not. Of course, no one eats fast food for their  health, but even staff won't get near these items.

Do you subscribe to the popular assumption that  the grilled chicken on the McDonald's menu is a  

reasonable choice? Well, it appears that at least  one of McDonald's employees would beg to differ.

That employee revealed in a Reddit thread in 2013:

"A lot of people choose to be healthy  and order our grilled chicken instead.  

Not a lot of people realize that they're eating at  

a fast food joint and we WILL find  a way to make anything unhealthy."

The employee couldn't help but notice that  

a lot of liquid margarine was used in  preparing McDonald's grilled chicken.

"To keep it from sticking to the grill, we  use three squirts of liquid margarine on  

the bottom of it. To keep it juicy, once  we've lain the frozen blocks of chicken,  

three more squirts of liquid  margarine are applied to the tops."

And margarine contains about the  same amount of total fat as butter,  

according to Providence  Nutrition Services. And so,  

this seemingly healthier sandwich  may actually be pretty bad for you.

Fast food restaurants have rules aimed at  making sure the food you're served is sanitary,  

of course. However, how those rules are followed  may vary by location. Moreover, there may always  

be an employee who simply ignores the rules. Based  on statements made by a former Burger King fry  

cook in a Reddit forum from 2013, it appears  that Burger King is not immune to this issue.

Specifically, the Redditor pointed out that  he frequently observed one of his coworkers  

spilling french fries on the  floor only to then pick them up  

and put them back in the cooker  with, quote, "dirt and all."

He also witnessed that same worker dropping  two chicken patties onto the floor,  

stepping on them, and then serving them anyway.  It was something the fry cook could never unsee,  

and is the reason he won't  eat at Burger King anymore.

Whether or not you subscribe to the five-second  rule, the fact is that food dropped on the floor  

will come back up with bacteria adhering to  it, according to a Clemson University study.

"Five second rule!" "Five, four, three,  

two, one." "Got it!"

Whataburger gravy may not  be fresh when it's served,  

according to one Redditor employed at Whataburger.  In a 2013 Reddit forum, the employee revealed:

"I currently work at Whataburger and  I would never order the chicken gravy.  

It has an expiration of eight hours,  but unless it gets used up before then,  

we will leave it sitting there until it does,  which can be well over the eight hours."

Apparently, the expired gravy goes from its  normal creamy and white appearance to a, quote,  

"gross brown color" with a  "super thick" consistency.  

While “Consumer Reports” has pointed  out that "sell by" notations do not  

rise to the level of "do not consume after"  warnings, it can be difficult to tell when a  

food is expired, or whether it's become  contaminated with food-borne bacteria.

Subway's "eat fresh" motto may be  more aspirational than factual. Now,  

you may be perfectly comfortable with the  freshness of whatever it is you typically  

order from Subway. However, if that happens  to be the meatball sub, you might reconsider  

after hearing how a Subway employee and Redditor  responded to a 2021 Reddit post, which petitioned  

fast food restaurant workers to name the  one item from their chain they'd never eat.

The employee confessed:

"Meatballs are probably the worst menu item for  me now. Meatballs are heated from frozen in a  

microwave then left to sit in a bath of hot water  to keep warm. Supposed to be thrown out after four  

hours but I would sometimes start a shift and see  the bag I made yesterday still sitting there."

And so, you may have to consider the  

possibility that this practice is  happening at a Subway near you.

Reddit user Kiss My Sassiness revealed something  scary about Steak 'n Shake's food safety practices  

back in 2015 when she responded to a post, which  asked fast food employees a loaded question:

"What should we not order at your restaurant?"

The Redditor revealed that anyone with a peanut  allergy who orders a shake from Steak 'n Shake  

may be taking a serious risk with their health  and their life. She said it plain and simple:

"Steak n' Shake waitress here. Don't order  the milkshakes if you have allergies."

Apparently, each Steak 'n Shake location  has around a dozen metal shake containers  

that they use to make shakes all day long.  Allegedly, the containers are merely rinsed  

with water between uses. That means any peanut  residue from one of the many shakes on the menu  

may or may not be rinsed away by the time you  order your peanut-free shake. While we have not  

yet heard of any allergic reactions occurring  as a result, it's certainly food for thought.

The "roast beef" Arby's slices up to  pile atop a bun is not actually what  

you think of when you think of roast beef,  like a single cut of meat, but rather a:

"Compressed block of beef scraps."

That's what an alleged Arby's employee  and Redditor contributed to a January  

2021 Reddit post regarding the one item fast  food workers would advise against ordering.

The Redditor wrote:

"It comes in a bag filled with beef  broth, and you just warm the entire  

thing in the oven for a few hours. And  once the compressed beef block is heated,  

you put it on the slicer and leave it under  a heat lamp for hours to slowly desiccate."

Even if that doesn't gross you out, you should  know Arby's roast beef falls under the definition  

of ultra-processed food, which, according to a  2020 study published in the Nutrition Journal,  

is linked to dying earlier from all causes.

Many fast food employees have  confessed on social media they know  

better than to consume the ice at their place  of employment. Even with regular cleaning,  

employees reported that fast food  restaurant ice machines are disgusting.  

One employee commented on a  Reddit forum in 2015 and said:  

"[The machines] could very well be teeming  with mold, bacteria, and even broken glass."

But just how serious is the health risk?

