What’s Really in Your Fast Food?
A new report reveals how your favorite hamburgers, chicken sandwiches and fries go from farm to table.
By Rebecca Ruiz for Forbes.com
You may want to reconsider getting that double cheeseburger with fries.
A study released today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences contains controversial claims about menu items served at McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King.
Using a technique that identifies carbon and nitrogen isotopes in meat, co-authors A. Hope Jahren and Rebecca Kraft tried to determine the animals’ diets and in what conditions they were raised. Based on the high levels of carbon and nitrogen isotopes found in the meat products, the authors claim that the cattle and poultry were predominantly fed corn, which makes them as fat as possible in as short a time as possible, and were raised in extreme confinement.
In an interview, Jahren, who is a geobiologist and professor at the University of Hawaii, even suggested that the nitrogen isotopic signatures found in meat products were so high that they were consistent with environments where animals had consumed their own waste.
Burger King declined to comment on the study. A spokesman for Wendy’s said the company has “very strict procedures in place” to protect animal welfare. A spokeswoman for McDonald’s declined to comment and instead referred to a statement issues by the American Meat Institute, a trade association.
Janet M. Riley, senior vice president of public affairs for AMI, said that carbon and nitrogen isotopes are naturally occurring and are expected to be found in the environment and humans. She also said that while the study’s authors had called for greater transparency regarding information about livestock feeding and production practices, consumers “appear satisfied” with the amount of information currently available.
http://health.msn.com/nutrition/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100220333>1=31036
I have not been at one of these fast food place in like 4 years…