Top 10 Surprising Facts About Fast Food

Entertaining and educational top 10 lists from TopTenzNet! Brand new videos 7 days a week! Videos are published at 6pm EST every day!

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Many of us eat fast food on a regular basis for reasons of sheer convenience. Sometimes we simply don’t have the time for much else, we’re already out, and it’s easy. Considering we deal with these food companies every day, and the ubiquity of information on the internet, we tend to think we already know most everything about them. However, there are still many facts out there about your favorite fast food joints that will surprise, amuse, and possibly even horrify you.

Coming up:

10. Wendy’s Chili Is Made With Old Meat
9. McDonald’s Is Testing A One Minute Drive Thru System
8. Arby’s Turns Ridiculous Advertisement Into A Real Sandwich
7. Chipotle Prefers Inexperienced Employees
6. Dave Thomas Got His Start Helping Colonel Sanders
5. Colonel Sanders Hated What KFC Became
4. Chick-fil-A’s Religious Values Go Well Beyond Closing on Sunday
3. Many Fast Food Soda Machines Contain Fecal Bacteria
2. Subway Lost A Class Action Lawsuit Involving Their 11 Inch “Footlongs”
1. Cinnabon Bakes Empty Trays In Order To Attract People To The Smell

Source/Further reading:

[mischellyann]

Making chili with unused hamburgers is actually cost effective and not different than using leftovers at home. All restaurants do stuff like this. I do stuff like this at my house. Roasted chicken gets made into chicken salad the next day. Not gross, wise use of money.

[zachary]

Long time chef here. I've worked everything, starting with fast food and eventually moving up to high end fine dining.
What Wendy's does is absolutely the best and most cost efficient way to utilize unsold product and limit waste. I assure you that it is fully within health code, and absolutely safe. I know this because I've had to take a ton of health and safety classes through the years.
This is a VERY common practice in high end restaurants as well. In fact, soups are often lovingly referred to as the garbage disposals of the restaurant world. It's a lot of products final chance to be delicious and useful.

[MrGamerman]

Now hold up. The Wendy's chili thing isn't that bad. I worked there, and all they do is take the leftover hamburgers at the end of the day, chop it up and use it for chili. After working at KFC and seeing them throw away enough food at the end of the night to feed at least 60 people, I kind of have respect for Wendy's for re using their beef.

[IT]

I love Wendy's chili and knowing that it's old meat doesn't stop me from eating it. I'm glad they're reusing it instead of wasting it. It's not like it's gone bad yet.

[lancecdcw]

Wendy's sells so much chili that the leftover burgers are never more than a day old. I used to work for Wendy's and it is one of the fast food chains I respect.

[davidshanholtz]

Wendy's should be commended for reducing waste by using leftover burgers for their chili not criticized!

[philipschmitz]

Having worked for Wendy's I have to say you did not tell the whole story behind the chili meat. The meat used for chili is boiled down for 10 minutes and than the fat/water mixture is drained off. The remaining meat is than chopped up and put in the chili. If you ask a professional chef about this procedure they will tell you that it is very good and will aid in getting ride of the excess fat. The boiling of the chili meat also reconstitutes the meat as well because you no longer have the meat looking, tasting or smelling like it was cooked to long.

[shanidar]

"old meat" = There wasn't an order for a hamburger when the meat completed 3 flips on the grill. Because it couldn't be dropped directly on a bun, it goes into the chilli meat pot. This is part of the corporate manual. Yep, I spent a shift reading the manual.

[DanBarry]

Hate to break it to people but many places make chili with older meat, it isn't something that only Wendy's does lol

[travonarmstrong]

11:09
Subway: "It's just a slogan."
Customer: "It's false advertising!"

[RabbitsInBlack]

Wendy's may use old beef but a lot of restaurants use day old food for soup. What the hell did you think soup was made for? Leftovers.

[goldwinger]

Fecal bacterial is everywhere. You can't get away from it. It's in your kitchen, it's in your car. However, soda fountain nozzles get really, really nasty and should be cleaned in a sanitizing solution every night. Lazy restaurant workers and managers who are trying to get the store closed more quickly will often no clean the soda fountains.

[TheyCallMeGawd]

Come on, who dosen't add an extra inch to the reality...

[MrJRoyal]

"The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found."- Calvin.
I remember Wendy's changed their chili like 4 years ago to this beef stew thing. Is the new one using left over burgers? or was it the old chili? The new one is super good like beef stew and chili had a kid.

[johntheiss]

About the Subway footlongs... The bread comes in frozen breadsticks, and has to be proofed before baking. Lack of an inch in the bread can simply come from shorter proofing times, due to volume of business. I want what I pay for, but I believe this is a bit petty.

[roguechevelle]

Number 3- this is why you hire OCD or Germophobes as General Managers. My manager at my first job was and thank god for it because i learned alot and a valuable lesson on thinking about how clean things really are. You ask yourself as an employee would you be comfortable eating here knowing what you know. If you aren't completely 100% yes then its not clean enough for anyone.

[krylissnorwind]

I used to work for KFC in Lincoln, Nebraska and got to talk the the owner of the franchises. Back in his early days of owning the franchises, Col Sanders did come out a few times to check on the restaurants.

[TheDicfer]

I have worked on many of a ice machine repairing them. Trust me they are incredibly nasty. I have dug out hand full of bugs and hair. Even a few mice. they are never washed and left open to catch anything that can fall In them.

[kona]

I work at Arby's and the largest curly fry I found was 2 feet long. I shit u not

[holdendrake]

Chick-fil-A: Are you going to be here for life?

Me: You going to be a company worth working for, for life?