Interesting Food – Olympics

Interesting Food?  Olympics? Have I gone mad? No, but I am incensed, because this little factlet is about French fries at the Olympics. The fast food chain  McDonald’s has been given sole rights to offer French fries by the International Olympic Committee, because they are the official restaurant sponsor for London 2012 and have paid a small fortune for the privilege.

(The 800 other eateries at Olympic venues nationwide will be allowed to sell the British favourite fish and chips — but not chips on their own.

A note posted at the Olympic venue reads, “Due to sponsorship obligations with McDonald’s, Locog have instructed the catering team they are no longer allowed to serve chips on their own. The only loophole to this is if it is served with fish. Please understand this is not the decision of the staff serving up your meals, who given the choice would gladly give it to you. However they are not allowed.”

Now IMHO there is no problem – French fries are not chips!

Here is a list of the ingredients from MaccyDees own website:-

Potatoes, vegetable oil (canola oil, hydrogenated soybean oil, natural beef flavor [wheat and milk derivatives]*, citric acid [preservative]), dextrose, sodium acid pyrophosphate (maintain color), salt. Prepared in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness). Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent.
CONTAINS: WHEAT AND MILK.
*(Natural beef flavor contains hydrolyzed wheat and hydrolyzed milk as starting ingredients)

Now, here’s a list of the ingredients for chips:-

Potatoes
Oil for frying
Salt to taste

So, here is a message to the 800 other eateries, there is no problem here, just serve real food and not mucked about chemical experiments.

My other problem with this factlet is that McDonald’s outlets are not restaurants.  If McDonald’s run restaurants, I run a bloody university!)

Full story here.