Gross Things Found In McDonald's Orders That Might Haunt You
Only three words cruise through your mind when you see the golden arches of McDonald's looming tall in the distance: "I'm lovin' it." When Ray Kroc founded the first McDonald's in the fifties he likely had no idea it would explode into the iconic fast food brand it is today. McDonald's has been slinging burgers and fries for decades to millions of satisfied customers all over the world. And it doesn't look like the love of that glowing, golden "M" is going to fade anytime soon.
Now, just because McDonald's reigns supreme as one of the world's most popular fast food spots, that doesn't mean every customer has an experience worth writing home about. In fact, there have been plenty of instances where customers were absolutely horrified by their experiences. Every McDonald's commercial you see is filled with smiling faces and delicious cuisine. But buyer beware, not everyone who walks through those doors leaves thinking, "I'm lovin' it." Get your Pepto Bismol ready, because these are the grossest things ever to find their way into a McDonald's order.
Chewed gum
A Vancouver man named Max Ipinza ventured out to McDonald's one afternoon to grab a bite to eat with a few of his co-workers. He was clearly looking forward to stepping away from work for a bit to fill his belly with good food. After receiving the food, he and his buddies returned to their office to eat. When Max bit down into his Big Xtra sandwich, he claims that he immediately knew something was awry when he tasted the flavor of peppermint.
Ipinza explained to CBC News, "Three-quarters of the way through (the burger), I end up tasting something like peppermint, like gum, and immediately I knew something was wrong, because this is not what a typical McDonald's burger tasted like. And so I decided to regurgitate everything back into the box and examined it, and it looked like gum to me. Immediately I felt very sick."
Concerned he may have contracted hepatitis, Max rushed himself to the nearest hospital for testing. He believed that one of the employees who handled the group's food intentionally put the gum inside his burger as a prank. Whether it was a prank or an accident, the end result was horrendous.
Maggots
When 18-year-old Birmingham, England resident Georgia Poole ventured out to her local McDonald's for a quick bite to eat, she ordered a cheeseburger from the Saver Menu to save a little bit of cash. The veterinary nurse's assistant took her food to go, but while she was driving home, she heard an odd buzzing sound coming out of the bag. Curious, she opened the bag to find a fly whizz out past her. Upon further inspection of the actual cheeseburger, she alleges that the fly left a litter of wriggling maggots underneath the burger's pickle!
In Poole's Facebook video covered by The New York Post she exclaims, "Went to open my double cheeseburger to hear buzzing and to my surprise I open the wrapper and a fly flies out and found loads of fly eggs, I feel absolutely sick! If I hadn't heard the fly I would (have) ate them! Completely put me off! I am trying to get my head around the fact of how McDonald's have managed to wrap up an alive fly. I'm just utterly disgusted by this, it has left me in total shock."
Dead mouse
When pest control has to pay a visit to any restaurant, things aren't exactly going swimmingly. But, food attracts all kinds of critters, and sometimes they do find their way into places they have no business being, just ask a Canadian native named Roy Morais. Roy was on his way to work one morning and quickly stopped off at McDonald's to grab a cup of coffee for an early morning pick-me-up. But, when he got down to his last sip, he says he removed the lid of the coffee and gasped in horror at what he saw resting on the bottom of the almost-empty cup.
Morais spoke to CBC News claiming, "I always take the lid off to get my last sip of coffee. And when I took the lid off, there was a little bit of a surprise in my coffee cup. It was a dead mouse."
To make matters worse (if that's even possible at this point) he said the mouse also left behind "a few little, shall we say, presents" at the bottom of the cup. That's enough to give anyone nightmares.
Human tooth
When Danielle Bailey and her friends took a trip to McDonald's in Waterlooville, England, there was no reason to assume something horrific was about to happen. Danielle ordered a quarter-pounder meal with fries and a drink. But as she was making her way through the food, she claims to have noticed something glistening in one of the fries. Upon inspection of the shimmering mystery object, she completely lost her appetite. There was what appeared to be a piece of a human tooth nestled into the fry!
