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THE 10 GROSSEST THINGS PEOPLE FOUND IN FAST FOOD

You know what they say about fast food, right? They make it fast. And when you rush a job, chances are that things will go wrong. In the ten examples that follow, we’ll tell you about fast food customers who got some very unwelcome special orders added to their meals.

Editor’s Note: We may need to update this list after this news story recently broke – “Canadian Man Finds Dead Mouse in Cup of McDonald’s Coffee

Human Blood in Taco Bell
grossest things found in fast food, blood in taco bell
Once you read this story, you’ll make a run away from the border. Briana Ralston went to a Louisville combination KFC and Taco Bell to pick up an affordable meal for herself and her 1-year-old daughter. They got the food to go, but while they were eating at home Ralston noticed that there were odd red smears all over the taco wrappers and the bag they came in. She called the restaurant where a manager discovered that one of the employees had gashed their finger open and leaked blood all over Ralston’s food. Needless to say, her next two calls were to the Health Department and a lawyer.

Chicken Head in McDonald’s McNuggets
grossest things found in fast food, mcnuggets chicken head
Fast food restaurants don’t typically make anything from scratch-their meals are produced in massive factories that process ingredients as quickly as possible. While they use quality control methods to make sure those chicken nuggets are as uniform as possible, nobody’s perfect. But the screw-up that slipped through all the way to a McDonald’s in 2000 was one step beyond. Katherine Ortega bought a large order of nuggets from a Newport News McDonald’s and took them home to feed her kids, only to shake a deep-fried chicken head out of the box and onto the plate. That’s not white meat, obviously.

Bullets in Costco Hot Dogs
grossest things found in fast food, bullets in costco hot dog
Warehouse store Costco isn’t a fast food chain per se, but they do serve up large amounts of fast food at their snack bars, and this story is too warped to leave out. In 2004, a woman named Olivia Chanes was shopping at the Irvine, Calif., Costco when she started craving a snack. She settled on a hot dog and, after putting her condiments on the Hebrew National frank, started eating. A few bites in, she felt something hard in her teeth and pulled out a live 9mm bullet. She was freaked out, but things got worse when she began having abdominal pains and was taken to the hospital, where doctors discovered that she’d actually swallowed another live round from inside the hot dog!

Syringe in Burger King Breakfast Sandwich
grossest things found in fast food, syringe in burger king breakfast sandwich
When you’re in a hurry to get to work, sometimes a breakfast sandwich at a fast food place is the only option. But don’t eat too fast, or else you might find an unpleasant surprise. In 2001, Angelina Cruz went into a Burger King in Queens for a quick sausage and egg breakfast sandwich. As she chewed, she felt something hard inside her cheek and spit the bite out. Lodged in the half-eaten wad of food was a needle tip from a syringe that had pricked her cheek. She wrapped the foreign object in a napkin, but the damage was done and Cruz told the press that she was terrified of the prospect of catching a disease from the medical waste.

Human Skin in Arby’s Sandwich
grossest things found in fast food, skin in arby's sandwich
Arby’s is one of those fast food franchises that you rarely hear about people eating at, yet they seem to be everywhere. They’re famous for their roast beef, but you might want to stay away from the chicken. In 2005, David Scheiding headed into an Arby’s in Tipp City, Ohio, and got himself a chicken sandwich. After a few bites, he noticed the meat felt unusual, reached inside and pulled out a scrap of bloody human skin with a fingerprint on the end. He confronted the manager, who admitted that he’d cut himself shredding lettuce and didn’t notice that a chunk of his right thumb was in with the mixed greens. Unsurprisingly, Scheiding got himself a lawyer and sued.

Fried Mice in Popeye’s Chicken
grossest things found in fast food, fried mice in popeyes chicken
The kitchen at a fast food restaurant is a paradise for vermin. With so much fatty, salty, starchy food being served (and dropped), scavengers can do very well for themselves if they stay out of sight. But danger also abounds. The Popeye’s Chicken in Baltimore City had been closed down for health violations several times before 2003, but that didn’t stop Tony Hill from going in for a three-piece meal in September. While he ate his chicken, Hill discovered a little something extra-a mouse who had fallen into the fryer and been sizzled to a crisp. Thankfully, he didn’t bite down on the wayward rodent.

