I was just reading some snopes, and I realized that a lot of people really believe that McDonald’s puts worms in their meat, and Wendy’s uses __________ for their ___________ and ________ substitutes _______________________________ (etc.)
I have no doubt that these companies don’t want to lie on their ingredients list, but what would the FDA do if a company lied on its ingredients list?
The FDA has a wide variety of enforcement tool at their disposal, and they aim most of them at food distributors. Food service is rife with fraud, carelessness, and greed, and the FDA does a lot of recalls and confiscations. Occasionally, they’ll shut down a bad actor (yes, they’ll padlock the warehouse), and occasionally criminal charges with fines or jail time are imposed (obviously, the stricter measures requires a court verdict). They are also law enforcement officers, and will carry guns and handcuffs when necessary.
The likely penalty for a single instance of misbranding would range from voluntary recall to confiscation plus a fine, depending on the apparent intent of the offendor. A continuing pattern of fraud would probably result in the FDA filing suit in federal court, seeking jail time, or maybe a large fine. A consent decree is a common settlement by corporations; they’ll agree to take certain measures (hiring quality personnel, having third-party inspectors on site, etc). Oh, and pay a big honkin’ fine to FDA. Schering-Plough (a drug company) signed a consent decree a few years back that hit them with a $500 million disgorgement of profits.
Where does Wendy’s or McDonald’s list their ingredients? The FDA doesn’t require restaurants post their ingredients and they have pretty limited enforcement of such establishments.
Go into your local Wendy’s or McDonalds and ask for the nutrition information. I believe they are required to have it available to you.
Yup, definitely in the store.
But other than being shut down and putting millions of people without jobs, nothing would happen if McDonald’s were feeding people worms??? :eek: I’ll bet with such a slap on the wrist hanging over their heads, the meat patties are probably all worms, given how much cheaper they are than beef!
I believe Dr. Lao is correct.
A restaurant can voluntarily provide as much nutrition information about its food as it desires - and it’s certainly a good public relations policy for the big chains to do so.
But despite several bills introduced in Congress for the purpose, the FDA does not now mandate nutrition information for restaurants, or even ingredients lists.
In fact, looking at my copy of CFR 21 (100-169) - the Code of Federal Regulations, Food and Drugs - I don’t see any mention of restaurants at all.
My guess is that the Federal Trade Commission would have administrative control over fraudulent representation of ingredients, or some such legal sounding term. In fact, the FTC once went after Pizzaeria Uno for claiming that their Thinzetta pizzas were (falsely) low in fat.
If the ingredients were harmful instead of just yucky, then maybe the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Or the Public Health Service. Or something in the Department of Commerce.
But the FDA couldn’t do squat.
>But the FDA couldn’t do squat.
Maybe. However, I would suspect that various state agencies have authority to act if a restaurant is actually lying about ingredients.
You got a cite for that?
All the sites I can find offer worms for fishing bait at $11 to $20 per pound, which is more expensive than hamburger (heck, it’s more expensive than prime sirloin steak).
Or they offer worms for composting; these seem to be a bit cheaper, but still $5 to $8 per pound, still quite a bit more than I pay for hamburger in the market. (And I expect McDonalds manages to get a better price than I pay.)
We covered this once before: Big Macs = earthworm meat. True or false?
Actually, everything after the “Yup, in the store” was sarcasm. In the OP I was making fun of people who honestly believe the myth. (And why do they still eat McDonald’s food anyway then?)
Yay! for the first time during my membership I get to say WHOOSH! 
