A 43yr old nutritionist who alleged a lifelong McD's habit that caused her breast cancer may not join the fat-frik teens case, said the S.D.N.Y. fed court on 4/7/03. Under Fed.Rule.Civ.P. 19(a), a party seeking to join a class in a class action must show their absence from the class will prevent complete relief. This "complete relief" is interpreted to have three prongs: (1) the relief sought by the parties (in this case, the class seeks educational programs and attorney's fees and costs only); (2) whether she has an interest in the case and her absence may impair her ability to recover later; and (3) whether failure to join her may subject a party to inconsistent obligations or double liability. She failed all three prongs.

A nutritionist with a McD's habit? [img]graemlins/erm.gif[/img]

Source: BNA Toxics Reporter, Vol. 18, No. 18, 5/1/03

Eck. The McDonald's we have here is disgusting, but there are several other food chains nearby who offer a decent meal (Jack in the Box and Sonic for instance). I wouldn't be surprised if there were statistics out there claiming McD's was as healthy as a pack of cigarettes [img]graemlins/1puke.gif[/img]

I'm glad that these irresponsible court cases are getting next to nowhere. But I'm also glad that McDonalds is getting a bit of a scare.
Here in NZ McDonalds are completely changing their strategy. A completely new line of meals is being introduced labelled 'tonights dinner'. These are essentially microwave meals (including things like lamb cutlets, string green beans, thai green curry, crumbed hoki fillet etc.) that are still fast food, but arn't the usual traditional fast-food crap like greasy burgers. So far they are still in their prototype phase, and are being sold in Christchurch NZ only (it was a local franchisee's idea), but they are meeting with alot of success and will probably be spread to other cities around NZ, and then to other countries as well (essentially like the 'McCafe' idea, which also started out in NZ).
It's all official, yet unnofficial. The McDonalds USA CEO even came to Christchurch earlier on in the year to oversea the launch of the new menu (I was working in McCafe at the time). But the meals still arn't being advertised anywhere other than in Christchurch, so they're still in their trial phase.

Now, I don't like multi-national corporations much, mainly due to the faceless smarm of their advertising and the sheer greed of their profiteering (minimum wage for all workers, maximum profits for franchisees). But I am glad to see that McDonalds is making genuine changes to their menu in response to a worldwide slump in fatty crap-burger consumption, at least in New Zealand anyway.

I've gotten food poisoning twice in my long and boring life, and both times Jack in the Box was the culprit. I haven't eaten at one in 15 years because of that. I know of another one close by my work, that was closed down for repeated health violations.

I've gotten food poisoning twice in my long and boring life, and both times Jack in the Box was the culprit. I haven't eaten at one in 15 years because of that. I know of another one close by my work, that was closed down for repeated health violations. </font>[/QUOTE]I've never eaten at one, so I guess I'm safe. I forgot to mention Chick-fil-A; I'm not a fan of chicken, but it seems pretty busy every day of the week (except Sunday, when it's closed).

Sorry to hear that, antryg. I've heard food poisoning is one of the most unpleasant experiences a person could have, so I can fully understand why you keep your distance ;)

Here in Nelson the McD's are going with some sort of disgusting, overpriced salad in an effort to attract vegetarians. As far as I can tell, it is NOT working. The cost of a tiny salad is about $10. This is outrageous. There are three McDs in Nelson now, and only 50,000 people. They're taking over!

I live in Lower Hutt, NZ. (Used to live in Auckland until recently)

I'd much rather eat from KFC, BK or Wendy's rather than McD's...They burned their bacons in one of their burgers, i chewed on lipid in one 1/4 pounders and I didn't even feel good/satisfying after eating.

THeir ads present that they use FRESHEST ingredients in their stuff, but I beg to differ, personally. I'd much rather eat salad from Wendy's rather than McD's (Not that i'm even a fan of Salads in the first place).

[ 05-07-2003, 05:06 AM: Message edited by: D*Ranged ]

McDonald's ARE losing money for God knows how...

You must be lucky, I live in Lower Hutt and all I get is salads, burgers and...you know.

Ah, thanks for the update Timber, that reminds me.
I wanted to reply to the discussion about the quality of the food, esp. with regard to vegetarian food in the previous thread, but I wanted to be 100% sure of what I was saying.
Yesterday I had lunch at Mac's though :D so now I know that what I thought was right.
I heard several people mention in the previous thread that Burger King's and McD's fry in animal fats etc.
In the Netherlands, the fries are ALWAYS fried in 100% vegetable fat. Also, MacDonalds does have a completely vegetarian burger here, which can even be eaten by vegans (i.e. no animal fat in dressing, no cheese, etc) and which my vegetarian friends assure me tastes pretty good. Apart from that, I remember people complaining about the salads. I checked, and here you can get salads with lettuce, cucumber, tomato etc and either tuna, chicken or nothing. The dressings are all given seperately so you can choose to eat your salad with no dressing at all. They also added a fruit salad to the menu, which consists of sliced pieces of fruit only. And you can now get a yoghurt/muesli thingy at McD's, too. So there seems to be a little better choice for health freaks here, even if McDonalds is never competely healthy I think. But at least vegetarians can order fries with their Veggie Burger without having to eat animal fats.
I remember when I was abroad, the fries at McDonalds tasted disgusting and I found out it was because they were fried in animal fat - you can really taste a clear difference. Anyway, I knew that there were slight variations in the McDonalds menu based on local specialties or religions, but apparently they sometimes prepare the food differently too.

