7 Reasons to Avoid Fast-Food Restaurants
food, work November 28th, 2007Like many high-schoolers my first job was at a fast-food restaurant. I learned a lot about responsibility, working in a fast-paced environment and coping with the public.
I also learned why you should avoid eating there if at all possible. Consider this the next time you pay a visit to your neighborhood quickie-meal joint:
1. Teenagers run the place. The majority of the staff were under 18 years old. Teenagers have zero vested interest in serving quality food to you. They are biding their time until they can punch out and resume the part of their lives they give a damn about.
2. Managers can’t be everywhere. Yes, the good managers will oversee the production line and make sure nothing bad happens to your food. But they are not omnipresent. I once witnessed a co-worker drop a large cut of roast beef on the floor while trying to load it into a slow-cook oven. He picked it up and put it right back in. (I reported him).
3. The sneeze guard over the salad bar is worthless. Understand that salad bar items are subjected to dirty fingers, dirty air, coughing and hacking customers and fluctuating cooling temperatures. Face it. The food sits out all day and God knows what happens to it before you sidle up and help yourself. In addition, if enough of one item is too much to toss for the day, it’ll be put out the very next day to mix with the same environmental pollutants as it did the day before.
4. Cleanliness is not top priority. One day the restaurant’s drainage system backed up and we sloshed around for two hours with plastic bags over our shoes, still serving food, before someone came from the Health Department to shut us down until repairs could take place.
5. Food for you one minute, dog food the next. For about a year, our restaurant entered into an arrangement with the local SPCA. Food that was deemed fit for human consumption was fed to people. After the food was under heat lamps too long, it was dropped in a bucket and picked up to be fed to dogs. We’re not talking quality here. Five minutes ago, it was meant for you.
6. You get what minimum wage pays for. Almost anyone can get hired. The same guy who dropped the roast beef on the floor also cut off part of his fingertip while slicing ham. A week later he was caught smoking pot behind the drive-thru window and finally fired. He worked under the influence a lot of the time. Your best interest was not on his stoned-out mind. We didn’t like to think what else he did that no one caught him doing.
7. Cross contamination is the norm. When things got busy, the same person who just swept garbage off the floor might be asked to perform cashier duties without washing their hands in between. They may rearrange your food on your serving tray, help the food line staff assemble sandwiches, grab cups and utensils, all with their bare hands. What they touched, you touched and you probably put it into your mouth.
Bon appetite! (if you dare)
Stumble it!
February 11th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
i’m only in the 8th grade going to high school next year and i found about 4 or 5 things in my lunch. so far i’ve found an eyelash, a thick hair that was either a nose, chest or chin hair!!! and my twin sis found a fingernail. last week i found a wire in one of my chicken nuggets!!!!!!!!!!!!
February 12th, 2008 at 5:54 am
ana — Wow, you’ve had more than your fair share of foreign objects in your food. If it makes you feel any better, my husband and I found a piece of cardboard, a hair and a piece of plastic in foods all from the same restaurant. We used to like eating there, but the we finally smartened up and stopped. I don’t know what took us so long!
June 5th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
i still dont believe that mcdonalds burgers are 100% beef
August 29th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Nice Site. I am new here but will be visiting more often as you have done a good job
August 30th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
brooke — Oh, my dear, they’re not. Best not to think about it.
Colin Bark — Thanks! Do come back!
September 12th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I live in romania and we have this kind of problems here within our normal restaurants as well(especially the summer ones). People are scared to eat at restaurants that why most of the cooking is homeade here.
September 13th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Paul — You can’t go wrong with homemade, unless you cook with expired ingredients (don’t think that hasn’t happened to me!)
September 15th, 2008 at 6:18 am
I had some bad experience in the past with a local fast food that was in the center of the town. We went there thinking if they could afford high rent they must be offering quality food.
After eating there I was ok but my friend however got very sick, and recently they found MAGGOTS in a fast food place in the local studends Pret-a-manger that was believed to be the smartest choice since only half of it’s employees were students,the rest being specialised personell.
