Is it true that Jamie Oliver managed to prove in court that McDonald's products are unsuitable for humans?

Publications regularly appear on social networks that a famous chef has convinced the court: the dishes of a famous fast food chain consist of ingredients that are dangerous to consume. We have verified the accuracy of this story.

According to posts in several large public pages on VKontakte, Jamie Oliver not only won a lawsuit against McDonald’s, but also “discovered the terrible truth about what the delicious meat for hamburgers and nuggets is actually made from.” If you believe such publications, then “meat for hamburgers, Big Macs and other “delicacies” is prepared from washed beef fat, and it is washed in the most common ammonium hydroxide,” which is poisonous to humans. These statements can be found, in particular, in public "Dawkins", "Moral", "The First Vegetarian", "Ministry of Truth" and many others. The “sensation” did not bypass other social networks and blog platforms - users mention it Facebook, Twitter, Pikabu, "Yandex.Zena" and other portals.

Let's start with the fact that no court hearing was ever held where Oliver and McDonald's were parties. In 2011, in one of the episodes of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, the chef demonstrated, how you can get “pink slime” from meat trimmings and offal using liquid ammonia - from which, according to Oliver, most meat dishes are prepared in the United States. Note that this episode can hardly be called criticism directly against McDonald’s - Oliver criticized the entire American food industry.

At the beginning of 2012, the hosts of the American television channel CBS announced that McDonald's had decided to change the recipe of its burgers. This is an innovation journalists tied up just like Oliver's program, which had come out a few months earlier. In particular, the broadcast showed fragments from his show, including the one where the chef says: “This is not fit for human consumption.” At the same time, as CBS clarified, McDonald’s statement directly stated that their decision “is not related to any specific event.” Moreover, in a commentary for Time magazine, company representatives completely stated, that they have been working on this reform since the beginning of 2011, that is, before the Oliver show aired.

Doubts about the relationship between Oliver's program and McDonald's decision also arise because American law does not prohibit the use of ammonia solution when processing meat. AND USDA, And Food and Drug Administration Even ten years after the celebrity chef episode, the FDA still considers it "generally safe" to treat meat with ammonia. True, at about the same time as McDonald’s from using this method refused and other large fast food restaurant chains.

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Snopes. Did Jamie Oliver Prove McDonald's Burgers Are Unfit for Human Consumption?
2. Africa Check. Chef Jamie Oliver claimed McDonald’s beef ‘unfit for human consumption’ – but did not win legal battle with company