McDonald's Beef Hoax
Summary: McDonald's Corp. is buying beef from Argentina instead of supporting US cattle growers.
Circulation: 2002
Status: Hoax with a smidgen of truth
The Debunking
McDonald's Corp. does not buy beef from Argentina. The hoax starts out telling us that McDonald's Corp. is going to ditch the US cattle growers and start purchasing their beef from Argentina, where (according to the missive) cattle are fed all manner of vile pesticides and chemicals as well as parts of cattle remains, which our US laws prohibit. The Argentine cattle are supposed to be unregulated and dangerous to US consumers. The hoax says that the fast-food giant is ignoring the very Americans that made them great.
The email closes by encouraging you to start a chain letter petition of sorts by forwarding it on to thirty people. As with any other email you get that asks you to forward it to everyone you know, please do not do so, as you just wind up passing on false information and clogging up everyone's mailbox with junk mail.
While it is true that McDonald's Corporation is going to buy foreign beef, it is not buying beef from Argentina. McD's is currently buying free-range beef from Australia, which differs from US corn-fed beef. The difference between free-range and corn-fed is staggering. Consider for a moment that cattle, by nature, are grazers and eat grass. US cattle-growers feed corn to their cows, which cows do not normally eat. Therefore, US cattle are pumped full of antibiotics to keep them healthy. Free-range cattle don't need the antibiotics and are normally more healthy and produce a leaner cut of beef. McDonald's decided to purchase 5% of their beef from this market and uses the leaner cuts to make the hamburgers more healthy (if you can call fast-food healthy). Five percent is much different than the claim of "much of their beef."
According to McDonald's spokesman Frank Muschetto:
Whether McDonald's uses imported beef or not, the same amount of beef will be imported. We committed to the industry - and remain steadfast - that we advocate keeping this quota the same.
As for the claim that US cattlemen don't feed their cattle any part of another cow, that's not exactly the truth. The whole Mad-Cow scare is due to living cattle being fed contaminated feed. The feed in question is a mix of proteins derived from cow and sheep parts. US cattle are sometimes fed these proteins and can (theoretically) be contaminated.
One variant of the McDonald's hoax claimed to be supported by Dr. David Forrest of Texas A&M University. Supposedly, Dr. Forrest condemned McDonald's for their practice and had given legitimacy to the email missive. Dr. Forrest was kind enough to reply directly to my request for information and set the story straight.
Thank you for your message and allowing me an opportunity to respond. This is actually a chain email (urban legend) that misrepresents the situation regarding use of imported beef. I would like to clarify that I did not compose the original message and ask that you not forward it because there are a number of inaccurate statements. I made the mistake of forwarding it to some associates (before I realized it was a chain email) to solicit their feedback on the accuracy because I was skeptical of the statements. In the process, my signature was added to the bottom of page.
Sincerely,
David Forrest
So, as you can see, the email you received is not as truthful as you would imagine. Very few forwarded emails ever are true.
Original Text:
Guys -- We as cattle producers are very passionate about this. McDonald's claims that there is not enough beef in the USA to support their restaurants. Well we know that is not so. My opinion is they are looking to save money at our expense. The sad thing of it is that the people of the USA are the ones who made McDonald's successful in the first place, but we are not good enough to purchase beef from. We personally are no longer eating at McDonald's, which I am sure does not make an impact, but if we pass this around maybe there will be an impact felt. Please pass on your opinion.
This has Me just fighting mad. Just to add a note, all Americans that sell cows at a livestock auction barn had to sign a paper stating that we do NOT EVER feed our cows any part of another cow. South Americans are not required to do this as of yet.
McDonald's has announced that they are going to start importing much of their beef from South America. The problem is that South Americans aren't under the same regulations as American beef producers and the regulations they have are loosely controlled. They can spray numerous pesticides on their pastures that have been banned here at home because of residues found in the beef. They can also use various hormones and growth regulators that we can't. The American public needs to be aware of this problem and that they may be putting themselves at risk from now on by eating at good old McDonald's. American ranchers raise the highest quality beef in the world and this is what Americans deserve to eat. Not beef from countries where quality is loosely controlled. Therefore I am proposing a boycott of McDonald's until they see the light. I'm sorry but everything is not always about the bottom line, and when it comes to jeopardizing my family's health that is where I draw the line.
I am sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) ... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then
Again, all you have to do is send this to
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