September 16th, 2008 at 6:13 am
Dan — OMG. I think I’m going to lose my breakfast. Just seeing the word ‘maggots’ will do that to me. Cripes. I hope they’re not still in business.
October 6th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
I KNEW they were secretly feeding us dog food!! 😛
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October 6th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
chatblanc — Ruff!
October 7th, 2008 at 6:45 am
Who’s that eating nasty food? Nasty boys!
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October 7th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
muskrat — Its janet… ms. jackson if you’re nasty. God, haven’t heard that song in years. Jam out.
December 24th, 2008 at 10:15 am
On top of all those great reasons, fast food is terribly unhealthy for you to eat on a regular basis.
December 25th, 2008 at 6:51 am
Taylor — Absolutely! Have you ever seen the movie Super Size Me? Check it out. Clear example of the dangers of eating that stuff every day.
January 5th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I guess being a vegetarian is the way to go. Fast food restaurants should be better regulated, then again when your paying minimum wage you can’t be to picky.
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January 6th, 2009 at 6:37 am
Burger King Body Spray — BTW, have you tried that stuff? Does it really smell like burgers and fries? I think most restaurants, fast food or not, pose some risk, as evidenced by some of the comments here. Gotta just pray people wash their hands before they touch your food.
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I do not like the first reason in your article about fast food. How do you know? Do you know every single teenager working in every single fast food resturant? Honestly. That is putting one whole group of individuals in a box. Does “biased” have any meaning to you?
“Teenagers have zero vested interest in serving quality food to you.”
It may be true. In most cases even, but my goodness. Stop grouping people as one entity.
February 23rd, 2009 at 4:01 pm
V.T. — You’re right. My bad.
March 26th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Well, for the record, that was disgusting.
Also… I’m 17, used to work in a certain chain sub shop, and oh my goodness… The stories I could tell you would make you, uhm, toss your biscuits. OK… my MANAGER repeatedly dropped peices of bread on our icky floors and just put them right back in the bread cabinet!!! So disgusting… AND I’ve seen her drop a pan of meat, which, by the way, is NOT fresh- it’s packaged in plastic bags and cardboard boxes and shipped to us, and then put it right back on the bar. Believe me people, avoid going out to eat if at all possible!
March 26th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Michelle — Ugh. None of what you described surprises me, really. It’s the sad truth. Any time you eat out, there’s always some risk. I hate to even ask where you worked, but I think I can guess.
March 31st, 2009 at 12:38 pm
I have worked in several restaurants… Dairy Queen, a 5-star restaurant in my home town, McDonald’s, and Cold Stone Creamery. With that being said, there is no where that is safe from “non-hand washers” or other disgusting habits. It is so incredibly rare to find someone who gives a “you know what” – so rare that I was employee of the month at McD’s the first month I worked there… all these fast food chains were created by people who care, and if utilized properly, the systems are flawless… but like I said, most don’t care… be careful out there! You never know if that fork you’re eating off of just had a dried piece of food scraped off of it with someone’s fingernail – it happens, among other things, and it’s just plain nasty.
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:08 am
LR — Agreed. I’m guessing the non-hand washers are the cause of most problems in restaurants. It’s impractical in a busy restaurant, but I’d love to see workers have to use a disinfectant product on their hands when entering the kitchen after using the restroom, like nursing and other staff have to do in a hospital before working on a patient.
July 7th, 2009 at 7:13 am
It is really the problem of non hand washers in most of restaurants. Fast food eaters include adults to children, college students to working professional, they all eat fast food. To manage the growing demand, many fast food outlets have come up with coupon schemes.
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:39 am
I used to work at McDonalds when i was younger and a lot of the stuff mentioned above happened but not that often. I still frequent these establishments and haven’t got ill from it as the old saying goes what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!
July 23rd, 2009 at 6:48 am
You can eat most anything in moderation and be healthy. The key to your health isn’t what you eat. That’s why diets don’t work. The key to your health is exercise.
July 24th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
That has just put me off fast food for life, time for me to go on a diet methinks
July 26th, 2009 at 5:25 am
Where do you think the meat for Wendy’s Chili comes from? What do you think they do with burgers that aren’t sold?