Bailey explained to The News, "I opened it and at first I thought it was a stone but then I realized it looked like the inside of the crown of a tooth. I thought it was disgusting and the manager did not seem to care and did not offer me a refund or a replacement meal at the time."
How exactly did McDonald's decide to make amends? "I then received vouchers but I had been given no evidence that there was an investigation and for me, I don't think they have taken it seriously enough. This could be a health and safety risk in their factory and this could be in someone else's food as well. I just wanted people to know what could be in their food."
Cockroach
McDonald's hash browns are pretty bomb. The golden fried and flaky potatoes are the perfect accompaniment to breakfast. Unless you ask a Reddit user who goes by LinkBoyJT. After munching down nearly all of a hash brown from his local McDonald's, he glanced at the remaining bit in horror. He alleges that some kind of a deep-fried insect was lodged into the bottom half of his food! At first, he wasn't sure whether it was a cockroach or a moth, so he ventured to the Internet when he got home for some advice.
According to HuffPost, the post he wrote – along with a disturbing photo of the food – read, "I was eating a hash brown from McDonald's on the way home when I felt something on the bottom ... I took the thing and showed it to the manager and she marked my receipt so I could get the same meal for free the next time I come in for breakfast. She didn't really seem all that concerned."
He also asked if anyone could determine if it was a cockroach or a moth, and Redditors jumped on board with his assumption that it was, in fact, a cockroach. One explained, "the wings are membranous and not hooked together." It's nice to get clarification, but it unlikely helped him sleep easier that night.
Wire brush
All 18-year-old Brett Stephens wanted was to enjoy a delicious McDonald's Chicken Legend sandwich alongside his mother, Janet, at the local spot in Kidderminster, England. However, what he experienced was the exact opposite of what anyone would consider delicious. Upon biting into the chicken sandwich, Brett's jaw clamped down around a five-inch wire brush that was lodged into the crispy patty of chicken. When his mother confronted the McDonald's manager about the situation, she claims that they simply laughed and offered a new burger.
Janet Stephens told The Daily Mail, "It was beyond belief. He bit into the burger and just shouted. I looked at it and started to pull it out and it kept coming – it was right through the piece of chicken. I have a three-year-old grandson too, I would hate to think what could've happened if the burger had been for him and not my son. I called the store immediately but all they said to me was to bring the burger back and they would replace it for another one."
It wasn't exactly the kind of carefree mentality anyone ever wants to experience when it comes to food safety. The incident was reported to the local food safety team for investigation. Though it's likely the Stephens family will go elsewhere for their burgers from now on.
Needle
A woman who lived in Lexington-Fayette County in Kentucky visited a McDonald's with her husband and grandson. The group allegedly received far more than they bargained for after ordering a hamburger. After the first bite the woman took, she realized there was a small plastic cap bouncing around the inside of her mouth. She immediately pulled it out only to feel a prick on her finger. She stared in absolute horror at a needle tip that had somehow made its way into her lunch. The woman told The Consumerist, "I'm not a paranoid person by any means, but I think this is a big public health issue. My little boy is only five and that's alarming that could have been in his hamburger."
She immediately took herself to the local health department where she was administered a hepatitis B vaccine just in case. She was also pumped full of antibiotics on the off chance the needle was contaminated. She was lucky it wasn't her grandson who received the tainted food, but still, an abysmal situation all around.
Chicken head
McDonald's serves a whole lot of chicken every day. From the nuggets to the crispy chicken sandwiches, the spot offers a menu of popular poultry choices. And, every customer who orders one expects a juicy cut of crunchy protein. However, that's exactly what a woman named Katherine Ortega says she didn't get after ordering a box of wings for her children. As she was pulling the chicken wings out onto the diner table, she claims she grabbed ahold of an entire deep-fried chicken head with the beak, eyes, and comb all still intact!
"I noticed that it had a beak and it had eyes. I screamed," Katherine said in an interview reported by ABC News. She immediately phoned the restaurant and explained her situation. The manager told her they'd give her a fresh batch of wings if she returned her current order. However, her entire appetite had flown far out the window. She said, "There's no way I wanted another chicken box. I will probably cook at home from now on."
Dead rat
Christine Haley, the wife of Dallas Cowboys' coordinator Todd Haley, visited a McDonald's franchisee in Southlake, Texas. She was with the family's nanny, Kathryn Kelley and the two women ordered one salad to split between them. But when they started eating it, they say that they uncovered something beyond atrocious. There was the corpse of a rat buried underneath the lettuce!
Immediately, the women phoned the restaurant, and the manager actually traveled to the home to inspect the salad themselves. The women apparently declined to allow the manager to leave with the salad and the rat. Both ladies have claimed that the incident caused an incredible amount of mental and physical pain, and it completely changed the way they viewed takeout food. They filed suit against the company with the hopes that the situation wouldn't happen again. Regardless, the image of the dead rat is one that will likely haunt these women for a long time.
Condom
The McDonald's Happy Meal was invented for one reason: to make every child who orders one extremely happy. Not only do they get a stomach full of tasty food, but they leave with a brand-spankin' new toy to add to their collection. But, happiness is the opposite of the emotion one seven-year-old girl felt after ordering a Happy Meal at a McDonald's in Fribourg, Switzerland. What she, along with her mother, felt was absolute disgust at what they claim was dangling among the french fries.
There, buried among the golden, crispy fries was a condom! Yea, try ever eating out at a restaurant again after having something like that happen. The Swiss police immediately launched an investigation as to how the condom ended up in the meal and if it posed a health risk to the young girl. Condoms are used to practice safe intimacy, but now that girl and her mother are going to practice safe eating for the rest of their lives.
Nose ring
Everyone wants their mornings to run smoothly. Kicking off the wee hours of the day with positive experiences lays the groundwork for the rest of the hours to come. Unfortunately, a mother named Frances Rosario from Lawrenceville, Georgia, had one of the worst mornings ever when she visited her local McDonald's to order a breakfast burrito for her four-year-old daughter, Nevaeh. As the daughter began eating the burrito, Frances noticed something shiny poking through the ingredients, so she looked a bit closer until she realized what her daughter was just seconds away from consuming.
She alleges that a nose ring somehow dislodged from someone's nostril and found its way buried into the breakfast burrito. Frances told Fox 8, "I turned it and I see this piece of jewelry sticking out... I'm like what the heck is this? That's just unsanitary. That's not something you would serve your customers."
No, it certainly isn't. Not only is it immensely unsanitary, but it's an enormous choking hazard, especially for a young child. Frances also claimed that when she returned to McDonald's to bring it to the employees' attention she was treated with disrespect. Needless to say, Frances can cross that McDonald's off of her favorites list for quite a while.
Dental fillings
An unidentified Japanese woman visited a McDonald's at one of Osaka's locations, where she ordered a hamburger. Since McDonald's literally serves up tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of them every year, you'd expect nothing less than a great sandwich. However, as she began eating it, she claims that she bit down on several crunchy objects nestled inside the meat. "I took a bite and there was a crunch," she explained in a televised interview reported by NDTV Food.
What exactly was that unsettling crunch? It was a few fragments of dental fillings! The woman also said that at first, she believed the substance to be sand or possibly a fragment of a stone. But the truth was much, much worse. "I can't help thinking that it was (already) in the meat," she said. When a third party performed an official examination, it was confirmed that yes, the pieces were dental material.
Nail
When 47-year-old Yusuf Bercil ventured to a McDonald's just outside Gothenburg, Sweden, he ordered a burger. He sat down to eat it, and one bite in, he says that something stuck him in the gums. At first, he wasn't really sure what happened, so he went in for another bite. That's when he realized there was something stuck inside his mouth. That thing, he claimed, was a two-centimeter-long metal nail!
In an interview reported by The Local, Yusuf said, "The pain was indescribable. It was stuck between my teeth and gums. I managed to get it out but then I threw up. What if one of my children had got the burger instead?"
As horrified as Yusuf was that he chewed on a nail, he was clearly relieved it happened to him and not a young kid who may not have reacted quickly enough to spit out the food. "We are going to make homemade burgers from now on," Yusuf added. That sounds like a wise plan.