America's favorite corporation is doing it again! This month, two-year-old Ryan from Maryland almost died from Mcdonalds' french fries. There is already a lot of dirt about the Mmmm fast-food company, might as well look what this one is all about.
First the case is so big that little ryan's mom has sued McDonald's in Montgomery County, accusing the company of misrepresenting the ingredients in the fries. The accident occured in January 2006, when half an hour after a great greasy meal, Ryan got an anaphylactic shock. "Ryan just walked out of his bedroom and threw up," says his mother. "He lay down on the floor and stopped breathing." Now what is exactly the ingredient that causes such a reaction?
Yes, them delicious french fries, they are the cause of this trauma. They contain dairy and wheat gluten. It's hydrolyzed and used to flavor the frying oil, an information that McDonald's disclosed a month after little Ryan got stroke. Ryan's lawyers say allergies to gluten and dairy are quite common. About one in one hundred thirty people have a disease that causes their intestines to stop absorbing food if they're exposed to gluten.
The large french fries holds 540 calories. This is not the first time McDonalds faces crisis concerning its french fries: In 2002, executives announced that it would figure out a new way to make their fries without transfats, known to cause about 50,000 premature deaths each year (with the restaurant industry accounting for roughly one-third of them). The company recanted several months later, pretending that consumer won't accept the taste difference.
Fries account for as much as $20 billion of the fast foodies' $105 billion annual sales. French fries sales in every Wendy's, Burger King and Macdonalds are dropping due to new healthy eating habits. That's the reason why executives are being chickens about changing the french fries taste: They are afraid to lose even more customers.
However, it is funny (kinda) to think that 1/130 persons are allergic to gluten, and that nobody cares at the burger master headquarters. "Our fries kill our customers: shall we get rid of it?" "No way, says another healthy-and-wealthy-looking executive, I get blackmails from the US potato board. The economy of the potato cannot take decreased potato sales, whatever they are mixed with." Amen.
Read Faks here
