KFC Mystery Meat Photos

An interesting photo has been added to our (Fast Food News') Flickr group, Frightening Fast Food.

According to Flickr member, jtolber, it is a photo of 'something' in a thigh piece he purchased at a KFC in Marshfield, Missouri...



jtolber writes:

"The store manager tried to tell me that it was nothing and was quick to grab it from my hands and throw it away. Offered me a free piece to replace it ... yeah, right ... last time I'll ever step foot in KFC ever again. Even tried to contact their corporate office to file a complaint and never get a response."

Frankly, I can look at it any longer to try and figure out what it might be because I'm starting to feel sick, but you go ahead and try. He has many more photos of whatever it is in his photo set on Flickr.

Any ideas?

Anatomy of the McNugget [Humor]

Matty Boy Anderson created the humorous and disgusting illustration: "Anatomy of a Chicken McNugget." It is posted on his Mike the Pod website, which he describes as "The Most Awesome Site Your Human Eyes May Ever Behold: 10 Years of Ill Humor."

Anderson says, "People tell me that this is hands-down the sickest thing I've ever done.  So take that as a warning if you need to.  The ironic secret:  I still occasionally eat them.  Haw!"

Anderson's illustrations and descriptions of what a McNugget really is, appear on the Mike the Pod website, here.  There are 3 'varieties' in his illustration, I've included one of them below with his introduction.  Enjoy!

Anatomy of a Chicken McNugget

For many years, it was believed that the "McNugget" served at McDonalds restaurants was a batter-fried piece of formal chicken.  Now, Mike the Pod has learned the ugly truth.  In its search for a less-expensive more plentiful food source, McDonalds has employed genetic engineers to create the macnugeta repulsiva, a diminutive creature that lives in tanks of protein-enriched slime lit only by black light, until its brood grows large enough for it to be thrown live into frying batter (usually when their offspring reaches the healthy number of six, nine or twenty).  Herewith, our disturbing findings.

Adult Female:  The female has a thicker coating of secreted mucous and is therefore more difficult to catch.  She uses her flourescent tongue to make chirping noises, much like a dolphin, to attrack the male.

McDonald's Meat Factory Tour

I guess McDonald's finds this video reassuring.  It might be to some... especially those with a taste for mechanically processed meat 'product'.  To some the video might show a little more than people want to know.  There is certainly nothing unusual here... most of our food today comes from processing factories like these, but it is interesting that McDonald's wants to show it off.

I first saw the video after reading about it at Gizmodo.  They were horrified and disgusted.  They were shocked that McDonald's needs to put their meat patties through a metal detector for safety.  I guess they'd be surprised to learn that that happens at most food processing facilities and it is just simply a good idea to ensure safety.

McDonald's has titled the video, on their web site, "At Lopez Foods, only 100% beef makes the grade."

I guess the title bothered me a little before I even watched the video:  I was hoping that "100% beef" was the expected standard, not something that has to be promoted.  They mention that the beef is "100% beef" in the video, too.  But most of the folks interviewed in the video refer to the meat as "product."  So, they're processing the "product" they receive into hamburger patties.  Okay.  Maybe you should call it meat in the video.

All in all, it is standard McDonald's health and safety propaganda, I'm just a little surprised that they would chose to make some of these video images public.  Some people certainly will find it gross.

A shot from the video:

McDonald's Serves Cleaning Solution Tea

from the Maryland Daily Record:

Late one evening last September, Caryl Jones ordered an iced tea at the drive-through of the McDonald’s near her Northwest Baltimore home. But that’s not what she got, according to her lawsuit in Baltimore City Circuit Court.

What Jones got was another sort of “T”: Triazinetrione — Dichloro-s-Triazinetrione Dihydrate, to be exact — better known as “McD Sanitizer,” a cleaning chemical intended for use on kitchen equipment and surfaces.

Deep Cleaning the Grill at McDonald's

The LiveJournal Community McDonald's Talk is often an interesting insight into the fast food lives of McDonald's employees around the world.

Recently I paid a visit and read about cleaning the inside of a grill at a McDonald's in Huntsville, Alabama.

McDonald's Talk contributor superfly915 took some before and after photos of his work and wrote:

"Over the last few days, I have cleaned the inside of the grill. I doubt that this has ever been done before at my store (and if it has, it's been a really long time)."

