6 Gross Things You Never Wanted To Know About Fast Food Restaurants

Peruse a few online forums for fast food restaurant workers, and you’ll quickly learn some shocking truths about the industry. Make no mistake: the goal of all fast food restaurants is to cut costs while increasing profits. But all that cheap food comes at a serious cost to the general public. If you’ve been known to hit up a fast food joint in a moment of weakness, here are six gross but true facts that may make you reconsider.

1. Microwaved “Food”

According to the commercials, everything served at restaurants is made fresh, but unfortunately that’s not always the case. Check out this picture from Reddit, posted by a diner who was served a side of vegetables, fresh from the microwave and still wrapped in their individual plastic wrap.

2. Additional (and Unecessary) Ingredients

One fast food worker from a well-known pizza chain told Reader’s Digest that they add additional sugar to kid’s meals so that the kids will like them more. They even added additional sugar to the dough used for children’s pizza.

3. Reuse Uneaten Food

That bread basket may not have been filled fresh for you. “I think it’s an almost universally acknowledged fact of restaurant dining that bread and butter tends to circulate, shall we say, from table to table. If it doesn’t get eaten, it goes back the kitchen and then it comes back out again, and it goes to another table.” Debra Ginsberg, author of Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress told ABC News.

4. Vermin and Other Toxins

There are numerous accounts of gross things found in fast food restaurants, from fried mice in a bucket of fried chicken to chewing gum in a taco to a condom in a burger.

5. Food Safety Hazards

Steak, chicken, pork and milk stored in outdoor storage sheds? Sysco, one of the largest food distributors in the country, was recently challenged for its storing methods, prompting a statewide investigation by California Department of Public Health. If the restaurants serving your food don’t know how it was stored, how can you?

6. Spoiled Meats

While reducing food waste by dealing with misleading food expiration labels is one thing, serving way-expired foods in a fast food restaurant is quite another. Especially when it comes to ingredients like chicken, which if not stored correctly, can be a breeding ground for salmonella.

What’s the grossest thing you’ve ever seen or heard at a fast food restaurant? Share your experience in a comment!

Related on Organic Authority:

Is There Such a Thing as Healthy Fast Food?

Which Fast Food Menu Items DON’T Contain GMOs?

No One Wants A Fast Food Salad

Image: Marshall Astor

Tags: