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Vegetarian sues McDonalds over meaty fries
( 2001-05-03 11:54 ) (7 )

A vegetarian lawyer is claiming millions of dollars in damages from McDonald's Corp., accusing the fast food company in a lawsuit of "secretly" lacing its french fries with beef fat.

Citing an e-mail in which the Oak Brook, Illinois company discloses its suppliers use tiny amounts of beef flavoring, the suit charges McDonald's with fraudulent claims for saying its fries have been cooked in pure vegetable oil.

"We will seek injunctive relief to stop this practice ... and we are seeking damages, including punitive damages, that will easily be in the hundreds of millions of dollars," said Harish Bharti, who filed the class action suit in King County Superior Court on Tuesday.

A McDonald's spokesman said the restaurant chain had never claimed to offer vegetarian food and that it freely provides ingredient information to anyone who requests it.

Stressing all of its food products are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, spokesman Walt Riker said McDonald's fries contain "minuscule" amounts of beef products, not the beef fat alleged by the lawsuit.

"We are very open," Riker said. "We have probably 25 million people a day come to our restaurants in the United States. I don't think anybody is coming in thinking that we are marketing vegetarian items."

Bharti, an Indian native who avoids meat in adherence to his Hindu religion, said he filed the suit on behalf of the million or so Hindus in the United States and 15 million vegetarians who may have unknowingly eaten meat products.

"McDonald's didn't have any right to deceive people this way," Bharti said.

In some overseas markets, including parts of Africa, the Middle East and southeast Asia, McDonald's does offer fries with no meat or pork content in order to conform to Islamic halal standards, Riker said.