McDonald’s French Fries Under Scrutiny in India
Adds some credence to the idea that this isn’t something that Hindus would find amusing…
How about using the internet to share information as to which manufactures products are; peanut free, beef free, animal product free, etc.?
Seems to me it would be the best place to start, and you just might find some manufacturers taking notice.
even sven writes:
Please go ahead.
Collounsbury writes:
Then don’t. Simply do not purchase the higher-priced products with the circle-V on them.
Buy your beef from the circle-V ranch. Guaranteed to be 100% vegetarian cow meat, or your money back!
Collounsbury: I could care less about meat stock in general (frankly no one so prissy is gonna cut it two days outside of the nice little first world cocoon, with some exceptions).
giggle C-bury, I hope you meant those “exceptions” to include the large parts of India where several hundred million Hindus and Jains who are extremely “prissy” about consuming meat stock eat every single meal of their lives “outside the nice little first world cocoon”! 
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/082899/new_0828990037.shtml
Just something I thought I’d share that might prove interesting.
Marc
I really have nothing to offer to the debate really but:
Why in God’s name (or Goddess’s name) would a vegan or vegetarian even want to help along fast food companies that are slaughtering millions of animals a year anyway? It makes no sense to me. < knocking on monitor >
“I am against the eating of meat for (insert reasons here) but I will gladly pay your chain to give me a dish (that’s NOT even guaranteed to be free of animal products in the first place)while 75% of your menu is full of animal products.”
Sorry, that’s cacca. If you are a vegan/vegetarian then support those restaurants that will guarantee you a meal that that doesn’t have animal products in it – keep in mind, however, a good majority of people do eat meat. Asking that a McDonalds or Taco Bell to give a 100% animal free product is like asking Trump if you can live in his newest creation for free.
If vegans/vegetarians feel slighted because of this then I ask a few to band together, get some capital and start a new vegan chain…People start businesses all the time, why must all businesses be forced to guarantee that a product will or will not contain an ingredient especially in a restaurant? I have gotten onions in my Pintos and Cheese and lettuce, occasionally a spot of beef – at Taco Bell, unexpected but not sue worthy. Fast food preparation is ummmm fast, it would be nearly impossible to ask them to ensure ALL food is made to exact specs according to the ingredients listed. Besides, they screw up the portions all the time so your Pintos and Cheese may have more cheese therefore more calories and less pinto beans, therefore less carbs/protiens…
It was one thing when restaurants wouldn’t allow blacks but why must a company cater to a specific eating group? If people want to eat carefully prepared food, look for restaurants that are sit down, care more for your business and aren’t making millions on substandard food to begin with. People need to focus their efforts on the places that cater well to their needs, help them survive by being a good patron and quit whining about the rest.
Well, quit assuming that everybody who becomes vegetarian does so for animal-rights reasons, and maybe it will.
While you carefully left out my next thought:
The thing is, I respect vegans/vegetarians ruadh I have a few in my life, what I don’t respect is people expecting the moon and the stars from cheap and crappy fast food. The food is sub standard, the prices are cheap to reflect that and loaded with substances that even us meat eaters are scared of sometimes…no cite but hey it’s fast food there’s got to be a buttload of preservatives that would keep a mummy for a thousand years in that crap.
I didn’t ASSUME that everyone was completely into vegetarianism for animal rights, but why, why, why would someone expect McDonalds or any of the other fast food chains to have a completely animal free product base? Regardless if you eat meat or not, don’t expect healthy foods from fast food chains, it’s that’s simple. Which is why I brought up:
To add to that quote, if you really want to be concerned, make your own damn meals. You are the keeper of your body and the one that feeds it. You feed it with french fries and grease, you will not be healthy…
Please don’t assume unless you have been able to read through my post carefully or ask me what I meant, I am more than happy to clarify my position.
BTW, I own a cooking website that I am more than happy to have vegan/vegetarian recipes added to. I am not against vegans or vegetarians for whatever reason one chooses to not eat animal products…so don’t assume I think all are against it for animal rights reasons…but it does strike me odd that any vegetarian would even consider eating in a place like McD or BK with the amount of animal products are used in the preparation of their foods. And as I outlined above, I have found items in my Pintos and Cheese that is not part of the ingredient list on Taco Bell’s website.
Fast food places like McDs, BK and Wendy’s (the list goes on) are not there for our health but to feed the masses cheap food at a cheap price. That’s all there is too it.
Yes, that’s what I was thinking of. I thought I would save a paragraph long disclaimer. I could add, however, that not all Hindus, to my understanding from the Hindus from India who I know here, are strictly observant of the beef-stock issue. I believe there are also caste issues here.
In addition, I might add that the India suit strikes me as more about extremist Hindu nationalist politics than actual food issues.
Finally, Akat, please do place my comment in context. I am perhaps too irritable but the whinging I hear about these issues as compared to real health issues I see around here set me off. Here you have to worry about formaldehyde being used in milk. Perhaps this irritation is unfair.
Now, now, Collounsbury, calm down.
Food labellng is, I will certainly agree, a very different matter than food adulteration. A dairy-products processor who chooses to use formaldehyde as a preservative for milk (and that choice has a long and dishonorable history) is, however, unlikely to be impressed by a government regulation requiring that he list its use on the carton.
If vegetarians, vegans, fruitatarians, or people who are squicked by the notion that their food used to be alive wish to band together and form the Organized Vegan Laboratories, that is their privilege. If a given manufacturer wishes to allow the vegetarian equivalent of mashgiochim to inspect his premises and processes in return for being allowed to put a circle-V on his cartons, that is his privilege. And, if he not does wish to do so, that is also his privilege. Those of us who are unimpressed by or uninterested in such certification, or unwilling to pay the higher price necessary to pay for the inspection leading to the certification, may ignore it or even use it as an indicator of what to avoid. I saw nothing else in even sven’s thought (aside from a certain wistful hope that someone else will shoulder all the burdens of organizing the effort).
Now, if we’re talking about honest-to-Heaven issues of adulteration and nutrition, we should probably have another thread: whether or not Mickey D’s slips a little beef tallow into the hydrogenated shortening it uses to deep-fry potatoes is probably about far from such an issue as can be imagined. I do note that I am uninterested in damnfool anarchcapitalist notions about how the market, with or without informative labeling, will deal with such issues. As you have noted on several occasions outside of this thread, people in the Third World are, by necessity, less interested in the quality of their food than if there be any. In turn, I would suggest that the average mid-Atlantic person wouldn’t know a food-related health issue if it jumped out of the grass and ripped out his liver – which some of the products that they fondly imagine to be benign or even beneficial do.
For the record, I am vegetarian because I think the idea of munching on somebody else’s veins is distgusting beyond words, Not, because I give any sort of a damn about stupid animals. I don’t really care what others eat. Heck, I wear leather shoes.
You also assume that vegetarians are high and mighty people that look at food from a different level than your average Joe. While many vegetarians eat home cooked meals with whole grains and fresh fruit, there are a lot of vegetarians that don’t. There are plenty of vegetarians that survive of Top Ramen, cheetos, Mt. Dew and white bread. Vegetarians go to fast food restraunts for the same reasons that everyone else does…they want fast cheap food.
I don’t expect anyone to have to cater to my needs. All I ask is that I am able to find out what is in the food I am consuming. I’d prefer to be alerted when food that does not traditionally contain meat products does. I really don’t think that is too much to ask.
Collounsbury wrote:
But at least you know it’s vegetarian formaldehyde. 