McDonald’s fries left a bad taste in the mouths of some customers yesterday who heard about lawsuits filed following a disclosure about the fast food giant’s popular side order.

Three lawsuits have been filed in recent days after McDonald’s said wheat and dairy products are used to flavor its fries. Since then, some diners have been left feeling that the company did not adequately protect people with celiac disease, who suffer a litany of health problems triggered by wheat products.

“If I’m hungry, I’m coming to Mc-Donald’s,” Tony Alexander, 49, said as he and his two daughters ate two orders of fries with their meal at a McDonald’s on Broadway in TriBeCa. “But if I’m going to eat something that can cause me damage, I really have a right to know.”

Neither Mr. Alexander, of Brooklyn, nor his two teenage daughters are among the as many as 3 million Americans who suffer from celiac disease.

At least two people, one in Illinois and one in Florida, are suing McDonald’s after they allegedly became ill as a result of eating the fries, the Associated Press reported. Both were reported to have celiac disease. A third, from California, who doesn’t eat products from animals, is also suing, saying she would not have eaten the fries had she known they contain a dairy product.

McDonald’s denies that its french fries have endangered those with wheat allergies.

In an e-mailed statement from Mc-Donald’s, a senior vice president for the company, Jack Daly, states that testing shows that the company’s fries are “gluten free and allergen free.” Gluten is a protein in wheat.

“Based on this analysis, we believe the lawsuits filed are without legal merit,” Mr. Daly states.

Nonetheless, the company’s online menu flags french fries as a food item that contains wheat ingredients.

McDonald’s did not answer repeated calls for comment yesterday afternoon.

A professor at the University of Nebraska, Steven Taylor, who recently tested McDonald’s fries for allergens at the company’s request and is named in Mr. Daly’s statement, said the fries were safe even for those with celiac disease.

“They started with a wheat-based material many steps back from McDonald’s french fries,” Mr. Taylor said. “There isn’t any left at the end, nothing detectable.”

Mr. Taylor said of those currently suing McDonald’s over their fries: “It is my conviction this is not the source of their medical problems.”

At least two organizations for people with celiac disease have indicated they are not convinced McDonald’s is guilty of anything greater than a public relations blunder.

“I think what happened is that McDonald’s, in their desire to put out information, did not realize the backlash and now are getting burned for it,” the executive director of the Gluten Intolerance Group of North America, Cynthia Kupper, said.

The company’s disclosure that wheat products are used to flavor its fries came less than two months after a federal law began requiring packaged foods to list each of eight major allergens that they contain. Wheat is one of the allergens that is required to be listed by the law.

McDonald’s is generally a popular company among those with celiac disease, Ms. Kupper said. She praised the company for its policy of dedicating a fryer to making french fries exclusively, which helps prevent contamination with gluten.

“I think it’s fair to say that we’ve been safe all along,” the director of the American Celiac Disease Alliance, Andrea Levario, said by telephone from Arizona.

The plaintiffs and lawyers in the three lawsuits recently filed against McDonald’s could not be contacted for comment yesterday.

McDonald’s has paid out huge settlements in recent years in lawsuits over its frying oil. In 2002, the company settled a lawsuit for $10 million with vegetarians upset that the company had not traded beef-flavored oil for pure vegetable oil as it had promised to do. Last year, McDonald’s paid $8.5 million to settle another suit about the contents of its frying oil.

That past history of big payoffs led some to wish they were in a position to join the new spate of lawsuits.

Mark Boocoo, 25, said the order of fries he just finished at the TriBeCa restaurant left him feeling fine. “But I hope I develop an allergic reaction,” he said. “I might win some money.”