Reddit’s Fast Food Workers, Current and Former, Tell You What to Avoid at the Drive-Thru

Reddit’s fast food workers have convened on a thread you may want to check out, but at 6,000 posts strong, you may not get all the way through without a trip through McDonald’s for some nuggets and a Coke.

But like the recent Reddit McDonald’s IAmA thread, the conversation might just put you off your favorite fast foods for a day or so. If you’re like me, you’re always tempted to ask servers and counter people if something is good — but also, you may have experienced a worker telling you something is “popular,” instead of “good.” (Which is a nice and understandable dodge, since “good” is subjective.)

But you know what’s never good? Mold in ice. Or liquid chicken nuggets. Or fryer oil that has been recycled until it is “as black as motor oil” as it cycles through fries, chicken and finally, fish.

Reddit’s notoriously tell-all community has contributed en masse to the thread, which isn’t really surprising due to the fact that a great number of us began our careers asking people if they wanted fries with that. (Or, at Roy Rogers, whether you wanted to make your meal a Round Up.)

On fryer oil, one commenter explains:

“When I was a young buck, I worked at Burger King… You had four vats of oil that you cooked fries in. And boy did you cook fries. Tons of them. After about 2 days worth, the oil got too dark for fries. So we switched it over to the ones for chicken. Since it was darker, it was ok. Then that goes on for a week. After a week of massive frying. The oil is black as motor oil. At that point, it’s switched to the Fish Filet vat. That’s the only thing you cook in that vat.”

Not all the concerns were gross as much as just unappetizing. The normally well-regarded Wendy’s came in for a bit of critique, as one user huffed:

“Not really a health concern but most people are surprised when I tell them about Wendy’s Chili. The meat comes from hamburger patties that sat on the grill too long to serve to customers. They take them and put them in a bin and then throw them in the fridge. When the chili is made they take it out, nuke it boil it, chop it up, and dump them in the chili. It’s all safe, but a lot of people were seemed upset when I told them about it.”

Yet another commenter reminded Redditors to take the fast food grossness in stride, as it tends to tar all locations with a single brush:

“These threads are never very useful. It always goes, ‘Ten years ago I worked at this one fast food joint with a criminally negligent manager, therefore you should never eat at any of the 20,000 other locations that might have perfectly competent employees.'”

You can read all of Reddit’s fast food secrets over on the relevant thread.