The response he/she got was overwhelming and yielded quite a few gems of knowledge, some general guidelines, and some interesting stories (please note that workers at the same chains still had different experiences at different locations and these are anecdotal accounts):
- Cleanliness is a good indicator of food quality.
- So is management. Put it this way: if you like what you're doing (or at least like the people you work with), you'll generally do your job better. A lot of the worse stories in the thread involved poor management.
- Low turnover items. One commenter pointed out: "Any fish item from a fast food joint not specializing in fish. The exception is during Lent sales." It's not a high-turnover item (i.e. they don't sell much so you don't know how long it's been there). When in doubt, you can always ask them to make it fresh if you're willing to wait.
Here's a video of where a fast food patty goes after it's grilled at McDonald's:
- Here's a nice one: "McDonalds sweet tea. Pound. Of. Sugar. Per gallon." The Sister loves this stuff. But really, still less sugar than an equivalent amount of Coca-Cola. Another commenter points out you can cut it with unsweetened tea for even less sugar.
- Don't go before closing. Basically, the quality might suffer and the worker's might hate you for various reasons including: they're are in a rush to get out of there, they still have to clean up and break everything down, like every working stiff, they want to go home, etc.
- Oh if you're a vegetarian and eat at Chipotle, the pinto beans are cooked with bacon. It's not a secret and is stated on their website, but just an FYI.
- Well, I never eat the Chicken Salad Sandwich at Chick-fil-A anyway, but here's what one worker had to say:
"I worked at a Chick Fil A in Southern California for nearly 2 years, and ALMOST everything there is made fresh to order. In general, any of the fried and grilled items are a safe bet in term of the conditions the food is prepared under
But I will say that NOBODY should EVER eat the Chicken Salad Sandwich under any circumstance. The Chicken Salad itself is several day-old frozen chicken patties manually stripped of breading, then chopped up and mixed with celery and mayo and whatnot."
For the grain of salt, one user observed: "My favorite part about these threads is that everyone is appalled by the "unsanitary nature" of these fast food chains. Well ****, don't tell me you don't regularly eat home-cooked leftovers, food off of the floor. Don't tell me you don't sometimes cook for yourself without washing your hands, maybe use some lettuce that looks like it might have mutated, etc. Hell, you brush your teeth with a toothbrush that has come in contact with every meal you've eaten for weeks/months and that you store in the same room that you defecate in."
For more, you can check out the complete thread on Reddit here. The original poster made his own list at the beginning of the thread and you can view it there.
