Reddit.com is an online community that enables anyone who has anything interesting to say to potentially reach millions: ‘redditors’ vote on which stories are important so that the hottest rise to the top, and stay there. With 37.4 million unique visitors in June this year, there’s a lot of interest!
Recently, ‘redditors’ who are fast food workers were invited to post the one menu option at their employment that they would recommend people never eat. As you’d expect, there was a big response, from which some conclusions follow:
- · It all depends on the restaurant and its management: good management means good practices for food safety and hygiene, fresh ingredients carefully stored; bad management means the opposite – you can often tell just by looking at the surfaces (are they clean and spills cleaned thoroughly) and ingredients (fresh produce has the right colour and is crisp and sharp).
- · Ice: should we take the ‘purity’ of ice for granted? Seems not: ice machines are not always kept clean. By extension, perhaps we should worry more about the drink dispensers too?
- Chicken is a consistent concern, whether grilled or as ‘nuggets’. Chicken should be healthy, but outlets may use ‘sauces’ to keep it moist and tasty – and those sauces may counteract all the ‘healthy’ in the chicken.
- Visit before closing time! Do you want to eat the food that’s been sitting around all day, or…?
- Watch out for the ‘complimentary’ items such as condiments (it’s not just ketchup bottles that are refilled but not cleaned), bread, or crackers.
- Popular menu items are often safest: if it’s rarely ordered, how long have those ingredients been waiting…?
Click here to take a look at the responses on Reddit for yourself