{"id":779,"date":"2001-05-12T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2001-05-12T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2001\/05\/12\/2001-05-12-lawsuit-filed-against-mcdonalds\/"},"modified":"2001-05-12T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2001-05-12T12:00:00","slug":"2001-05-12-lawsuit-filed-against-mcdonalds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2001\/05\/12\/2001-05-12-lawsuit-filed-against-mcdonalds\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit Filed Against McDonalds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.indiaabroadonline.com\/theworld\/may2001\/mcdonald.shtml\">GO TO SOURCE<\/A><\/P><br \/>\n<P><\/p>\n<p>SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, May 12, 2001: Seattle-based attorney Harish Bharti has filed a class-action lawsuit against McDonald&#8217;s, alleging that the fast-food giant misled its customers for over a decade by advertising its french fries were vegetarian while all the while they were flavored with beef extract. The ingredient list on McDonald&#8217;s web site states, &#8220;French Fries: potatoes, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, natural flavor, dextrose, sodium acid pyrophosphate (to preserve natural color). Cooked in partially hydrogenated soybean and corn oils, TBHQ (to protect flavor).&#8221; The beef flavoring comes under &#8220;natural flavor.&#8221; Bharti filed the complaint in the King County Superior Court on May 1, on behalf of three plaintiffs, alleging that McDonald&#8217;s engaged in deceptive and fraudulent business. Of the three plaintiffs, two are Hindus and vegetarians, and the third plaintiff is a vegetarian. According to the complaint, &#8220;Defendants are aware of the religious sentiments of Hindus, and in defiance of Hindu beliefs, sentiments and religious sanctity, defendants knowingly put beef products into the french fries.&#8221; Meanwhile, a report in The Wall Street Journal said that, as far back as 1990, McDonald&#8217;s had made a claim of using &#8220;100% vegetable oil.&#8221; McDonald&#8217;s, in a &#8220;clarification&#8221; carried by the Journal, said: &#8220;We never made any claims of vegetarianism with our french fries or any other product.&#8221;<br \/>\n<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GO TO SOURCE SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, May 12, 2001: Seattle-based attorney Harish Bharti has filed a class-action lawsuit against McDonald&#8217;s, alleging,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}