McDonald's is a beloved fast food institution with tons of fans, and it's not going anywhere
anytime soon.
Still, that certainly doesn't mean the entire company is perfect.
Take a look at some of the biggest McDonald's secrets ever.
Since some McDonald's employees are working with food while also handling other things
— such as the cash register, money, and their own personal items — one would hope
that they're wearing gloves whenever they're preparing your food.
But one former employee claimed on Reddit that many of the workers didn't "understand
germ theory" and didn't always wear gloves.
The employee said some people would, quote, "wear the same pair until they were told to
change them," which kind of defeats the purpose, and some had holes in the fingertips.
Another Reddit user, who said they had worked as a cashier and manager of McDonald's for
over seven years, explained that employees don't always wear gloves at their location
because they have a "hand-wash system in place."
They explained,
"Every hour, we take the time to send each employee to the sink station to wash their
hands until every employee has.
Using gloves would not be much more sanitary, because the bacteria that would build up on
ungloved hands would also build up on the gloves if they weren't replaced every hour
(or more) too."
Does that really make you feel better?
If you're ordering McDonald's food, note that it may not be very fresh.
On Reddit threads, countless employees have talked about how long McDonald's food sits
under heat lamps before it's given to customers.
One former employee explained that although they were supposed to throw meat away if it
sat for about 20 minutes, sometimes employees would just reset the timers and leave it for
another hour or so before tossing it, saying,
"[It] saved so much time at the cost of some gross food becoming grosser."
Another employee said that while the store was generally very clean, the food was usually
pretty old.
The user said they would leave fries under heat lamps for 15 to 20 minutes instead of
the required seven, and sometimes even re-fry them instead of throwing them out.
They added,
"Specifically you never ever want to have a Filet O' Fish unless you ask for it fresh.
Other food is still 'ok' tasting but the Filet is disgusting."
“Give me back that filet o fish, give me that fish! give me back that filet o fish,
give me that fish!"
Trying to save on calories and eat a little healthier?
Then you probably don't want to order some of the McDonald's salads, even though that
seems like the most obvious option.
According to a report by CBC in 2016, the McDonald's "Keep Calm, Caesar On" chicken
salad, which is available in Canada, actually had more calories, fat, and sodium than a
Double Big Mac.
So, in this case, you could actually eat a Double Big Mac and be better off than with
a kale salad.
The salad is made with baby kale, "real Parmesan petals," and crispy chicken, but according
to CBC, it's the dressing that really makes this meal unhealthy.
The Asiago Caesar dressing that comes with it has 730 calories...
53 grams of fat... and 1,400 milligrams of sodium — all worse that what you'll find
with a Big Mac.
Toronto registered dietitian Shauna Lindzon told CBC,
"Health-wise, I think it's fat and sodium overload."
If you were thinking about ordering ice cream from McDonald's, you might want to give that
a second thought.
Many employees have told Reddit that the ice cream machines are rarely cleaned properly.
One user, who said they were a former employee, explained that the ice cream machine had to
be, quote, "cleaned thoroughly or else the bacteria will grow… rapidly."
However, they said it was a "tedious" job that many employees didn't put much effort
into.
Another user who said they worked at a company that made the ice cream machines fast food
places like McDonald's use, said,
"Regardless of what chain it was, the inner parts of the machines seldom got cleaned,
parts never replaced.
Because of that they would leak ice cream inside and become moldy and rotten."
In fact, in 2017 the Wall Street Journal even published a report about how hard it is to
clean the ice cream machine, suggesting that employees often tell customers the machine
is broken and not working when, in fact, it's just too gross to keep serving.
And it's not just the ice cream machine.
One Reddit crusader said that at the McDonald's where they were employed, the McCafe machine
also never got cleaned properly.
"A couple of times I stuck my hand in the machine to pull out a literal fist-full of
black soot to show to the managers that it's not in proper condition, and nothing has come
of it."
Back around 2010, a photo of pink slime circulated the internet.
Many claimed it was the stuff the Chicken McNuggets at McDonald's were made from, but
McDonald's Canada created a video to put that rumor to rest.
"We don't know what it is, or where it came from, but it has nothing to do with our chicken
McNuggets.”
Instead, they showed exactly how the McNuggets are made.
And… well, it's a lot better than pink slime, but it's still gross: breast meat is removed
from a chicken carcass, put through a grinder and mixed with chicken skin and seasoning
until it turns into a strange chicken putty, then shaped into McNuggets.
...yum?
Speaking of weird ingredients, in 2018, McDonald's announced that they would be debuting a new,
healthier apple pie recipe.
But was it actually healthier?
On the one hand, they eliminated some artificial ingredients, and the new pie technically has
less calories than before.
