I am sure most of you are Vegetarians. Please read this..

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News Bureau • Maryland • March 9 • 3:40 PM IST

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An irate Indian consumer in the US has discovered that McDonald's

uses beef in its French Fries.

Sanjeev Dahiwadkar, who lives in Columbia, Maryland, was horrified to

discover in a book review that the flavouring of McDonald's

French

Fries comes from a flavour extracted from animals.

 

That discovery angered Dahidwakar because he is a vegetarian and very

particular about what he eats - especially when it comes to food

which is described as vegetarian.

 

As Fast Food Nation, written by investigative journalist Eric

Schlosser, points out, McDonald's originally used beef tallow to

fry

its French Fries.

 

But after switching to vegetable oil in 1990, it began using a

natural flavour that, on the record, comes from an " animal

product " .

 

However, in its declaration of ingredients, McDonald's does not

say

that any animal extracts are used in its French Fries.

 

Worried after reading this, Dahiwadkar shot off e-Mail to

McDonald's

asking the company to comment on the revelation.

 

The reply he received shocked him.

 

It said, " ….for flavour enhancement, McDonald's french fry

suppliers

use a miniscule amount of beef flavouring as an ingredient in the raw

product… "

 

The reply - carrying the reference no. 665483 - signed by a member of

the company's Home Office Customer Satisfaction Department went

on to

explain that " …beef is not listed as an ingredient because

McDonald's

voluntarily (restaurants are not required to list ingredients)

follows the " Code of Federal Regulations " (required for

packaged

goods) for labeling its products.

 

" As such, like food labels you would read on packaged goods...

the

ingredients in " natural flavours " are not broken down, " it said.

 

" Again, we are sorry if this has caused any confusion, " the

reply

concluded.

 

The official list of ingredients of McDonald's French Fries

lists, " potatoes, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, natural

flavour, dextrose, sodium acid pyrophosphate (to preserve natural

colour). "

 

They are " cooked in partially hydrogenated soybean and corn oils,

TBHQ (to protect flavour) " it adds.

 

The realisation that he has been consuming beef in some fashion,

simply because the ingredients did not list them, has angered and

shocked Dahidwakar.

 

While Schlosser's book is a savage indictment of many aspects of

McDonald's functioning, Dahidwakar is worried about the fact that

thousands of Indians in the US may have consumed something they

didn't want to simply because the truth wasn't told on the

list of

ingredients.

 

" They think that they are having just a potato chip and they eat

it

on even at the day of fasting, " they said.

 

Actually, the revelation that McDonald's uses beef in its French

Fries is not a new one, although Schlosser's book, published in

January this year, has drawn attention to the fact.

 

A January/February 1998 issue of The Vegetarian Journal, for

instance, says: " In February 1997, McDonald's informed us by

telephone that the natural flavour in their French fries is a

" beef

product. "

 

" At that time, they declined to send us this information in

writing.

In July 1997, McDonald's sent us a fax stating that " the natural

flavour used in French Fries is from an animal source, " it added.

 

McDonald's claims it does not use beef at all in the food served

at

the restaurants in India. «