In Defense of My Fry-Eating
I vaguely recalled that I had a reason to believe McDonald’s french fries were okay to eat, and I found the whole story (remember the lawsuit by several Hindus resulting in a public apology and $10 million?), for anyone interested. It includes:
The problem for McDonald’s was that the veggie-oil cooked fries didn’t taste like their popular tallow-cooked fries, which they solved by including a beef flavoring at the time of preprocessing for distribution (not while being cooked in the restaurant). Under the US government’s food guidelines, they were allowed to label this beef flavoring as "natural flavor," which it is. But because of the hype over the switch to vegetable oil for frying, vegetarians assumed–and McDonald’s did not try to dissuade–that the fries were now vegetarian.
The American Vegan Society received $500,000, and the Vegetarian Resource Group received $1,400,000 (and by the way it originally sided with McDonald’s, as did the North American Vegetarian Society). In fact, veg groups received nearly half of the $10,000,000 settlement.
I’m either practicing willpower from now on, or sticking with my favorite, Alexia’s Yukon Gold (organic) fries, which don’t even have to be fried and are mighty delectable.