Two environmental pressure groups in California plan to sue leading fastfood groups over their failure to warn consumers about toxic chemicals in their French fries.
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The move follows a great deal of coverage of a discovery by a Swedish government study that fatty starchy foods cooked at high temperatures, such as French fries, contain high levels of acrylamide, a suspected carcinogen.
The two groups, Environmental World Watch and a six-member coalition of environmentalists and academics, have notified the Californian state attorney general’s office of their plan to sue McDonald’s and Burger King under the state’s Proposition 65, which requires companies to warn consumers of toxic chemicals in the products they sell.
The groups hope to force the two burger giants to put a warning on their packaging, or reformulate their French fries recipe. They also hope to spark a quick response from the state, which has said it is considering filing its own lawsuit, or at least prompt the state to launch its own investigation.
“We hope this is going to erupt into a full-scale investigation on the part of the food industry” to determine the source of the carcinogen, said Robert J. Mandell, a Northridge attorney representing Environmental World Watch.
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By GlobalDataRepresentatives for McDonald’s and Burger King said the suits would be premature as too little is known about the effects of acrylamide at the moment.
