McDonald's employees might have the whole menu at their disposal when it comes time
for them to order their own meals, but what do they skip?
These are the items that McDonald's employees won't touch, so maybe you shouldn't either.
Chicken nuggets might not be the mystery meat they used to be, but according to alleged
former McDonald's employees on Reddit, many still give nuggets a miss, despite them being
a serious customer favorite.
"I've eaten them every day for 15 years!"
"And you called 911 because they're out of chicken nuggets?"
At least, employees make sure they're not grabbing some off the stack of food that's
ready and waiting to be served.
Pre-made batches of nuggets are kept warm by a dual-purpose timer that's supposed to
encourage employees to toss nuggets that have been sitting out too long.
But multiple employees say that while they used the timer, they would rarely throw the
nuggets out and make fresh ones.
Instead, they'd just reset the timer.
Some claim the nuggets tasted just fine even after sitting through several turns of the
timer, while others describe the old nuggets as questionable at best.
So specifically ask for fresh nuggets, or opt for something else.
One McDonald's employee went into extreme detail on Reddit to explain why they refuse
to drink any beverage that comes out of the McCafe machine.
They claim it's incredibly difficult to clean completely, and that in their experience,
it's one of the machines that gets routinely neglected.
They describe the insides as being caked with inches of gunk, and claim they've seen it
at multiple locations.
Like all of these tales of terror, it's an instance where it really depends on the location,
as several other employees have chimed in to claim their store cleans their McCafe machine
on a nightly basis.
But if you don't know for sure how diligent your local employees are, it's probably not
worth taking the risk.
A number of alleged former employees say to avoid the Filet-O-Fish, or at least ask for
one that's made fresh, as ready ones have probably been sitting in a heating cabinet
for hours.
Other employees claim it's also one of those sandwiches that's just impossible to make
neatly.
The combination of tartar sauce, cheese, and slightly greasy fish means that when you get
it, it's going to be a sloppy mess.
"The filet-o-fish is an evil cancer square created to destroy America."
While some locations likely make fish fresh, it may be limited to the ones with particularly
diligent managers who go the extra mile.
In 2017, social media had a meltdown when a McDonald's employee from Louisiana posted
pictures of a tray he pulled out of the ice cream machine at his location.
According to an employee identified as "Nick," the drip trays were pretty much never cleaned,
and typically filled with a moldy, rotten goo.
"I couldn't believe my eyes I was like I've never seen something this disgusting."
McDonald's issued a formal response, saying that food never came in contact with the tray,
which was actually designed to catch the machine's lubrication grease, but was still supposed
to be cleaned on a regular basis.
Nick was fired not long after his post, but he's not alone in his warning.
Other employees on Reddit thought they pinpointed the real problem: other employees who didn't
care enough about any part of their job, including the complicated process of cleaning an ice
cream machine.
This might break the hearts of a ton of McRib fans, but multiple employees say that this
cultishly adored sandwich is actually one to avoid.
One former employee claimed that they saw it before it was sauced and said:
"It doesn't look like meat at all, it looks like a scab."
Other employees claimed that in spite of the McRib's devoted following, not a lot of people
actually ordered it.
That meant the already funky-looking patty would spend all day in the sauce, making it
even funkier.
It turns out that bun might be hiding a lot, and if employees won't eat what they see,
maybe you should give it a miss, too.
This one's a little different.
In 2013, McDonald's warned employees against eating too much fast food on its own employee
website, saying, in part:
"While convenient and economical for a busy lifestyle, fast foods are typically high in
calories, fat, saturated fat, sugar, and salt and may put people at risk for becoming overweight."
Along with the warning was a photo of a hamburger and fries.
Other parts of the post warned cheeseburgers were generally an "unhealthy choice."
Even stranger, the fries and soda featured in the post were McDonald's red, though they
were missing the logo.
And that's the most bizarre bit of advice of all: McDonald's recommending that its own
employees not eat much of their own food, because it's inherently unhealthy.