Here's a 'before and after' cleaning comparison:

It certainly looks like a big job and it looks like Superfly put his heart into it and did a great job.

I've lightened and tried to sharpen some more of the photos Superfly took (below) to show you just how bad this grill got before he got in there and scooped and scrubbed out all that grease.

Kudos to Superfly for getting this done, but maybe his manager might want to consider getting this done sooner next time, before it gets so gross.

Silly me, but I thought McDonald's did a thorough cleaning every night after closing that would keep something from getting this bad.

And here's a final look at Superfly's finished product... a clean McDonald's grill!

McDonald's Hamburger from 1996

I've always wanted to do this, but never got around to it. Morgan Spurlock did it in Super Size Me, but for only about a year as I recall.

But Karen Hanrahan has kept a McDonald's hamburger since 1996.

Yup, she's had this burger for 12 years!

And it still looks ready to eat. That's frightening!

McDonald's (and presumably other fast food joints) use a lot of preservatives to keep their food fresh-looking (note that I say 'fresh-looking,' not 'fresh') during it's production, transportation, and storage. This keeps their food looking fresh a lot longer than is natural. (See the end of this post for the current ingredients in a McDonald's Hamburger bun.)

Trust me, if you grilled a burger and put it on a bun and put it in a container for a month, you'd have to scrape the mold off just to see it.

As Karen says, "Ladies, Gentleman, and children alike - this is a chemical food. There is absolutely no nutrition here."

Karen is a wellness consultant and uses the 12 year old burger as a prop in her talks. See all the photos and read Karen's description on her blog, "Best of Mother Earth ~ Creating Healthier Lives".

UPDATE: Regarding the hamburger wrapper in the photo that is clearly a more current wrapper with the "I'm lovin' it" slogan, Karen explains this in her post: "The paper and bag in the backround is circa 2008 - to add decor to the photo. My friend Robyn's idea."

---------
McDonald's Hamburger Bun ingredients (as of 2008):
Enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, high fructose corn syrup, yeast, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, soybean oil, canola oil, contains 2% or less of each of the following: salt, wheat gluten, calcium sulfate, soy flour, ammonium sulfate, calcium carbonate, calcium phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, ammonium chloride, baking soda, sorbic acid, deactivated dry yeast, dough conditioners (may contain one or more the following: distilled monoglycerides, DATEM, sodium stearoyl lactylate, calcium peroxide, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, mono- and diglycerides, enzymes, guar gum), calcium propionate & sodium propionate (preservatives), soy lecithin.
Note: Calcium and Sodium Propionate are 'mold inhibitors,' hence the fresh looking 12 year old bun!

The Hot Beef Sundae

Flickr member Matthew Stoller captured the sign below on the side of a food truck (aka Roach Coach or mobile fast food) in Nebraska.

The sign is selling a specialty of the truck: The Hot Beef Sundae.

The Hot Beef Sundae is described (in another photo of Matthew's) as:

"Golden mashed potatoes covered with a generous portion of our roasted and seasoned to perfection top round beef. Then aged cheddar cheese, more golden mashed potatoes smothered with our special beef gravy, more aged cheddar cheese, a slice of buttered toast and a cherry tomato on top. A delightfully satisfying meal that you will crave time after time, year after year."

Reminiscent of a KFC Famous Bowl?

I sure don't have (and wouldn't want to see) the nutrition facts for this baby!

The cherry tomato on top is a nice touch though!

via And I Am Not Lying blog (where you can also see photos of signs for Pizza on a Stick!)

UPDATE: Failing to find a Hot Beef Sundae to buy, The Davis', on their Off The Strip blog, have come up with their own Hot Beef Sundae recipe.

UPDATE2: BoingBoing: "Hot beef sundaes: an unstoppable trend" has another fair photo.

Quick cattle and pig facts...

I was just reading an e-mail from Cattle Network News called "Quick Facts To Impress Your Friends At The Coffee Shop."

In it was this fact: 'Inventory' of Cattle and Calves in the US = 104,300,000"

The current US population (of humans) is about 301 million.

That's 1 cow for every 3 of us.

Does your family of 3 have a cow in the backyard?

No.

Most of those cattle are on feed lots waiting to be eaten.

By the way, the us Hog and Pig population in the US is 67,661,000. That's 4.5 people for each pig/hog.

