An Expert's Opinion On Mcdonald's

[lovegrov]

Another person on the St. John's list contacted Cynthia Kupper (the woman who works with Outback to put out their gluten-free menu) about the McD fries and here's what she says:

This is a case of McDonalds following the letter of the law, but without

the FDA having the exceptions in place - it is causing confusion. This is a

perfectly safe ingredient. People should not be blasting McD for doing

what they are told they have to do, but instead forcing the issue of the panfry to file an exemption for their product. (notice that thus far the FDA has not made a ruling on any exemptions filed...that doesn't help)

Or of course the pan fry company could certify their product. This would

mean they are regularly testing the product to show it's purity.

The law is good, but the cart was put before the horse.

Cynthia Kupper, RD, celiac disease

Executive Director

Gluten Intolerance Group of NA

Me again -- I am NOT telling anyone to go start eating McD fries again. I would if I ate them, but that's my personal choice.

richard

[VydorScope]

Well, I still want ot know how this magic "panfry" she mentions removes gluten? If all we have to do is "panfry" our food to be say, then that changes just about all comon knowledge and reseached wisdom that says you can not cook out gluten. When a fact is in direct opistion to current knowledge it shoudl not be tursted with out resaonable evidence that all current knowledge is wrong.

Other wise, you should pan fry up some wholewheat bread and have a sandwhich.

SHE MIGHT BE RIGHT, but its foolish to blindly believe it at this stage. Caution is STRONGLY urged here.

[ryebaby0]

Well, alrighty then! When I talked to McD's, they told me the oil company wasn't a name I was going to get from them -- but I think Cynthia (as always) has a point. This appears to be evolving into an issue of the FDA granting exemptions and the suppliers applying. Time will tell whether McDonald's will decide to require that ~ and they are the only ones with the leverage to get the supplier to do that, I think.

Thank you , Richard, for posting this separately. And commendations to everyone on the board for sharing their opinions with a reasonable amount of civility (We could change the world with this amount of passion for any number of global issues!)

joanna

[VydorScope]

I think I can answer this for everyone....

I looked up the defintiion of "panfry" just to se...

Panfry

To cook in a hot pan with small amount of hot oil, butter, or other fat, turning the food over once or twice.

Seirously, how many of you are willing to go get some wholewheat bread, fry it up and eat it? If you NOT then you should not eat McDonalds fries, IMO.

[happygirl]

Please don't everyone yell at me, but I have a question:

If McDonald's is listing their product as having/being processed with wheat/gluten, listing wheat in their ingredients, and has taken the french fries off the gluten free list.....

What is the logical conclusion?

(I'm serious, I'm not being sarcastic!)

After reading comments from Cynthia and comparing it to McDonald's, I would just like an answer.

[Canadian Karen]

As I stated on another thread, she obviously is referring to the "par-fry" method that McDonald's uses. But that raises the question of exactly how much investigating has she done regarding this when she doesn't even know the proper name for the cooking method in question.

Karen

[VydorScope]

I finaly found out what "parfry' is. You deep fry at 375° F for about 4 minutes or until strips are cooked but not brown. It to prepair them for freezing for storage. The FDA calims "enzyme systems are destroyed" and this alowsd them to be store "between 0 and -18C" for up to 24 months with no degrading of the product.

No mention of it breaking down PROTIEN (ie gluten) that I can find.

[VydorScope]

If McDonald's is listing their product as having/being processed with wheat/gluten, listing wheat in their ingredients, and has taken the french fries off the gluten free list.....

What is the logical conclusion?

To be fair and honest, McDonalds has NO choice in the matter but to say there is wheat in the fries, that answer is currently dictated by the new laws. The question is not "was there wheat in the fries" anymore, the question is "Is McDonald's calim that the GLUTEN was removed by the PRE-COOKING process"

No one has yet been able to state a single way that that could be true, and everything we celiac disease'ers have been told UP TILL THIS POINT says cooking never removes gluten.

So, the logical answer, IMO, is the gluten is till in the fries. As I siad, unless your willing to fry up a piece of wholewheat bread and eat it, you should not eat McDonalds fries. That is the only logical conclusion I can see unless we get new information that changes things.

[Canadian Karen]

I know it really confusing, but I have read through the link below (my eyes are screwy now!!! ) but I haven't been able to find anything about their invention being able to kill gluten.....

