McDonald’s going organic – at least on television

The greenest greens. The plumpest tomatoes. The crispest apples. Oh yeah, don’t forget the 576-calorie BigMac.

Take one look at the latest advertising campaign to come out from under the Golden Arches, and it’s obvious the world’s largest fast-food franchise has gone McOrganic. The ad at first looks like it’s promoting the produce section of a grocery store, not the company often accused of pumping children with fatty foods.

While it’s true that McDonald’s does carry some healthy choices such as fruit parfaits and dinner salads, the company is still the nation’s biggest buyer of beef and pork.

Of course McDonald’s needs a lot of meat to pack into its more than 20 different sandwiches, but how organic can a $1 McDouble really be?

On McDonald’s Web site, the company promotes its 100-percent beef burgers supplied by the Lopez Foods company.

In an effort to show customers about the company’s meat, browsers can take a video tour of Lopez Foods’ plant. Only one problem: The meat in the video comes into the factory in large boxes and is then mashed and sliced into millions of patties with actually cows and pigs no where to be seen.

The video shows no information about how the animals are grown, what they’re fed or how many hormones and antibiotics end up in the final product.

According to the National Resources Defense Council, factory farmed animals lead to numerous environmental and public health concerns.

In a three-year span, 200 manure spills resulted in the death of 13 million fish, the NRDC reports. Nutrients in animal waste from factory farms cause algae blooms, which take up the ocean’s oxygen, resulting in large oceanic dead zones.

McDonald’s isn’t the only company responsible for destructive agriculture practices, but with 14,000 stores in the U.S. alone, they are a major contributor.

The public deserves to know exactly where McMeat is coming from, and how its production tampers with the environment.