MemeMachineGo!

There was an uproar among vegetarians and Hindus last year when it was revealed that McDonald's fries, which they prominently advertised as fried in 100% vegetable oil, were laced with beef fat. Hindu protesters tore apart one McDonald's in India. (As nearly as I can tell, McDonald's is maintaining that they really weren't using beef fat in India, and that no one has proven otherwise, but obviously many Indian Hindus didn't believe them.) In the U.S., there was a class-action lawsuit against McDonald's on behalf of Hindus and vegetarians.

And last month, McDonald's settled.

Fast food behemoth McDonald's has agreed to publicly apologise to "Hindus, vegetarians and others" for failing to disclose the use of animal products in foods it identified as vegetarian.

The company will also donate $10 million to concerns supported by these groups as part of a settlement in a class-action lawsuit initiated by Seattle-based Indian-American attorney Harish Bharti.

Starting next month, pending court approval, the fast food giant will insert advertisements in newspapers apologising for its mistake.

"We acknowledge that, upon our switch to vegetable oil in the early 1990s for the purpose of reducing cholesterol, mistakes were made in communicating to the public and customers about the ingredients in our French fries and hash browns. Those mistakes included instances in which French fries and hash browns sold at US restaurants were improperly identified as vegetarian," the ads will say.

So those ads might start appearing about now. Strangely, I see no reference to any of this on the McDonald's website.