people think. And I was raised Hindu, had the whole ceremony making me a Brahmin and all, and these people are fucking idiots.

Were the french fries tasty? Good, then shut the fuck up.
posted by anildash at 11:26 PM on June 5, 2002

This is an historic moment. We have been witness to the coining of a pungent new term for a certain part of the anatomy: Cootch. We all read past it, because it worked. It conveyed its meaning perfectly. "Cootch" -- welcome to the English language.
posted by Faze at 6:51 AM on June 6, 2002

Pronunciation: (kOOch), [key]
—n.
a sinuous, quasi-Oriental dance performed by a woman and characterized chiefly by suggestive gyrating and shaking of the body. Also,cootch.Also called cooch' dance", hootchy-kootchy, cooch•ie-cooch•ie Pronunciation: (kOO'chE-kOO'chE). [key]
posted by bittennails at 7:26 AM on June 6, 2002

bittennails, "Cooch," however, has fallen into desuetude. The addition of that extra 't' gives the word an itchy new life.
posted by Faze at 8:57 AM on June 6, 2002

Oh, don't get me wrong Faze, I love the way it just flowed so well, and I just thought to look it up after your comment, then laughed hilariously at the description, and posted it for fun :) wasn't an attempt at being snarky.
posted by bittennails at 10:23 AM on June 6, 2002

…you can only hope new torts are developed for suits against McDonalds and their ilk.
Just what America needs: more lawsuits!
posted by darukaru at 11:45 AM on June 6, 2002