I Spent 12 Years in Fast Food: 7 Items I’d Never Touch

Twelve years. Dozens of uniforms, hundreds of shifts, and more grease burns than I care to remember. Working behind the counter of various fast food chains teaches you things that no marketing campaign will ever tell you. You see the food before it’s dressed up for the customer. You know what happens during the rush, and more importantly, what happens during the slow hours.

Honestly, I’m not here to burn down the whole industry. Some things really are fine. But there are seven specific items that I, after all that time, simply refuse to order. Let me take you through them.

1. The Grilled Chicken Sandwich (It’s Not What You Think)

The grilled chicken sandwich has been sold to the public as the “healthy” fast food choice for decades now. People order it and feel virtuous, like they made the responsible decision. Here’s the thing: if you’re hitting a place that’s largely known for burgers, you’re probably going to want to avoid the grilled chicken sandwich.

At least at many locations, grilled chicken sandwiches don’t sell well enough to move quickly. So they sit around a lot longer than other menu items, and the texture becomes rubbery. The sodium situation makes it worse. Even a grilled chicken sandwich can be high in sodium. Culver’s Grilled Chicken Sandwich, for example, keeps it simple with lettuce, tomato, pickles, and a hoagie roll, but still packs 1,070 milligrams of sodium.

Phosphates are used in fast food chicken to enable protein to bind more water, essentially plumping it up to seem juicier. The amount of phosphate in these foods is not listed on nutrition fact labels or in nutrient databases, so it’s tough to know how much you’re actually getting. I know it sounds like a small detail, but after years of watching that chicken sit in a warming tray, I can’t unsee it.

2. The Soft Serve or Milkshake

Few things in fast food feel as innocent as a cold, creamy swirl of soft serve. It’s nostalgic. It’s cheap. It’s also one of the items I am most cautious about. You might want to think twice before reaching for that soft serve, because the inside of those machines can be a hotbed for bacteria.

The process of cleaning these machines can take hours from start to finish when done properly. In an extreme case, the Washington State Department of Health reported that three people died, with several others hospitalized, after drinking listeria-contaminated milkshakes, which was blamed on the unhygienic ice cream machine at Frugals, a burger place in Tacoma, Washington. It was determined the machine had not been cleaned properly.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), listeria sickens about 1,600 people each year, and around 260 people die from the infection. At highest risk are pregnant women and their newborns, adults aged 65 and older, and people with weakened immune systems, per the CDC. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take for a two-dollar swirl.

3. The Fast Food “Chili”

Chili at a fast food restaurant sounds hearty and comforting, kind of like something grandma might make on a Sunday. The reality is a little less warm and fuzzy. Wendy’s, for example, developed an off-putting solution to leftover beef: incorporating old, unsold burger patties into the restaurant’s chili. This is actually confirmed directly. Wendy’s has offered chili since opening its first restaurant, and cooked hamburger patties that are not sold promptly are chopped up and used in the chili.

One Wendy’s shift manager exposed on Reddit the fact that all of the chili meat comes from burgers that have stayed too long on the grill and are now too old, hard, and dried-out. The leftover meat pucks are cut up, bagged, and frozen to go into a later batch of chili. Wendy’s frames this as sustainability, and maybe that’s fair. Still, as someone who has spent time in fast food kitchens, the idea of a warming vat of mystery-aged beef is not appetizing.

In the restaurant business, holding time refers to how long hot foods are subject to warming devices such as heat lamps. In terms of quality, leaving food out for over four hours is likely to greatly compromise the flavor and texture of the item. Food safety is an even bigger concern, especially when you consider that multiple chain restaurants have given people food poisoning throughout the years. Let’s be real, that’s a combination worth avoiding.

4. Chicken Wings from Non-Wing Specialists

Wings at a pizza chain or a burger joint. Sounds fine, right? I think most people assume all fried chicken is created equal. It is not. Grilled chicken at Subway is widely skipped by its own employees, and several workers have noted that it was never a guarantee the wings at various chains would always come out fresh.

