McDonald’s has fired Minnesota based Sparboe Farms, which provided all eggs for sandwiches in stores west of the Mississippi River that come with muffins (the biscuits, bagels, and McGriddles use an egg product that pours from a box, the muffins use real eggs).

McDonald’s announced the change after Mercy for Animals produced a report ABC News that showed widespread abuse of chickens at Sparboe Farms facilities. The video shows

• Hens stuffed in dirty cages with only enough living space that would cover a normal piece of printer paper
• Workers burning off the beaks of chicks and throwing them into cages
• Workers grabbing hens by their throats and ramming them into battery cages
• Dead and decomposed birds left in cages with other hens still laying eggs
• Chicks trapped and mangled in cage wire with others suffering from open wounds and torn beaks
• Live chicks thrown into plastic bags to be suffocated

In addition to animal cruelty Sparboe Farms was also caught with serious violations related to salmonella after five visits from FDA officials, however McDonald’s insists that the facilities with salmonella outbreaks are not ones that provided eggs to the fast food giant, and that the McDonald’s cooking procedures would have killed any salmonella in the event it came from a different facility.

Chicken farms are frequent targets of animal rights groups and the Mercy for Animals organization seems to be pitching this story as “McDonald’s Cruelty.” The problem is that it seems like as soon as McDonald’s became aware of the problem they acted swiftly and cut all ties with Sparboe Farms. Additionally other major coporations such as Target were also customers of Sparboe Farms that ceased all agreements after seeing this video. It’s unrealistic to ask McDonald’s to police every aspect of every suppier they work with, however when Mercy for Animals did the undercover work to expose these abuses it seems the major coporations took this very seriously and acted appropriately.

Sparboe Farms responded to the video and FDA reports by saying “I was deeply saddened to see the story because this isn’t who Sparboe Farms is. Acts depicted in the footage are totally unacceptable and completely at odds with our values as egg farmers. In fact, they are in direct violation of our animal care code of conduct, which all of our employees read, sign and follow each day.”

Oktoberfest is kicking into full gear this weekend, which means it is that time of year to enjoy great beer, music, and food while celebrating a longstanding German tradition. Here is a list of some places to go in the major metropolitan areas over the next couple of weeks to rock out in your dirndls and lederhosen, ladies and gentlemen!

Boston, MA: Harpoon Brewery, 306 Northern Ave. at Boston’s Waterfront. It looks like they will be having a nice festival filled with beer, music, and German food! For more info on how to get there and tickets, call 888-HAR-POON ext 3.

New York City, NY:  Zum Schneider Restaurant & Biergarten, 107 Ave C @ East 7th Street. These guys will have live music and plenty of authentic German beer to go around. Don’t forget to wear your lederhosen! For more info, call (212) 598-1098.

Washington, D.C.: Biergarten Haus, 1355 H St NE. Begins September 17th. They’ll feature 11 Oktoberfest drafts in additional to their normal 12 house drafts, live polka music and authentic German food to boot! Call (202) 388-4085 for more info.

Miami, FL: Fritz and Franz Bierhaus, 60 Merrick Way. Happy hour is between 5 - 7pm. Call (305) 774-1883 for entertainment schedule.

New Orleans, LA: Deutsches Haus, in River Town. If you come wearing lederhosen/dirndls on Sunday, admission will be free! They also have some children’s events scheduled as well. (504) 522-8014 for more info.

Pittsburgh, PA: Hofbräuhaus Pittsburgh, 2705 South Water Street. 3rd annual Oktoberfest with no charge for admission no matter your age! (412) 224-2328 for more info.

Philadelphia, PA: Brauhaus Schmitz, 718 S. Street. South Street is going to be shut off for celebrations, which will include a pig roast, beer tasting, live music, and authentic German cuisine. They also have a ton of events planned for during the week, so call them at (267)909-8814 for all the details.

Columbus, OH: Schmidt’s Sausage Haus & Restaurant, 240 E. Kossuth St. Although they no longer host the Oktoberfest celebrations in German Village, they’ve still got live music, authentic food, and lots of beer waiting for those who want to celebrate the event without having to attend the main festival. Contact them at 614.444.6808 to see what’s on the menu for the festivities!