However, thanks to fast food I now have an immune system that’s made of steel. I never get sick.
July 30th, 2009 at 3:06 am
It’s hard when the only places your kids want to eat is Burger King. Me and my wife have had a lot of success cooking the same type of food at home. Lets face it home cooked burger and chips is much better than fast food and I think even the kids are starting to think so.
August 11th, 2009 at 8:29 am
Hi! My name is David! Whow – I didn’t realize how dirty fast food restaurants can be! From now on I’ll only bring my family once every 6 weeks of so to eat Burger King. Before we were going around once every two weeks. Kids’ health is paramount. Thanks for that, David 🙂
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September 11th, 2009 at 2:44 am
It’s always the best to prepare a meal yourself. That way, you surely know that your food are safe (and if something goes wrong, you know whom to blame)
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September 13th, 2009 at 4:17 am
It’s always the best to cook for yourself (and your family)
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September 19th, 2009 at 1:56 am
Wow, you’re so right – and I used to love junk food – cheers for a healthier lifestyle…
September 24th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
If you want the secret of a healthy life, don’t eat junk food.
Cheers,
Budiclan
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September 25th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
This rings bells for me too.
I worked with someone who had previously been a manager in a fast food joint and this seems to be very typical with what he described to me.
September 26th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
I vote for the fact that the stuff is well, just not good for you!
But I gotta admit, Im a total McDonalds closet junkie. Can’t get enough of the fries….!
Neil
October 7th, 2009 at 4:23 am
Subway is more-or-less the only fast food franchise outlet I will eat at these days (except in an emergency!)
The reason is, as stated above, you can watch your food being prepared. Just to be extra cautious I order Veggie Delite, (no meat products). The vegetables always look fresh and that is pretty well good enough for me.
October 28th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
How can you eat at subway?! Yuck. Their sandwiches have such a high salt content. Go to a proper sandwich shop. Healthier and tastier!
December 4th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
most fast food restaurants are fine as long as you get a competent employee that actually knows what he/she is doing. however in this day and age most restaurants employ anyone and everyone who is meeting the criteria (which is low anyway).
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December 20th, 2009 at 3:15 am
Fastfood is an alternative place to go to treat a family.Depends on what lifestyle you have.If you’re into organic food then fastfood is out in your menu.Just like watching movies,there’s variety to choose from. Just like fastfood,there’s lots of variety of foods to serve.
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January 26th, 2010 at 11:34 am
Quite frankly, they’re just full of simple carbs that get digested super fast, spike up the blood sugar levels, and cause an insulin surge. And people wonder why they feel sloppy after such a meal…
February 10th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
yeah, fast food is pretty disgusting most of the time. Like one commenter above pointed out though… it will boost your immune system =P
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March 2nd, 2010 at 10:05 am
I can eat on subway as long as it serve healthy foods and organic!bannerstoyou
March 8th, 2010 at 11:24 am
I do not know why there are lots of fuzz about fast food, don’t the sanitary or F&B department of the local government check on them regularly to ensure that their cooking process is clean and food are fresh?
May 4th, 2010 at 6:04 am
Junk foods are growing day by day due to attractive advertisements and huge food chains spending millions and millions everyday. This is worst case than selling cigarettes.
May 4th, 2010 at 10:03 am
I must say that this is beyond amusing. Group number one – teenagers never seem to care… and why should they? lol
July 28th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
A big YUCK!!! Can you tell me where you have worked? Lol. This is quite true, not only on the fast food to where you have worked but to most of all. Since the food is not being prepared in front of you, there is no guarantee that its 100% clean and edible. That only proves the saying that there is no place like HOME.
August 22nd, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Working in Fast Food is a right of passage for many teenagers. I remember working in an un named Fried Chicken place, I went through several pairs of shoes being around that much grease and fat.
We try and mix salads in with our fast food – and avoid the fries too.
With the economy in distress we won’t ever lose fast food, it’s just to easy and cost effective.