The Cancer Project in America has sued McDonald’s, Burger King and Friendly Ice Cream Corp over the sale of chicken containing PhIP, a chemical which forms during the grilling process, that can cause cancer. The companies were accused of concealing the fact that the grilled chicken contained PhIP to avoid financial losses.

From Bloomberg:-

The residents who filed the Connecticut suit, Rebecca Delio, of Stamford, and Mary-Ann Ellison, of Meriden, want the court to force the companies to include warnings in their restaurants, menus and advertisements that the food is known to contain chemicals that cause cancer.

Delio ate grilled chicken from one of the three companies’ restaurants once a week, and Ellison four times a month at a McDonald’s in Wallingford, according to the complaint. Both stopped buying the grilled chicken about a year ago when they learned of the cancer risk, they said in the complaint.

Delio, 66, was diagnosed with breast cancer a year ago, she said in a phone interview. She can’t blame her diagnosis on eating grilled chicken, she said. “It’s a possibility,” she said, adding that cancer runs in her family.

“I happen to like grilled chicken,” Delio said. “I checked it out on the Internet, and I learned that this is true, that grilled stuff is really no good for you.”

Ellison’s boyfriend was diagnosed with colon cancer, Kinburn said. He has other medical issues and the couple turned to grilled-chicken salads for what they thought would be healthful meals, the lawyer said.

A spokesperson for the Cancer Project said “We’re not looking to have them stop selling the product. The product is a legal though dangerous product that should be sold with a warning, like a chainsaw.” Burger King has apparently agreed to put warning on the product in its California outlets.

In a separate case last month, KFC was also accused of knowingly selling chicken that contained PhIP.

Read the Bllomberg report here.

McDonald’s recently launched the ‘Quarter Pounder’ in Japan. The burgers were launched using a branding experiment - the renovated restaurants were named ‘Quarter Pounder’ rather than ‘McDonald’s. McDonald’s forecast a 60% increase in November 2008 sales at the two stores in Tokyo, compared to last year because of the exercise.

The Quarter Pounded was launched 23 December and resulted in record sales that day. Clearly McDonald’s were not confident that the day would be a success since 1,000 people were paid to join the queues. However, 15,000 people turned up to buy the burgers on the day.

This may be a success for McDonald’s, but a disaster for the health of Tokyo’s citizens. At the moment, Japan has one of the highest life expectancies in the world (around 82 years), but as the adoption of a Western diet continues, we can expect to see this decrease as the prevalance of Western diseases such as heart disease and cancer increase.

As many countries strive to live the life of those in the West, it is difficult for us to point our fingers and tell them they cannot do as we have done because of the damage to the environment and health that we know will be replicated along with the lifestyle. Let’s lead by example, eat with health, the environment and human rights in mind; stop eating meat.

Following the World Cancer Research Fund report released in 2007, one in ten people have tried to cut down on their meat intake.

The World Cancer Research Fund report revealed that eating two rashers of bacon and two sausages a day resulted in a 63% higher risk of bowel cancer.

As you would expect, of the 2,124 people who took part in the online survey, those over 55 were most likely to have tried to cut down on their processed meat intake. Of those over 55, 37%  said they had tried to reduce their intake compared to just 6% of younger people.

It is encouraging to see that people are taking notice of the advice in the report. However, as long as supermarkets continue to offer cheap meat, such as Asda’s 2p sausages, young and low income people are unlikely to change their dietary habits.

The subsidies and environmental destruction that allow cheap meat to remain on our shelves needs to be stopped. If we sold meat at it’s true cost, we would see a reduction in meat consumption simply because people would not be able to afford it any more. In the report ‘Eating More Veggies Can Help Save Energy’, Simone Spearman points out ‘If water used by the meat industry [in the United States] were not subsidized by taxpayers, common hamburger meat would cost $35 a pound’. This is just taking in to account water use, let alone pollution, energy use, climate change… McDonalds charges around $3.50 for a quarter pounder with cheese in the US.

New research from the University of Hawaii has revealed America’s fast food chain’s dependence on corn.

The researchers bouht 486 servings of hamburgers, fries and chicken sandwiches from McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s in 6 cities in the USA.

Testing in the lab revealed that 100% of the chicken and 93% of the beef came from animals fed on a corn-only diet. Only 12 burgers in the experiment came from cows who had not eaten a corn-only diet.

Friends of the Earth fear that as more corn is diverted to the production of biofuels, more farmers will turn to soy for animal feed. The emphasis continues to be on the impact of biofuels on food security whilst the unsustainable use of  corn and soy as animal feed continues to be ignored. Some people will find it near impossible to stop using their cars because of living in the countryside with poor public transport links or due to a job which involves travelling.  But we can all cut out animal products from our diet and make a significant difference that way.

Read full article in New Scientist.

Whilst I welcome yet another study which shows that the Mediterranean diet reduces the risk of heart disease, cancer and neurological disorders, it leaves me wondering yet again, when is there going to be some real positive action to promote a healthier diet?

In this latest study, the results of 12 major studies involving over 1.5 million people showed that a diet rich in olive oil, grains, fish, fruit and vegetables, with low amounts of meat, dairy products and alcohol, reduced the risk of dying of heart disease by 9%, developing cancer by 6% and being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease by 13%.

This is no great revelation! And yet, if you go in to any school, music festival, shopping mall, high street or even leisure centre all you can see is sausages, chips, burgers, bacon butties and fried chicken - and very little in the way of fresh salads, fruit, vegetables and whole grains. To top that, fast food chains continue to spend hundreds of millions on promoting their foods to children. These companies need to be held accountable for what they are doing to our health and the other disastrous consequences of their practices, such as environmental damage and human rights abuses.

Tobacco companies have been successfully sued for millions in damages and yet those who have attempted to sue the likes of McDonald’s for health reasons have not been successful. It seems these massive fast food corporations have a free reign to do whatever they wish in the name of profit.

How come whenever there is a crisis the least deserving are the only ones who actually benefit? With the energy crisis and increased fuel prices, companies such as Shell report record earnings. With the food crisis, it’s McDonalds who are reaping the rewards; due to increased demand they have created 4,000 extra jobs in the UK.

McDonalds are not only responsible for the destruction of tropical forests to make way for soy plantations (used to feed their suppliers’ cattle), childhood obesity and disease through their aggressive advertising aimed at children and climate change caused by all the animals raised and slaughtered to keep their restaurants stocked with burgers but also can be held accountable for the growing number of starving people in the world.

Whilst people in richer nations resort to a meal out at McDonalds in an attempt to keep costs down, people in developing nations are those that bear the real cost. The demand for crops to feed animals, coupled with climate change and biofuels, has resulted in increased food prices to levels that the world’s poor cannot afford. Not only that, but more and more indigenous people are being violently expelled from their land so that massive trans-national corporations can grow soy to feed the animals which end up in the bellies of McDonald’s customers.

We cannot fix the food crisis by dining out at cheap but unsustainable and unethical restaurants. If you can’t afford to eat out somewhere which serves healthy, sustainable, plant-based meals, then cook a delicious meal with friends and family at home.