Chicago, IL: The Berghoff, 219 S. Dearborn St. Not only is admission free, but these guys are going to attempt to break the record for the Midwest’s longest brat by unveiling a 45 foot bratwurst! Call 312-427-3170 for all the details.

Austin, TX: The Ginger Man, 301 Lavaca St in the Warehouse District. Good food, good music, good beer. Call (512) 473-8801 for a list of specials.

Seattle, WA: Munchen Haus, 709 Front Street. These guys are pet friendly, known for their apple cider kraut, and are sponsoring the Leavenworth Oktoberfest Marathon for cancer research this year! Call 509.548.1158 for info on live entertainment and specials!

Portland, OR: Der Rheinlander, 5035 NE Sandy Blvd. They’ll have beer on tap straight from Munich, Germany, and a portion of your $5 dollar cover charge goes towards benefiting the Northwest Down Syndrome Association. (503) 288-5503 for details.

Los Angeles, CA: Berlin Currywurst, 3827 W Sunset Boulevard. If you want something authentic and different from the typical Oktoberfest cuisine, check out this small shop over in Silver Lake. The food is a much-loved street food back in Germany, and don’t be surprised when they serve it to you with a wooden utensil! Call them for specials at (323) 663-1989.

Well there you have it folks. While I would love to be able to go through every city in the country, I hope that most of you will have access to one of these metro areas so you can enjoy the festivities with your family and friends this weekend. And don’t forget to say, “Ein Bier, bitte”… One Beer Please!!!

Chipotle fans, REJOICE! Maybe it is because I am currently living in a Podunk town in central Florida where the closest Chipotle is approximately 42.9 miles away, but I am very excited about the spin-off Asian inspired ShopHouse Kitchen that will be taking off in the next couple of weeks in Washington, DC. While I know my shanty town of Sebring, FL is a far stretch from Washington, the thought of what the food will taste like is sending my salivary glands into overdrive! Here’s the lowdown.In November of last year, Chipotle’s Steve Ells revealed his plans to launch a “fast-casual restaurant with the same Chipotle values and quality translated into an Asian menu”. The time has arrived where Ells’ promise has come full circle. Although ShopHouse employees are still in training, the eatery opened up for lunch last week to enthusiastic reviews. One patron published the photo in this article to her Instagram account, and by the looks of it, I imagine it is just as mouth-watering and delicious as its burrito counterpart.For those of you in the Washington, D.C. area who are planning on checking out the ShopHouse in Dupont Circle, beware of what many are anticipating to be very long lines. And after you’re done, take some pictures and let us know about the experience =) Click on our link below to take our poll!Are you excited about the opening of ShopHouse?

Martin Kessman, a stock broker from New York, is suing White Castle for what he claims is a violation of the American with Disabilities Act. Kessman is a 290-pound loyal patron of the restaurant chain who has been unable to “sit down like a normal person” for the last two years at his local Nanuet White Castle location. According to an interview with Kessman in the New York Post, “As I looked around the restaurant, I saw that there were no tables and chairs that could accommodate a person that merely wanted to sit down and eat his meal”. Kessman’s written requests for chairs and booths that could accommodate individuals carrying more weight than most were met with “condescending” replies filled with coupons for free cheeseburgers. Kessman is now suing the restaurant chain for unspecified damages and bigger chairs.

A few questions arise out of a news article like this. If the treatment was so bad, that according to Kessman, he has had to send his wife into the restaurant to purchase food for him, then why continue to shop there and give them his hard earned cash? Also, could one not assume that an individual who meets his dietary needs with food from White Castle on a regular basis is more prone to weight gain and obesity than someone who doesn’t? Why not cut White Castle out of his life completely and be healthier for it? Instead, Kessman is determined to make White Castle provide bigger booths to accommodate him and those like who so they continue on with their unhealthy eating patterns and obesity issues.