But the much-ballyhooed switch from high fructose corn syrup to apple juice concentrate actually
added three more grams of sugar, and the pie only dropped down from 248 to 240 calories.
“Whoopedy-doo!"
Oh, you want to hear more about the weird bevy of crazy ingredients Mickey D's uses
to make their fast food concoctions?
Don't worry, we have you covered.
First, there's the controversy surrounding the chain's legendary french fries.
You'd think the ingredients would be limited to, say, potatoes, salt, and the oil for frying.
But no.
In fact, according to The Daily Meal, McDonald's french fries have nearly 20 ingredients, including
some offbeat choices like citric acid, natural beef flavor, wheat, and milk.
In a video from McDonald's Canada on exactly how the fries are made, the company says that
they do indeed begin the cooking process with real potatoes, so that's nice at least.
They then peel and cut the potatoes, before blanching the raw fries to prevent a variation
in color.
After that, they add a dextrose solution and an ingredient to prevent them from graying
— and that's just the start of the process.
They still have to be dried, fried, and then frozen before they're shipped out to your
local branch.
That sounds like a lot of work, but it's nothing compared to the alchemist's brew that goes
into making the McRib.
Yes, the internet's love affair with the limited edition McRib has been widely documented.
"I, chef Sinbad, said Mickey D's could have my secret for smothering tender, boneless
pork in a delicious barbecue sauce forever!
So…
I lied!"
But less well known is that, according to The Week, it has nearly 70 ingredients.
And ribs aren't necessarily among them, as the meat is apparently made of "pig innards
and plenty of salt," while Chicago Magazine reported the meat also includes tripe, heart,
and scalded stomach.
Like the McNuggets, the McRib is ground up and then reshaped into a rib-like formation,
as shown in an official McDonald's video about how the McRib is made.
And employees don't seem very thrilled with it either.
In a Reddit thread, one McDonald's employee said,
"It's literally a preformed slab of processed meat that sits in a trough of BBQ sauce waiting
for someone to order it.
It usually sits in the heat cabinet longer than most of the other products."
“It's delicious."
"Uh… good!"
In 2013, McDonald's caused an uproar when they created a sample budget to help employees
make the most of their wages.
The budget didn't include essentials like child care, groceries, or even gas for someone's
car, and went on the assumption that the employees would have to get a second job, since their
McDonald's job didn't pay enough.
It also only budgeted $20 a month for health insurance, which seems laughable for many.
The budget did the opposite of what McDonald's intended, and basically proved how difficult
it was to live off of their wages.
In April 2015, McDonald's announced plans to raise the minimum wage for United States
corporate-owned stores by at least $1 an hour above the local minimum wage.
Nice, right?
But in 2018, Fortune reported that it appeared to be a one-time deal: as minimum wages have
risen, McDonald's has not increased wages to keep pace.
Plus, most McDonald's restaurants are owned by franchisees who can set their own wage
limits, leading some to call this nothing but a publicity stunt.
In May 2018, Reuters reported that ten different women who work at McDonald's in several major
cities across the U.S. had filed harassment complaints against the company, and they claimed
they were all ignored or "retaliated against."
The employees claimed that co-workers and even supervisors had harassed them by doing
things to them, showing themselves, or propositioning the women.
Reuters also reported that similar harassment accusations against McDonald's had previously
been filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
In response to Mcdonald's non-response, employees went on strike in September, 2018 to protest
the company's handling of the complaints.
And in January, 2019, the American Civil Liberties Union announced it was helping prepare a new
wave of EEOC complaints, stating that when women in the company complained about harassment,
"The women faced retaliation, including cuts in their hours, unwarranted discipline, and
outright termination."
"We have weak laws that fail to protect women, corporate policies that are narrowly drawn,
and a secret settlement that silences women about abuses.”
For years, reports have circulated online that McDonald's food is so chock full of weird
chemicals that it never rots or grows old.
However, it turns out this isn't really true.
Oh, sure, there's plenty of compelling visual evidence that under the proper conditions,
McDonald's food doesn't actually rot.
But it has less to do with crazy chemicals and more to do with one very common chemical:
water.
See, during the cooking process, much of the moisture in a McDonald's burger is lost through
steam, while the bun gets pretty dried out too from being toasted.
Since both are dry to begin with, if you keep them in a place with low humidity, they are
going to dry out completely.
And without moisture, the microbes that cause rot can't develop and flourish in the first
place.
So basically, the burger will dry up before it has a chance to rot.
If for some reason you really want your McDonald's burger collection to rot, all you need to
do is add some moisture and keep it in moist conditions, and it will become just as gross
as you want it to.
Otherwise, it's a comfort to know that McDonald's burgers aren't filled with crazy preservatives,
they're just unbelievably dry.
Now there's a great selling point.
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