Open Original Shared Link

Karen

[lovegrov]

"So, the logical answer, IMO, is the gluten is till in the fries. As I siad, unless your willing to fry up a piece of wholewheat bread and eat it, you should not eat McDonalds fries. That is the only logical conclusion I can see unless we get new information that changes things."

Allegedly any wheat that the par fry oil might have come in contact with has been removed before any frying, so, no, your comparison of frying bread in oil is not at all logical. We KNOW bread has gluten in it. The question is whether or not the par fry has gluten.

[Canadian Karen]

I think what McDonald's has to do is have an independent agency who would have proper knowledge of this "par-fry" process, come forward and state one way or another that indeed, testing has been done and it has been proven that the "par-fry" method removes all traces of gluten. Sorry if I don't just take McDonald's word for it, or Cynthia Kupper's for that matter. It sounds like she made a phone call to someone fairly high up in the McDonald's corporation, got that explanation, believes it, and is going with it. How much more could she have done if she doesn't even know the proper name of the cooking process?

Karen

[VydorScope]

Allegedly any wheat that the par fry oil might have come in contact with has been removed before any frying, so, no, your comparison of frying bread in oil is not at all logical. We KNOW bread has gluten in it. The question is whether or not the par fry has gluten.

Richard, where do you get the information that they removed the wheat form the oil? I am sorry if I missed somthing but the offical answers I have heard form them is that the process of parfrying has removed the gluten, and that is why my example holds true, IMO. If they removed the wheat form the oil, then they would not have to say there was wheat in the oil. Since they say there is wheat in there, then they did not remove it.

Sorry if I missed somthing, please show me where they state they out right removed the wheat, as oposed to the statements they have already given to members here that the process of parfying removed the wheat, which we all here know it cant.

[Judyin Philly]

Richard, where do you get the information that they removed the wheat form the oil? I am sorry if I missed somthing but the offical answers I have heard form them is that the process of parfrying has removed the gluten, and that is why my example holds true, IMO. If they removed the wheat form the oil, then they would not have to say there was wheat in the oil. Since they say there is wheat in there, then they did not remove it.

Sorry if I missed somthing, please show me where they state they out right removed the wheat, as oposed to the statements they have already given to members here that the process of parfying removed the wheat, which we all here know it cant.

Vincent--this is what i pulled and posted the other day when Karen put this thread up.

I couldn't make head or tails from the long Blah, Blah, list above this.

I don't think this answers your questions..but only place I say the word wheat...it sure looks like a complicated process and hate that 'word' that other articles associate with cancer.

I'm Out here--no ff for me..but wanted to try to help you here Vincent.

PS----If this info isn't relevent, please forgive on don't 'bash' me for posting it---IT'S ALL ABOVE MY LEVEL OF UNDERSTANDING...It's for the rest of you to figure out.

I'm not spending any more emotional energy on this.

judy

[0075] While the invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to one or more embodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various approaches to the reduction of acrylamide in thermally processed foods may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of this invention. For example, while the process has been disclosed herein with regard to potato products, the process can also be used in processing of food products made from corn, barley, Wheat, rye, rice, oats, millet, and other starch-based grains. In addition to potato chips, the invention can be used in making corn chips and other types of snack chips, as well as in cereals, cookies, crackers, hard pretzels, breads and rolls, and the breading for breaded meats. In each of these foods, the present invention's method for manipulating one or more unit operations can be combined with other strategies for the reduction of acrylamide to produce an acceptable acrylamide level without adversely affecting the taste, color, odor, or other characteristics of an individual food.

[lovegrov]

Here's what one person on this list got:

"He (Ron) said that they just got an internal memo and have removed wheat as an ingrediant on the list for FF. The deal is that the oil used (he didn't mention flavorings) with the FF contained remnants of dairy and wheat. But, he told me that the suppliers believe that the wheat and dairy proteins are removed during processing, so these ingrediants are no longer in the fries."

This is also what people on two other lists have been told. I did see that somebody on this list was told the gluten was fried out, but I think that was a misunderstanding. The gluten is supposedly processed out before any frying happens at all.

richard

[VydorScope]

Here's what one person on this list got:

"He (Ron) said that they just got an internal memo and have removed wheat as an ingrediant on the list for FF. The deal is that the oil used (he didn't mention flavorings) with the FF contained remnants of dairy and wheat. But, he told me that the suppliers believe that the wheat and dairy proteins are removed during processing, so these ingrediants are no longer in the fries."