I also have another question. Is obesity really considered a disability? The American with Disabilities Act is mostly vague about what is and what is not a disability. There have been a significant amount of cases that have landed themselves in court with individuals claiming that someone has violated the ADA by discriminating against them for being obese. Cornell University and the Congressional Research Service published its findings in 2007 to support the claim that obesity is in fact a disability covered under the ADA. According to this publication, some 127 million adults are estimated to be overweight in this country. But is it a disability? Title I of the ADA defines a disability as a mental or physical impairment that prevents an individual from performing one or more “major life activities.” I’m not sure if not being able to sit in a booth at a White Castle is grounds for not being able to perform a major life activity. What I would hope is that it would be incentive for someone to start making better choices to become healthier.

Regardless, the Surgeon General warns that obesity is the fastest growing epidemic in our country and is the cause of one out of every eight deaths in America. The last thing anyone that is overweight or obese should be doing is suing a restaurant chain for a better dining experience at their establishment.

What do you think? Is obesity considered a disability? Should White Castle provide larger booths for their overweight patrons?

The owner of a Philadelphia Pizza shop (Nina Bella Pizzeria), Nickolas Galiatsatos, decided to have a different kind of food fight today with 2 of his local competitors. 

Nickolas had simple but devious plan for his two competitors in Upper Darby, whom he accused of sabotaging his restaurant with mice.  His plan was to return the favor by dropping off two paper bags full of the pesky rodents in each of his competitors stores.

Unfortunately for him one of the Co-Owners for Verona Pizza, Fanis Facas, recognized him as the owner of Nina Bella Pizzeria and thought that his behavior was strange.  After checking the bathroom that Galiatsatos had just vacated he found a bag hidden up in the ceiling of the bathroom.

NFL legend Don Shula is taking on another restaurant venture.

Shula is best known as  the head coach of the Miami Dolphins.  A team which he lead to two Super Bowl victories and can claim fame to the only perfect NFL season in 1972 when the Miami Dolphins never lost a game.

Don Shula also founded Shula’s Steak Houses LLP, based in Fort Lauderdale, FL., which has 32 full service restaurants in 16 states.

Shula Burger is expected to open it’s first franchise in early June in Islamadora, FL and expects to have more than 100 restaurants open within the next five years.

Shula Burger President, Bill Herman, says that althought the fast-casuall burger segment has grown increasingly crowded that the Shula Burger brand will be more “upscale” than most. “We’re not a startup. We’re a successful restaurant company.  We have a name, the Shula name and we know beef.  When the economy crashed, full-service dining took it on the chin,” he said. “This move diversifies our company and puts us in fast-casual for the first time, rather than only being in more upscale fine dining.”

Here is a photo of the new Shula Burger Menu.

It seems Taco Bell is not going down without a fight. The fast food giant says the recent allegations that it was mislabeling “taco meat filling” as “beef” are bologna, and is using this opportunity to try to improve the perception of quality with customers.

The company took out the ad below in many major newspapers, and more can be found on its website

In a lawsuit filed Thursday, the Beasley Allen law firm is suing Taco Bell for $5 million for false advertising because Taco Bell has the audacity to call its meat “beef.”

The firm claims that Taco Bell’s “seasoned ground beef” or “seasoned beef” is actually mostly random bits of pieces of other things and not actually beef. So what horrible bits are claimed to be in the meat? Chicken beaks and pig snouts? No, it’s the less disgusting “isolated oat product” that is used to increase the volume of the small amount of real beef that’s actually in there.

Who will actually win though? According to the FDA Sec. 319.15:

Chopped beef, ground beef. “Chopped Beef” or “Ground Beef” shall consist of chopped fresh and/or frozen beef with or without seasoning and without the addition of beef fat as such, shall not contain more than 30 percent fat, and shall not contain added water, phosphates, binders, or extenders.

So if Taco Bell is using more than 30% extra items to “beef” up (pardon the pun), then it seems it is in violation of the FDA’s regulations. Additionally meat with 40% extras must be called “taco meat filling.” It seems like Taco Bell actually is well aware of that, and labels the meat boxes that it sends the individual stores correctly, but then jazzes up the language for advertising.