Painkillers in Burger King Sandwiches
grossest things found in fast food, painkillers in burger king sandwiches
The case of a Burger King employee named Woody Duclos is one of the weirdest things we’ve ever heard. Duclos got busted in 2010 when a customer felt something strange in her chicken sandwich, spat it out and discovered it was a small blue pill. She took it to a fire station where they identified it as the powerful painkiller hydrocodone. Another man found a pill in a fish sandwich, and the drug-laced food was traced back to Duclos. He was sentenced to five years in prison, but prosecutors couldn’t ever figure out exactly why he wanted to dope up his customers.

Nail in a McDonald’s Burger
grossest things found in fast food, nails in mcdonald's sandwich
Fast food franchising is a global enterprise, and you can get the familiar menu items at McDonalds restaurants all over the world. And that brings with it the same food safety issues, as Swedish man Yushuf Bercil discovered in 2010. Bercil went to a Golden Arches in Gothenburg for a burger, bit down and immediately felt a sharp pain in the roof of his mouth. Not realizing what was happening, he took a second bite and felt even more pain. Reaching into his mouth, Bercil pulled out a ¾-inch nail that had become lodged between his tooth and his gum. He threw up, told the manager and decided to boycott fast food from that point on.

Band-Aid on a Pizza Hut Slice
grossest things found in fast food, band-aid on pizza
The idea of eating a used Band-Aid is one of the most repulsive things we can think of, so our hearts go out to Ken Wieczerza of Ballston Lake, New York. Ken ordered a large supreme pizza from the Clifton Park Pizza Hut but couldn’t finish it, so he put the leftovers in the fridge for later. Feeling peckish the next day, he went in for a cold slice and bit down, only to notice a strange feeling on his teeth. Pulling the slice away, he discovered a bloody blue Band-Aid baked right into the crust. He stowed the disgusting piece of pizza in a plastic bag in the fridge and complained to the company.

Finger in Wendy’s Chili
grossest things found in fast food, wendy's chili finger
Most cases of gross objects in fast food can, as we’ve seen, be traced back to the kitchen. But sometimes it’s the diners themselves, as this tale illustrates. In 2005, a Las Vegas woman named Anna Ayala ordered a cup of chili at Wendy’s, which for some reason still serves chili. Sitting down to eat it, she freaked out the whole restaurant screaming when a spoonful came up with a severed human finger. Nobody in the kitchen was missing one, so it was quite the mystery for police and the health department. Six weeks later, they figured it out: it belonged to a man who lost it in an accident at work and gave the digit to Ayala’s husband. The couple cooked up a scam to sue Wendy’s for bank, but ended up charged with attempted grand larceny.

Sourced from Mandatory.com

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10 People Whose Love For Taco Bell Is Straight Up LOCO

And by “loco” I mean they’ve all got Taco Bell tattoos. Because, the diarrhea from a 7-layer burrito may leave you, but the ink last 4eva!

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And for a little backstory on the DLT tattoo above, because yes, in this instance there’s actually more backstory than “duuude, I was so drunk last night I got a Taco Bell tat!” Taco fan Tyler got the tattoo as part of Taco Bell’s Canadian launch of the Doritos Locos Tacos launch and in exchange won free Doritos Locos Tacos for life. As for the rest of you TB inkheads, Taco Bell would like to talk…

 

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Source: worldwideinterweb

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Fast Food CEOs Make 1,000 Times More Than Their Typical Workers: Report

Taco-Bell-Breakfast-Soda

David Novak, the CEO of YUM! Brands, which owns Taco Bell and KFC, took home more than $22 million last year after exercising stock options, according to proxy statements. The average full-time fast-food worker, by comparison, would have made about $19,000 on the year.

Novak, in other words, raked in more than 1,000 times what a typical lower-rung worker would have over the same period.

The CEO-to-worker pay ratio at YUM! is just one example of the yawning income inequality found throughout the fast food industry, according to a new report from Demos, the progressive think tank, entitled “Fast Food Failure: How the CEO-to Worker Pay Disparity Undermines the Industry and the Overall Economy.”

“It’s true in many industries but fast food is the primary example: The gains from economic growth are being entirely awarded to people at the top of the income scale,” Catherine Ruetschlin, author of the report, told HuffPost. “It’s not a surprising finding that it’s the worst industry within the worst sector, because that’s where we’re seeing the cracks forming.”