Edit after reading Pcgiant's post... whoa! Salads are normally priced here.
Oh and the only American fast food giants available in Holland are Burger King and McDonalds

[ 05-07-2003, 05:08 AM: Message edited by: Melusine ]

I hate both BK and McDs. I have never eaten Wendys. KFC is perhaps the best out of the bunch. The standard of fast food is falling - I can tell you thousands of terrible stories, courtesy of my friend Cory, who is currently employed at Nelson McDonalds.

wow Melusine... I envy your McDonald's over there... here they just serve different burgers (all meat), chickens, fries drinks... oh and ice cream... no salad, no all-vegetable food here... to make a long story short not as versatile as your McDonald's...

Funny how McD's are adapting their products depending on the country.

In France, since some silly peasants broke one or two of their restaurants, we have some funky burgers with different cheeses from different places. Closer to french products they say. :D

We have salads with different dressings. We even have a special meal with salad instead of fries and mineral water instead of coke. No veggie burger though :(

All the fat used to fry fries or cook meat is indeed 100% vegetal.

I know cause I worked in a McD for 8 months. And since then I eat very very rarely in a McD (only when I am with friends who wanna go). Coincidence ? Hell no...I've seen stuff...yuck.

Anyway. KFC here in Paris are way way way worse than any McD around the planet. Totally disgusting.

Now, back to the topic :

It's like a lung specialist who smoke, a kleptomaniac cop or a pyromaniac fireman...

*shiver*

Doesn't surprise me at all, since many nutritionists don't really know the first thing about a good diet let alone how to help people improve their eating habits. A friend was seeing one because he's overweight, guess what, he put on MORE weight. The nutritionist never thought to include the wife in on the plans and make it clear to her what needs to change and why, much less teach the wife how to make better choices when food shopping. Since the wife's doing the cooking and grocery shopping, it's her choices that affect the husband's diet, and therefore she should've been included in the process.
Many will just repeat to you the "current" thinking, which as we all know can change day to day.

Please remember, I said "MANY" not "ALL" in this post, so if you're one of the good ones (or know one) you don't need to argue it with me, I know there's good ones out their, it's just REALLY hard to find them.

[img]smile.gif[/img] Well I'm an expert since as a youth I worked at McD's, BK, and Pizza Hut (pretty much the only way a 16 year old could earn $120 a week where I came from). SO... my vast qualifications... um... qualify me to make some observations.

Since McDonalds is a franchise you will see WIDE variations from area to area... even from store to store within a franchise you'll see differences based on the quality of management (they don't tend to get too many Harvard MBA's).

Even 15-20 years ago when I worked there... McDonalds ONLY used 100% Vegi Oil for frying, I think the confusion is that they found traces of animal fat in the fries themselves (apparently added for flavor).

I tend to think overall the quality of McD's has been declining. When I worked there our store was spotless, if you weren't servicing a customer you were cleaing. The managers kept us hopping... if you were on the Big Mac/Regular Burger station and you couldn't keep two dozen burgers going at once you weren't on that station for long. These days when I've been in a McD's (very rare) I see people standing around BS'ing when the bathrooms look like crap, theres stuff all over the floor... nasty.

They also switched to using a Microwave which IMO was the kiss of death for them... the only thing they ever had going for them was that you could get a hot fresh burger, now you get a rewarmed dry frisbee.

<font color=deepskyblue>I can definitely relate to that experience, <font color=orange>Thoran</font>. I also worked at my hometown McD's for 6 yrs. The owners were a young couple and this was their first store. It was also the ONLY McDonald's in a 75 mile radius...so we were always hopping.

I know exactly what you mean about the work ethic we had compared to the work ethic I see there now. I'm sure you're familiar with the popular phrase - <font color=yellow>"If you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean"</font>. ;) One of our managers came up with another one - <font color=yellow>"If you've got time to gripe, you've got time to wipe"</font>.

My wife and I use to go by on Sunday mornings before church for breakfast, but it got to the point where I couldn't stand to sit there and watch these slackers they have working now just stand around talking and BSing. We stood in line one morning for almost 10 MINUTES!!! I was tempted to go behind the counter myself and show these jokers the job was SUPPOSED to be done.

