Email regarding McDonalds beef

[Sonya]

I'm not sure how old this email is so you may have seen it, but just in case, here it is. I did not check it out on snopes, it does say in the email it has been verified, but I myself did not verify it. Normally when I eat at McDonalds I get the chicken because their beef to me just doesn't taste like beef anyway, but at any rate here is the email:

This is true-- it checked out on Snopes...

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THIS IS A GOOD DECENT MAN WHO TOOK THE TIME TO WRITE THIS AND: HE SIGNED THE STATEMENT AND: INCLUDED HIS CONTACT INFO:

READ ON:

I'm sure those of you who aren't in the cattle business don't understand the issues here. But to those of us

whose living depends on the cattle market, selling cattle, raising the best beef possible... This is frustrating.

This will keep us from ever stopping there again, even for a drink.

The original message is from the Texas Cattle Feeders Association

American 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. Our 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 provide beef.

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 it on. 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 l east 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!

I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you? Acting together we can make a

difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on.

David W. Forrest, Ph.D ., PAS, Dipl.

ACAP Department of Animal Science

Texas A&M University

Phone (979) 845-3560

Fax (979) 862-3399

2471 TAMU College Station , TX 77843-2471

Can you spell Mad Cow Desease?

 

[minih]

click on this address and read

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/mcdbeef.asp

 

[Sonya]

As I said, I myself did not check the validity of the email. The snopes says that McD's buys from Australia to make up for the shortfall of "lean" beef in the U.S....if McD's is saying their current burgers are lean, they are sadly mistaken IMO, that's why I normally get chicken there....I don't know where that comes from, but tastes more like chicken than their hamburgers taste like beef.

 

[LowriseMinis]

So now I gotta ask-what's the issue with buying foreign beef?

 

[Sonya]

Lowrise, I have no issue with foreign beef. I do have issue with it perhaps not being regulated...I was just sharing an email I received about "possible" beef that is not regulated....it doesn't seem to matter what I post you seem to have a problem with it and have to make a negative or derogatory comment...normally referred to as "potstirring".

 

[LowriseMinis]

No, I was honestly curious. The Snopes article says that the beef from NZ and Australia is even more strictly regulated than beef here in the States.

 

[tagalong]

Sonya - even without checking snopes or other sources.... emails like this that go after specific companies are usually false or highly exaggerated...

Unless there is a link attached for a website that has a statement and research and facts attached, I just ignore them.

But my sister believes each and every one of them - just the fact that it is an email is enough "proof" for her!

 

[minih]

Sonya, please do not think I was getting at you by putting the website up....I work at a school and these kind of emails come in all the time and one of our librarians is very good about going to snopes and checking them out. I just wanted the facts to be known. These types of emails are written very believable, and I feel they are started by competition from other retailers to damage the one they are writing about.

 

[LowriseMinis]

Oi, Tag, I had a friend in highschool who was the same way. She got an e-mail after 9-11 stating the terrorists were going to poison Pepsi products and begged me not to drink them...I had a bit of fun getting one out of the school's vending machine for the rest of the week and drinking it in front of her, occasionally offering her a sip.

 

[Sonya]

Sonya, please do not think I was getting at you by putting the website up

oh no, that's fine, I did not check it this am before I put it up because I was in a hurry. I know the majority of these types of email are not correct in all they say (especially the ones that claim to be signed by a well-know individual)..I thought this one could be possible since I knew that McD's does import beef, wasn't exactly sure where it came from, but I knew it didn't all come from within the U.S as probable with the majority of fast food joints.

 

[Jill]

Sonya, let's me and you go to Five Guys or something, and let Lowrise go find some foreign hamburger meat!!!

 

[osu_barrelracer]

Being extremely involved in the cattle and beef industry, I can assure you that this e-mail is 100% false. McDonalds does in fact get most of its beef from the US. The thing is that lower grade US cattle (the type of beef used in fast food burgers such as mcdonalds) are often shipped to Canada or mexico to be feedloted and finished, and then brought back into the US as butcher steers. This is done a lot because of cost.

That beef then becomes a product of USA/Canada/Mexico ect.

 

[Minimor]

For me it doesn't matter where McDonalds get their beef, I won't be eating it. I haven't been to McDonalds since prior to 1985. I used to love Big Macs but the last one I had was so horribly salty--I'm sure that the meat was on the verge of spoiling and they'd salted it well to extend its life a little. It was disgusting, and I haven't been back since. Can't remember just when that was, but well before we moved to Brandon, and that was 1985...if I've gone without food from Rotten Ronnie's for 23+ years I think I can go without it for the rest of my life.

As for imported beef, when the border closed to Canadian beef because of BSE I started buying only Canadian beef...after all, the cow that caused our problems was originally from the US, and so many of us figured that if we couldn't export our beef then we weren't going to buy imported beef. In the grocery store & in restaurants, I'd always ask where the beef was from. If they didn't know, I didn't buy--in the restaurant I'd buy chicken instead. It got to be habit, and I've kept on that way even since the border opened. Canadian beef is the best there is, so why buy any other???