<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

A few days ago I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal in  
the Advertising section by Brian Steinberg.   In it McDonald was 
described as starting a new advertising approach, one in which for the 
first time, nearly all the US outlets will be using the same 
promotional signs. What was interesting to me was that of the     
13,700 U. S. outlets only 15 % are owned by McDonald,  the other 85 % 
are  controlled by independent owners under franchise agreements. Mr. 
Steinberg notes that "Franchisees do not have to go along with every 
corporate dictate"............ (This may be true of other franchisee 
situations.)

I bring this up because of a negative  experiences we had in some  
Mcdonalds, which it turns out were due to the fact that we were dealing 
with a franchisees  who  were  not following McDonald procedures.

It might be important to find out if the  Chain restaurant that you are 
going  to or, plan to go to;  based on information received from the 
company headquarters, or read on the company's web page is a 
franchisee, or owned by the company.  If a it is franchisee you may 
want to ask if they  are following the company's policies re: gluten 
and contamination etc.

Irma De Bruyn

* Visit the Celiac Web Page at www.enabling.org/ia/celiac/index.html *
Archives are at: Http://Listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?LIST=CELIAC