The husband that owned the store when I worked there was killed in a car wreck several years ago. His wife (who was co-owner), kept the store for a couple more years, but then sold it. That's when it started going downhill. [img]graemlins/verysad.gif[/img] </font>

That brings me flashing back to High School. I worked at BK through high school and first 2 years of college (was then finally able to get a co-op job).

My wife bought her new (at the time) Mazda MX-6 when she was 17 by working at McD's. All her co-workers were like "how'd you do that." She said "remember all those times you went out or bought clothes while I picked up your shift?" One was so mad at that she ran a key down the side of the new car. I hate lazy-asses (points to feet on desk :D ).

Anywho, McD's has always used vegetable oil for many years. It was recently sued by a group of Hindus and others over the undisclosed animal fat in the fries. That's where you've heard about that. They settled, I believe. So, unless meat is cooked in the veggie oil (incl. the fries if they have not changed them), then the oil won't get contaminated. Are McNuggets deep fried?

The new "premium" salads are topped with your choice of: chicken, tuna, or caesar dressing (contains anchovies). So, not a big play to vegetarians as far as I can tell. The Mc-Veggies are only available at select locations here in the states, including some in NYC. I've NEVER seen one on the menu. (BK, btw, has the BK Veggie at all locations.)

That stuff at your McD's in NZ is VERY different - and cool. McD's is regionally very varied. In Mass., I think you can still find the yearly run of the McD's Lobster... burger... erm... thing. :D

I believe I heard in the news in the past month or so that they are changing the fries to not include the meat flavoring because of the uproar from the lawsuit. I can't find a link to back that up, though, so I could be mistaken.

Nuggets are fried in a seperate vat, as well as with fish (which tends to stink up anything else fried in the same oil) and pies. Fries and hash browns are both fried in the same oil.

Damn this brings back some memories... like when I was soo hung over one morning that when I was assembling the shake machine I had to sit on the floor to put together the blade assembly because I felt like throwing up otherwise [img]smile.gif[/img] , not a good day.

I've always been a burger lover, and one of the absolute coolest things about working at McD's was the ability to customize. I used to get lunch right during breakfast->lunch changeover, so I would make the "Ultimate Burger". It was a Quarter Pounder, two slices of cheese, a Sausage Patty and Bacon (from breakfast) topped with onions, lettuce, and tomato. I don't even want to know how many calories were in that beast... but in those days calories and cholesterol weren't even in my vocabulary. It'd be nice to be able to eat whatever I wanted and never gain an ounce... [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 05-07-2003, 10:33 AM: Message edited by: Thoran ]

Thoran, your customizing was also done by me. At Little Caesar's, Dairy Queen, Baskin Robins, Pizza Hut, Chi-Chi's, Denny's, and... oh, I'm sure the names of others will come to me after I hit the "post" button. I had quite the panopoly of jobs between 16 and 21. :D

Interesting... very very interesting...

Mel, aren't you forgetting a few ? Original Pizzacompany, Domino's, and Pizzahut are also American fastfoodchains, and we have those in almost every city. ;)

Those are pizza places, not burger chains.
They're not nearly as widespread as McDonalds and Burger King in Holland, nor as BK, McD's, KFC, Wendy's and so on in the States.

Oh, i thought you said fastfood giants. I didn't think pizza's are healthfood nowadays. Sorry for nitpicking. :D

And that just makes it sooo much healthier. :D Nutritionist? Graduated from where exactly? I really hope this case will be dismissed.

<font color=orange>McD's had the best french fries in the world when I was a young lad. Then they switched from animal fat to vegetable fat and now they're gross! [img]graemlins/1puke.gif[/img] My kids love MickeyD's, but I only eat there rarely. I'd rather eat at Sonic or Wendy's. Wendy's has the best burgers now and they have a new salad called the Mandurin Chicken salad that is out of this world! YUM!!!!

As far as pizza places go Papa John's wins hands down when compared to the other national chains.</font>

[ 05-07-2003, 12:57 PM: Message edited by: Sir Taliesin ]

It was the fries recipe, not the switch from animal to vegetable fat, that did them in. They were great fries for a long time after the switch to vegetable fat. The switch happened in the days before dietary concerns were such a huge issue, and was based on money.

I miss those fries. But, my favorite are the crinkle-cut ones you can still find at out-of-the-way drive-up diners.

<font color=orange>Mine too! We have a few Ice Cream Parlor... burger joint... emmm... thingys, :D here that serve crinkle-cut fries. Love to eat them. You can buy them at the store in the frozen foods section as well, but they are never as good at home.

edit: I stopped like McDonald's after the Animal fat switch, not the recipe change. </font>

[ 05-07-2003, 12:58 PM: Message edited by: Sir Taliesin ]