Chef Jamie Oliver praises McDonald's in England

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is a well-known crusader for healthier eating. So it may have come as a surprise to hear him give a shout-out on ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour on Aug. 29, 2010, to the fast-food giant McDonald's -- or at least the restaurants in his homeland, England.

Oliver, AKA the Naked Chef, is perhaps best known to American audiences for his Emmy-winning reality program Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution on ABC, in which he tried to transform the eating habits of the residents of Huntington, W.Va., statistically one of the unhealthiest cities in the country.

On ABC's This Week, Oliver said the food revolution is about giving people the tools to make good, nutritious choices.

But host Christiane Amanpour asked Oliver to respond to a comment David Letterman made to him when he appeared on the Late Show: "Try as hard as you might, you're never going to succeed, because we are living in a culture dominated by the commerce of selling food which is inherently unhealthy," Letterman said.

Said Oliver: "In the one way, he's right. You know, the structure of commerce and food in America is so intertwined in broadcast, print media, advertising, TV. I think that the problem we have to have -- and it's an interesting one. I'll throw it back at you. Like fast food I've hated for many years. And the last two years, I like stopped. And I actually now start to see (fast food chains) ironically as part of the solution.

"Now, I'll give you -- I'll give you one brand, like McDonald's. McDonald's, in England, has had its best three years ever, profitability. It only sells organic milk, free range eggs. You know, it's got an incredible standard of beef. And their ethics is really ... moving. But that's nothing like the one in the States. And the only distinguishing part is the public and what they expect."

Part of the allure of McDonald's is its uniformity, that a Big Mac in New York will be the same as one in London. And so we wondered if Oliver was right that McDonald's restaurants in England really "only sell organic milk" and "free range eggs," and that, by implication, they are dramatically different and more healthy than McDonald's restaurants in the United States.

We made queries with McDonald's officials in the U.S. and Britain, and neither responded, but we were able to piece together the pertinent facts from company web pages and documents.

Let's break this into two parts.

First, do McDonald's restaurants in England "only sell" organic milk?

According to the McDonald's UK website, all of the bottled milk offered for sale in UK McDonald's (most of it sold along with kids' meals) is "semi-skimmed organic." In 2007, McDonald's UK made an even bigger commitment to organic milk, announcing that all the milk served with the teas and coffees it sells in 1,200 outlets in the UK will come from organic British cows. The company said organic farmers who supply McDonald's "don't use (genetically modified) feed or artificial pesticides in fields where their cows graze." Media reports suggested McDonald's alone could account for 5 percent of the UK’s organic milk supplies.

Organic milk is not, however, used in milkshakes in the British stores.

According to the website, "Organic milk is still a relatively small industry in the UK and McDonald's simply can't find a supplier that can meet the high volume demands. The company is in talks with the dairy industry about how it can facilitate more farmers switching to organic but, until the organic food supply chain can guarantee that it can supply the required amount, McFlurries, Sundaes and Milkshakes will continue to be made from non-organic milk from the British Isles."

(In the U.S., McDonald's does not use organic milk.)

Second, do McDonald's restaurants in England only use free-range eggs (meaning, eggs that come from hens that are not in cages and are free to roam outside)?