According to the report, fast food appears to be the most unequal U.S. industry in terms of executive pay versus worker pay. The widening gap at restaurants like McDonald’s and Domino’s is due to two trends: The pay of fast-food CEO’s has soared right along withexecutive compensation in the wider economy, while worker pay has pretty much stagnated in the industry and hovered not far above minimum wage.

In 2013, the average fast-food CEO earned four times the compensation of his or her counterpart in 2000, the report states. Meanwhile, the earnings for fast-food workers rose just 0.3 percent over the same period, when adjusted for inflation.

Although such disparity is widespread in the service sector, it’s particularly acute in the world of fast food, Ruetschlin wrote. Analyzing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, she found that the CEO-to-worker pay ratio averaged 512-to-1 in the industry over the past 13 years. That’s 54 percent higher than the pay ratio in the overall accommodation and food services sector, which includes hotels and full-service restaurants.

In the analysis, executive pay includes the value of exercised stock options, which can dwarf a CEO’s base pay and swing significantly from year to year. Worker pay in the fast food industry was based on BLS’s data for front-line workers in “limited-service eating places,” a service industry category that generally encompasses fast food. As the report notes, most workers in the industry don’t carry full-time hours, even though the ratios are based on full-time workers; the report may therefore overestimate the pay of a typical worker.

The year of greatest disparity in the industry was 2012, when the ratio stood at more than 1,200-to-1, according to the report. Analyzing recent proxy disclosures, Demos found that the ratio remained about 1,000-to-1 in 2013.

Topping Demos’ list for CEO compensation is Starbucks, which, according to the analysis, averaged annual payouts of more than $36 million, including stock, since 2000. Chipotle, McDonald’s and Domino’s each averaged about $18 million, $11 million and $9 million respectively over the same period.

At companies like McDonald’s, most of the restaurants are actually run by franchisees rather than the corporation. Since BLS data doesn’t discriminate between franchise- or corporate-run locations, the report doesn’t either, Ruetschlin said; it covers “all the workers who wear the uniform.”

The fast food industry has featured prominently in the national debate surrounding the minimum wage. President Obama and congressional Democrats want to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour and tie it to an inflation index so that it rises with the cost of living. They also want to raise the tipped minimum wage for restaurant workers so that it’s 70 percent of the standard minimum wage.

Republicans and various business groups, including the restaurant lobby, have opposed the increase, arguing that it would force employers to cut back on hours.

The Democratic proposal has gotten a major boost from fast food workers who’ve taken part in one-day strikes and protests calling for a minimum wage of $15. Thousands of workers in dozens of U.S. cities have joined the walkouts, which were backed by labor unions and community groups. The high pay of industry CEO’s has been central to the progressive case for a living wage in fast food.

Ruetschlin said the eye-popping CEO-to-worker pay ratios undermine the argument from the industry that restaurateurs are already paying workers what they can afford. She also said the ratios should be a serious concern for shareholders, arguing that gaping pay disparities could lead to low morale and poor customer service, ultimately hurting the company’s stability.

McDonald’s recently acknowledged in public filings that the ongoing discussion on income inequality could pressure the company to change its business practices.

“This is really to alert investors … that they’re missing a vital piece of information that has a significant impact on the risks they face,” Ruetschlin said.

New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer said on a call with reporters Tuesday that the report’s findings concerned him as a trustee and advisor to the city’s pension fund.

“For many of us who’ve met with workers at McDonald’s and other fast-food restaurants, I think the discussion is appropriate to move into the boardroom, not just on the streets, so we can resolve some of these issues,” Stringer said.

The left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies also released a report on Tuesday, analyzing the tax subsidies that help underwrite executive pay in the restaurant industry. Companies can take tax writeoffs for executive compensation that comes in the form of stock options.

The report found that CEOs at the 20 largest members of the National Restaurant Association, an industry lobby that has opposed minimum wage hikes, took home $662 million in tax-deductible compensation. That would have reduced the companies’ tax bills by about $232 million, according to the report, entitled “Restaurant Industry Pay: Taxpayers’ Double Burden.”

 

Sourced from thehuffingtonpost.com