This is also what people on two other lists have been told. I did see that somebody on this list was told the gluten was fried out, but I think that was a misunderstanding. The gluten is supposedly processed out before any frying happens at all.

richard

Well Richard, that does not seem to fit with this statement from McDondalds website,

French Fries:

Potatoes, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, natural flavor (beef, wheat and dairy sources), dextrose, sodium acid pyrophosphate (to preserve natural color). Breading set in vegetable oil. Cooked in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils (may contain partially hydrogenated soybean oil and/or partially hydrogenated corn oil and/or partially hydrogenated canola oil and/or cottonseed oil and/or sunflower oil and/or corn oil). Contains wheat and milk ingredients.

Which says the wheat is in the natural flavoring. I have been assuming that natural flavoring is added to the oil, so why would they take it back out? And what processing could there be to remove the wheat from the oil? If the natural flavor is not added to the oil, then all this frying business is meaningless, and the wheat is still in the freis.

The whole thing smells of "we screwed up and are scrambling to come up with some way out" to me.

[Canadian Karen]

This is also what people on two other lists have been told. I did see that somebody on this list was told the gluten was fried out, but I think that was a misunderstanding. The gluten is supposedly processed out before any frying happens at all.

richard

Now I am even more confused. If that is the case, then the statement from Cynthia Kupper is worthless if the par-frying method is irrelevent as they claim the wheat is removed prior to any frying?

Karen

[VydorScope]

You know , all this would be solved if McDonalds would just make some kind of offical press realease that explained why they feel that thier fires are gluten free eventhough they contain wheat. If they just explained it, then everyon could make an informed decsion for themselves.

But instead they officaly state in writting that thier fries have gluten (not just wheat, but specifly gluten) in it, and tell ppl on the phone that thier fires do not have gluten in them.

Richard, I repsect you and I hope you do not htink I am attacking you, cuase I am not, I am merely trying to understand what is going on. Either thier offical written stament that the fires have gluten in them is correct or there haphazard phone statments that they do nothave gluten in them is correct. They both can not be correct.

[Canadian Karen]

I found this quite interesting, even though it doesn't have anything to do with the current issue, it does give us a glimpse of the processing of these fries......

Open Original Shared Link

Karen

[happygirl]

Also very interesting, because I was told the wheat/gluten was in the beef bouillion, not the oil.

[Canadian Karen]

Even more interesting to me is that it seems to me that there are two different kinds of fries they manufacture, the ones for Muslims and the ones for the rest of the world. If that is the case, then aren't the fries that are shipped to the States and same fries that are shipping to Canada. Could it be that up here in Canada, McDonald's fries also contain gluten but because we don't have any laws with teeth in them in regards to labelling issues, we Canadians are being left in the dark?

Food for thought, Canucks.. (pardon the pun)......

Karen

[VydorScope]

Even more interesting to me is that it seems to me that there are two different kinds of fries they manufacture, the ones for Muslims and the ones for the rest of the world. If that is the case, then aren't the fries that are shipped to the States and same fries that are shipping to Canada. Could it be that up here in Canada, McDonald's fries also contain gluten but because we don't have any laws with teeth in them in regards to labelling issues, we Canadians are being left in the dark?

Food for thought, Canucks.. (pardon the pun)......

Karen

If I was a Canada Person, I would be avioding McDondals Fries till some hard facts come out at least.

[Canadian Karen]

On McDonald's Canadian website, here are the ingredients listed for the fries:

Ingredients:

French Fries Potatoes, a blend of partially hydrogenated fat and oil (beef fat and cottonseed oil), may contain dextrose, sodium acid pyrophosphate and cooked in A/V shortening (beef fat and cottonseed oil, monoglyceride citrate, propyl gallate, propylene glycol).

Salt Salt.

I wonder if the beef fat is the same as the beef boullion they are talking about that contains the gluten.....

Karen

[jknnej]

So, bottom line: can we have the fries or not? Katie, celiac3270, what do you think? Will you continue to eat them?

[VydorScope]

So, bottom line: can we have the fries or not? Katie, celiac3270, what do you think? Will you continue to eat them?

In the end, their US website says the fries contain gluten; beyond that everything else is upfor debate, you will have to make that call for yourself, and I suggest you aviod them.

[Guest nini]

I, for one, am personally boycotting McDonald's... unless they come out with some kind of apology/explanation that makes sense to me, I will continue to boycott them and will continue to tell everyone I know about this snafu.