Sherri Woodus, retail food section chief for the  Arkansas Department of Health, told SafeIce.org:

"The same risk you can get from food, Salmonella,  

E. coli, any of those pathogens  can also be found on ice."

And while a McDonald's employee and Redditor  defended the cleanliness of the ice at Mickey D's,  

the reality is you really don't know how  

clean the ice machine is at any  particular fast food restaurant.

Out of all the weird rules that  McDonald's employees have to follow,  

not a single one addresses how much sugar they are  compelled to put into the McDonald's sweet tea.  

Nevertheless, one employee and Redditor posted  about it in a Reddit forum from 2013. They said:

"McDonald's sweet tea. Pound.  Of. Sugar. Per Gallon."

If this is true, that's quite a bit more sugar  than McDonald's claims to put in their sweet tea.  

But even if McDonald's doesn't use the  pound-per-gallon formula as alleged,  

the restaurant still uses a lot of sugar in their  sweetened tea. As noted on the McDonald's website,  

a small and large sweet tea are listed as having  21 grams and 38 grams of sugar, respectively.

Although it's okay to indulge in  the occasional high-sugar treat,  

the fact is that too much dietary sugar  can really do a number on your health,  

contributing to a host of conditions  that might otherwise be avoidable,  

including obesity, diabetes, and fatty liver  disease, according to Harvard Men's Health Watch.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,  right? Apparently, however, you won't find  

employees using actual lemons to make Wendy's  lemonade. Yes, despite the fact that Wendy's  

touts their lemonade as "all natural and real"  — and notwithstanding that the ingredients list  

indicates lemon juice is the third ingredient,  after water and sugar — you'd be hard-pressed  

to find a Wendy's employee who has  witnessed lemons being squeezed.

Rather, Sprice 5531 pointed out in a Reddit post:

"The 'fresh' lemonade comes from a  carton and mixed with tap water."

To be fair, as another Redditor  pointed out in response,  

Wendy's does not actually claim  their lemonade is fresh-squeezed.

This, of course, calls into question what the  word "real" means in this context. A reasonable  

person might think it means lemonade that has  been squeezed from lemons on site. However,  

the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's  threshold for "real" is quite low,  

allowing the tiniest bit of fruit concentrate  to count, according to WebMD. The more you know!

If you've been substituting whole eggs  for egg whites in your breakfast sandwich,  

you may be surprised to learn how egg whites  are prepared at McDonald's restaurants.  

According to a Redditor and former McDonald's  employee, the egg white alternative is:

"Just as unhealthy, if not more  so, than the regular round eggs."

The reason? The Redditor revealed regularly  observing the cooks at their McDonald's  

location spraying lots of extra butter on  the grill and inside the round egg rings.

Although this observation was made in 2013  regarding a particular McDonald's location,  

McDonald's does admit to this  practice. The company's website stated:

"At participating McDonald's, we use 100 percent  egg whites in our Egg White Delight McMuffin,  

cooking them on our grill with real butter in  an 'egg ring' for that iconic round shape."

However, it's unknown just how much butter is  being sprayed on or around your egg whites. 

At a restaurant where dishes are made to  order, you may be able to specify no butter.

We know White Castle's sliders are  delicious, but what about healthy?  

Not so much. All fast food is processed to some  extent, but White Castle's sliders may be the most  

processed of all. Molded into uniform rectangles  resembling Lego blocks, they're steam-grilled  

over dehydrated onions and adjacent to the  factory-made buns, in which they'll be served.

Assuming White Castle employees exercise  reasonable care with regard to avoiding  

cross contamination, there's still the unavoidable  fact that highly processed food has been linked to  

premature death from all causes, according to a  2020 study published in the Nutrition Journal.

But that's not why some who have worked  at White Castle make a practice of  

not partaking in their employer's  burgers. According to Redditor Ellesta,  

a White Castle employee who hosted  a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" in 2015,  

the steaming process can result in soggy  sliders, which can cause an upset stomach.

Other Redditors agreed. But whether it's true  or not that soggy sliders can actually cause  

stomach discomfort, the thought alone is  probably enough to make your stomach turn.

"We eat to live. These guys live to eat.  

Let me show you what I'm talking about.  The human mouth is called a pie hole."

One of the reasons that Wendy's chili is so tasty  is the fact that it's made with "fresh" meat — or  

so we've been told. The question, however, is what  exactly does Wendy's mean when they say, "fresh"?

One Wendy's employee and Redditor revealed  the true meaning in a 2021 Reddit comment:

"Wendy's chili meat is made from leftover  meat from burgers that failed to sell."

Another Wendy's employee agreed, saying:

"It gets cut up and thrown into the chili.  Aside from that, we always kept things clean."

Is this cause for alarm from a health standpoint?  That all depends on whether the chili is cooked to  

a high enough temperature to destroy bacteria  that might cause a foodborne illness. The FDA  

advises reheating all cooked, leftover meat to  a minimum temperature of 140 degrees Fahrenheit.  

Once removed from the heat source, it must  be refrigerated or consumed within two hours.

No matter how deliciously crispy,  sweet, and savory it might appear,  

the Beijing Beef at Panda Express should  be avoided. And it's not just us who feel  

that way. In a Reddit forum regarding menu  items fast food workers would never eat,  

one commenter mentioned having worked  at Panda Express and being horrified by  

the calorie counts of some of the dishes,  specifically calling out the Beijing Beef.

According to Panda Express's website,  the Beijing Beef delivers 470 calories  

per 5.6-ounce serving. That may not sound  like a whole lot, but of those 470 calories,  

about half come from fat, and nearly  20 percent of that fat is saturated.

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