In the end this is really just a way for the lawyers to get rich. Frequently these class action lawsuits end up with the company settling and everyone who was actually harmed getting 52 cents while the lawyer gets a third (or more) of the total settlement (a third of $5 million in this case). Most people that eat at Taco Bell probably already know their beef isn’t top sirloin or filet mignon, but whatever Taco Bell settles for, rest assured they will increase prices to make up the difference.

If any lawyers are reading this I’d like to sue Taco Bell for stiffing me on hot sauce packets, please contact me and I’ll tell you a horrible tale of trying to make one tiny packet of hot sauce last for an entire Grill Stuffed Burrito.

Menu labeling is old news these days.  By now everyone should be aware of what it is and should have had the opportunity to see it in action at a restaurant chain.  The idea behind forcing restaurants to post all of their nutritional information about the food that they were selling was that consumers would eat healthier and more consciously if they were aware of what they were eating.

Some researchers believed that if people saw that there were 1,411 calories in a Big Mac meal at McDonalds that they would opt for other low calorie meals or other restaurants that offer lower calorie meals.  Like they didn’t already know that the food was completely unhealthy, albeit completely delicious.

Well, its been a little over two years since mandatory menu labeling has hit several metropolitan areas and data is starting to appear about how it is affecting consumer purchasing. 

Researchers from Duke University and the public health deptartment have conducted a study about consumer food purchasing behavior at Taco Time located in Washington state.  After 13 months of research, the food purchasing behavior at Taco Time locations affected by menu labeling laws are identical to that of Taco Time locations that have not been affected by menu labeling laws and have not included any nutritional information.

This study, which has already been published online at the American Journal for Preventitive Medicine, found that the total number of sales and the average amount of calories per transaction were completely identical.  In essence - you can legislate restaurants to go out of their way to be socially responsible, but that legislation will have no affect on what many people consider an obesity epidemic in America.

Thanks to the new health bill enacted by congress last year menu labeling will be going national soon.  The FDA was mandated to come up with specific regulations by March of this year.  After those regulations are approved - restaurants will be forced to comply with them for what research appears to show has no bearing on how people will choose to eat anyways.

First of all, Merry Christmas to everyone!  So how will you be celebrating Christmas this year?  Many of us will be traveling to all parts of the country to spend today with our friends or family.  Some of us will celebrating alone.  Some of us won’t be celebrating at all.  Whatever you’re doing, the holiday season is a great time to go out and try something new.Many of us get stuck in a pattern of eating the same kind of holiday food every year.  Many people will be serving, ordering and eating baked hams, turkeys, pies, cakes, etc..  But this year why not try something new.Most of us have seen A Christmas Story and for those of us in Cleveland we can actually go and pay homage to the places where the movie was filmed.  In that film the Bumpus hounds end up breaking in and destroying the holiday feast - forcing the family to go out to eat.  Choices were slim back in those days and they were forced to eat Chinese food, but now many restaurants stay open for christmas so you can take your pick of all sorts of different cuisine styles.Besides eating Chinese food for the holidays why not try some Indian Cuisine to mix things up.  If you’ve never had Indian food before, you may surprised how much you’ll enjoy it.  One word to the wise.  Most Indian restaurants will serve “smaller” portions than you may be used to.  If you have a hearty appetite try looking for dishes that offer combinations of meats or vegetables.  Those are typically bigger than the others and should have no trouble filling you up.  Make sure that you order a side of naan (Indian flat bread) with your meal.  It is delicious and it rounds out the meal.And lastly, if Chinese food or Indian food don’t appeal to you try some Middle Eastern Cuisine.  Middle Eastern food has a lot of great options whether you enjoy meat or if you are a vegetarian.  I would suggest starting off with whatever kind of hummus platter they offer.  Its a great appetizer that you can share and it will leave enough room in your belly for your entree.  In terms of what to order as the main part of your meal… I love just about all of it so its hard to narrow it down to what you should definitely try if you’ve never had Middle Eastern food before.  But, chicken shawarma is a safe choice for most people so maybe start there and venture out to the rest of the menu when you come back the next time.So merry Chistmas everybody.  Hope that you all have wonderfull day with the people you love.