Food fight! This time, over grilled chicken (with update)

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

There’s jostling going on in the world of food!

The skirmish is between a group called Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine and seven national restaurant chains, including Burger King, McDonald’s and TGI Fridays. PCRM, an animal-rights group with links to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, filed a lawsuit in L.A. against all seven for knowingly exposing customers to a cancer-causing chemical in ... nope, not fries.

Not cheeseburgers.

Drumroll...

... grilled chicken sandwiches. You know, the healthy alternative.

Grilling chicken causes formation of a chemical called PhIP, of a class of chemicals called heterocyclic amines that form when meats are cooked at high heat. PCRM claims that warnings should be placed in eateries to warn consumers of this risk under Proposition 65. That’s the law that’s responsible for those often-quite-perplexing signs on the sides of buildings, etc., that say ‘This area contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, or birth defects or other reproductive harm.’

(And then you look around and wonder what and where the risk lies. Or you just go, ‘Eh. Another of those signs.’)

You might not think PCRM is going to win this one, since last week California Supervising Deputy Atty. Gen. Edward Weil argued -- as PCRM and Burger King tried to hash out a settlement -- that “provision of the warning would not be in the public interest” because the levels of the chemical in chicken weren’t high enough to constitute risk and also because “warnings need not be provided where the chemical in question is created by a process [cooking] that actually has the net effect of making the food safer to eat, i.e., killing bacteria.”

In other words, it’s actually quite a good idea to cook meat rather than eat it raw. (That is -- if you eat meat at all.)

Yet in an e-mail, PCRM says Burger King has settled and begun placing signs in its restaurants -- but Burger King hasn’t returned our calls yet so we don’t know if it’s true. (Have you seen any?)

UPDATE: Burger King e-mailed a statement:

‘A private plaintiff sued a large number of restaurants in California that serve grilled chicken, claiming that California law requires warnings because of the presence of PhIP, a natural by-product of cooking chicken. Although the California Attorney General concluded that this PhIP in grilled chicken poses no significant risk and would not require a warning, the plaintiff proceeded with the lawsuit. Rather than expend resources on litigation, Burger King Corp. settled the lawsuit in July of 2008, by including information on PhIP in its nutritional posters.’

‘Health-conscious Americans have long steered away from fried chicken, but they have no idea that grilled chicken may be as bad or worse,’ says PCRM President Neal Barnard in a news release. Meanwhile, David Martosko, director of research for the Center for Consumer Freedom, a restaurant trade group, had this to say in a statement: ‘The animal rights movement will stop at nothing to scare Americans into adopting a PETA-approved diet.’ And in an e-mail: ‘A cancer warning on chicken? That’s practically the Holy Grail for the animal rights movement.’

It’s exciting, isn’t it? Stay tuned!

-- Rosie Mestel