People love fast food. There’s nothing quite like getting a greasy, salty, meal in two minutes at the drive-thru. But there’s a dark side of things. A more, unhealthy side of things. This is the truth about many fast food restaurants. Behind the mask of affordable and healthy choices, is a web of salt, preservatives, and unsanitary working conditions. But, which is the worst?
McDonalds, according to the internet, is awful. There are stories of gross and unsanitary food preparation and fecal contamination in the ice! But are these true? Everyone knows about the rumors of McDonalds chicken nuggets being pink slime, and all, but that is not the reality. They are actually grinded up with seasoning, and then carefully reshaped, then shipped. Not as gross as one might think. However, the rage about the poop ice is real. According to the BBC, there was coliform bacteria in 3 samples out of 10. More on this later for Burger King. McDonalds also has a shocking number of ingredients, including in their fries, which would seem vegetarian. However, they actually have “beef flavoring” containing actual beef, which seems like a big no-no.
Compared to McDonalds, most other fast food restaurants seem pretty good. However, this may be because they just don’t get investigated as much. The restaurant with the worst stories beside McDonalds is probably Burger King. Remember how I said that there was coliform bacteria in 3 out of 10 samples for McDonalds? Well, the same study found out that 7 out of 10 samples from Burger King contained fecal contamination. There have also been multiple instances of rats in Burger King kitchens, which is pretty gross since the company didn’t do anything about it.
Information about the grossness is not as abundant as that for McDonalds or Burger King, but there are still some pretty bad things about Wendys. The first one is their practice of reusing food. While not putting food to waste sounds like a good concept, throwing away whatever wasn’t eaten might be the best choice here, at least compared to the alternative. Many foods, such as their famous fries, are days old, and are just heated up and dried again so they look new. Another gross thing is the chili. Everyone has heard the story of the finger in the Wendys chili, but that was just an elaborate scheme to try to make some money. The real problem with the chili is the beef. Many of it is just the old hamburger patties that weren’t used, and after they are stored in the freezer for days, they are soaked in water to try to get them to seem fresh again. So, when you want something that is not days old and maybe growing something, don’t get Wendys. Another claim about the meat is even worse. When burger patties are made, they are cooked with the cheese already on top of them. This means that when the patties aren’t used the cheese is just scraped off. So if you’re lactose intolerant, then you might be in trouble.
So, as you can see, sometimes fast food isn’t all that it seems to be. Next time you order some, think back to this article and see if you check yourself before heading into the drive-thru.
Sources: Mashed Magazine
Images: Canva AI image generator
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