One former employee alleged: “They never would replace that oil we used, and it would be dark, dark brown for a couple of weeks.” Another added: “My store only changed the oil about once every three or more weeks, despite all the numerous pieces of raw chicken and other fried foods cooking in it.” Old, dark frying oil isn’t just unappetizing, it produces compounds that nobody should be voluntarily eating.

Some suggest it’s entirely possible that undercooking is a fryer temperature issue, or down to employee carelessness. Others note that because different chicken products are different thicknesses, they have different cooking times and mistakes can be made. One Reddit user shared that a fast food worker said when they are busy they pretty much never temp the chicken to make sure it’s fully cooked. That’s enough for me to skip wings anywhere they’re not the main event.

5. Anything Left in a Heated Container Too Long – Including Nuggets

Chicken nuggets are one of the most beloved items in fast food history. Kids love them. Adults love them. I love the idea of them. What I don’t love is the reality of how long they actually sit before reaching your hand. Fast food employees recommend asking for nuggets fresh. Otherwise, they’ve been sitting in their container in the heat. They have a timer, but nine times out of ten when that timer goes off, people just reset the timer instead of making new ones.

This is not a rare, isolated thing. It happens constantly during slow periods. Think about a Tuesday afternoon, not exactly peak rush hour. Maybe something isn’t as popular as corporate expected, and tends to sit around all day. Maybe restaurants are required to install machines that are impossible to clean or break all the time, or there are logistical issues with getting food out in the required time frame. Maybe some locations take shortcuts that make an otherwise perfectly fine idea into something less appetizing.

I’ve personally seen nuggets sit for close to an hour without anyone batting an eye. The fix is simple if you know: just ask for them made fresh. Most employees won’t mind, and the difference in quality is night and day.

6. The Fast Food Salad (Yes, Really)

I know this one surprises people. You walk in with the best of intentions, you spot the salad, you feel good about yourself. I hate to break it to you. This is where health halos become dangerous. The Cobb Salad sounds healthy because it’s a salad. But with fried chicken nuggets, bacon, cheese, and Avocado Lime Ranch dressing, the full Cobb Salad at Chick-fil-A hits 1,090 calories and 2,090mg sodium. That’s worse than ordering a fried sandwich, medium fries, and a Coke.

Restaurant salads are known to be deceptively unhealthy. The nutrition facts of a fast food Cobb Salad can be gasp-inducing. While 850 calories for a salad is troubling, the 61 grams of fat and 2,220 mg of sodium are almost unbelievable. You’re not making a health decision. You’re just choosing a different kind of indulgence, with less satisfaction and a lot more false comfort.

There’s also a freshness issue. You might want to avoid anything like tuna fish salad or items that can be prepared ahead of time. One worker who worked at a quick-serve restaurant reported that they made the tuna fish salad just once a week. Pre-made salad components sitting in plastic containers for days are not something that should get a health halo from anyone.

7. The McCafé and In-Store Coffee Drinks

Look, I understand the appeal. You’re already in the drive-through, the coffee is cheap, and you need that morning hit. But fast food coffee machines are one of the worst-kept secrets in the industry. According to employees, the biggest issue with McDonald’s McCafé drinks is that the machines are not cleaned often or well enough, creating a potential for bacteria or mold to develop inside the machine.

The people who know the most about every item on a fast food restaurant’s menu aren’t the people from the corporate offices who develop those items. The people who know the most are the employees, who work on the front lines every day and know that even the ideas that seem the best aren’t necessarily great in practice. And employees have been saying for years that the coffee machines are simply not cleaned with the regularity they should be.

A pursuit to highlight the least healthy fast food restaurant chains includes assessing key characteristics like ultra-high calories, sodium content, sugar content, and levels of fats, including saturated and trans fats. The sweet coffee drinks in particular, loaded with flavored syrups, can quietly add an enormous number of sugar calories to your day. It’s hard to say for sure how bad any one machine is, but I personally never order coffee drinks at fast food chains anymore. A gas station coffee honestly feels safer.