Here's a photo of a Hog Factory Farm in North Carolina after a flood. Tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of pigs/hogs died in the flood. River-soaked bacon just doesn't cut it:

images courtesy of FactoryFarm.org

Burger King employee takes bath in sink

Timothy Tackett celebrated his birthday by taking a bath in his employer's kitchen sink last week.

His employer: Burger King.

Another employee took a video (see below) of Timothy (aka Mr. Unstable) in the stainless steel kitchen sink. The manager is in the video, too. She's told of Timothy's bath, but is too busy counting cash to go see for herself.

The video, of course, was posted on MySpace and soon Timmy and his co-workers were out of a job. But not before the whole town knew and started savoring their next Bathwater Whopper!

Burger King has issued a statement on the incident: "We have sanitized the sink and have disposed of all other kitchen tools and utensils that were used during the incident. We have also taken appropriate corrective action on the employees that were involved in this video. Additionally, the remaining staff at this restaurant is being retrained in health and sanitation procedures.”

Here's some local news coverage of the fun! WSB-TV

Flickr Group: Frightening Fast Food

I've come across some pretty frightening photos of fast food on Flickr, so awhile back I started a Flickr group called "Frightening Fast Food." Here's a slideshow of what's been collected there so far:

Click on any photo for more info.

And, please, if you have any frightening photos of fast food, add them to the Flickr Group.

McDonald's towel-water milkshakes

WFTV-TV in Orlando, Florida, is reporting an interesting story about milkshakes at an Orlando-area McDonald's.

According to their report and photos, the McDonald's milkshake machine was seen being filled with 'milk' from a bucket clearly labelled "Soiled Towels Only." (see photo below)

The customer who snapped the photo of the incident reported it to McDonald's corporate headquarters and received the following e-mail:

"The machine was cleaned that morning. They sanitized the bucket to capture milk and after the repair work was done they put the milk back in the machine. This was an isolated incident."

The restaurant was sited for 12 different sanitary violations in August and now state inspectors want to see these photos.

Anyone for a "Towelshake?"

Raw McChicken at McDonald's

Susie Felber has e-mailed Fast Food News to tell of her 'raw chicken experience' at McDonald's.

Two Sundays ago Susie dined at a McDonald's in Windsor, Connecticut while driving to New Hampshire. It was her first time to eat at McDonald's in 15 years. She was not pleased. The Chicken Sandwich that she (finally) received was raw inside. The rest of her story, in her own words is below this photo of the sandwich:

"At McDonalds my husband ordered 2 coffees and two grilled chicken sandwiches -- what we considered to be the healthy option.

Much time passed. Ten minutes later neither the coffee nor the sandwiches were ready. The store was not busy at all, there was never a line. But people who ordered burgers and fries were being served. However, when we arrived, a guy was fighting with the employees because he had paid for his breakfast item, but apparently they were all out of breakfast food.

My husband noticed people shuffling back on forth from store to behind the counter, some of whom were not in uniform. He got the impression that they possibly didn't work there and were just hanging out with their friends. Not sure, but it was odd.

My husband asked where our food was. They said it was coming. Then he asked if the coffees were ready. They were. Apparently they had been put by the drive thru window.

After about 20 minutes the sandwiches arrived. I was hungry and in a rush with a squirmy baby, but surprisingly I didn't eat it immediately, as I noticed there was heaps of mayo spilling off of it, so I opened the sandwich to rake as much as possible off.

I ate two bites. It wasn't good, but as it was road food, I didn't expect it to be great. It was hard to eat as the mayo kept making the chicken slip out of the mushy bread. I noticed the cheese hadn't melted, but that didn't bother me. On about my third or fourth bite, I noticed something was very wrong. I spit it out and yelled, "Oh my god, it's raw!"

Long story short, the McDonalds workers didn't apologise. They gave back our money in a resigned way that suggested this wasn't uncommon. The manager looked dully at me and her only answer was, "yeah...um...I don't know how that happened." But this was only after demanding an explanation as they seemed like my husband and I were making a stink over nothing even after showing them the raw sandwich.

It was a degrading experience, all the way around.

I was sick for a few days, but don't know how much was physical and how much was from the idea of it. I don't think I'll be eating chicken for a long time to come. And I'll never eat at McDonalds again."

Here's a larger version of the raw chicken at Susie's Flickr site. You can also read about it on her blog, Felber's Frolics.