I just checked where the Colonel Sanders hides his chickens.
Well... I googled, okay?
Then I did the same thing for Pope-YES.
And while I'm at it i checked where McD and BK get there raw materials from.
I am feeling... a little vegan right now....
(Plus now I got those scary ideas where "Ma's Ready to eat Chicken" really comes from.)
I worked in a poultry abatoir for a short while in my youth. It was pretty raw but the slaughter and most of the butchery was fully automated so didn't put me off my chicken and bacon sandwitches. Might have to swing by both establishments one day and have a try and let you know how they compare.
KFC is pretty okay here actually. Far from greasy. I just don't like bone-in chicken and 90% of their offerings is that so I don't eat it if there's anything else around. Tbh, I get more greasy chicken if I order from other local small fast food chains so I don't do that either.
There's a lot of misconceptions about fast food in peoples heads, most often that it's just fake food made of plastic toxic additives and no actual produce, because someone once left out a burger on a window sill and 3 weeks later it hasn't changed a bit. There's perfectly scientifically proven explanations as to why that is the case, but it's easier to ignore that and believe that it's all made of toxic sludge. Well, I dunno about the US, but here it isn't.
My mother worked at the food health agency here all her life. My wife worked at mcd, behind the counter as a child slave worker,... khm... I mean student-worker, and later for a very short stint for a company that did logistics for BK. I know for a fact how mcd and bk get their raw material, what checks they go through, and so on. It's actually far stricter than everyones made to believe. It is the safest source of food you can get, with the exact nutritional values that are on the box. None of that means it's good for you, but it's far less bad than the sentiment around it.
In the very very rare cases of food poisoning happening from them, it was always proven that it was a workers fault at the joint (not washing hands properly, being ill and so on), not the raw material itself. I know because my mother was in close contact with, or the person who did the investigations on-site.
First of all, ppl think that their food is shipped around the world in huge MCD trucks and it all comes from giant Mcd factory in the middle of Hell itself...
Actually it's all sourced as locally as possible, because getting it shipped imposes risks, food safety procedures, paperwork, it's not cost effective, and unreliable.
This also explains why you do not have "specials" lasting longer than a month or two. Here we have a fish special at mcd almost every summer for a month and only a month, because that's when they can obtain the raw materials from the local fisheries, for a certain amount of time at a reliable rate. Same goes for why you don't have mac-ribs all the time. Something I don't believe we ever had here btw. It's not a marketing ploy, they don't do it just to make you feel FOMO, they do like this because they can't do it any other way.
It's not the best quality stuff sure, but it's strictly regulated, clean, and the end result contains the exact amount of things that are listed (which they do have to list here in EU). The beef patty is actually made from beef (well, a mix of cow parts which contains a surprisingly high amount of regular cuts, not just ear tips and such parts lol) and not additives. Or Horse if you are in Germany lol Still, it is natural meat. It still tastes like the bottom of a shoe that's been left in the sahara for 6 months, but that's what happens when you put meat through all that processing (cleaning multiple phases of slicing mincing mixing freezing precooking and so on). What you take out of the packaging as a worker at mcd, if you just let it thaw out on a clean table, is a 100% safe to eat as is. It's half done already anyways, and Nothing can survive that amount of abuse... which includes nearly a 100% of the taste as well, sadly.
Same goes for the produce, the dry lettuce that tastes like paper, the watery tomatoes and so on. Materials are selected on an availability supplychain-first basis, not just on a quality vs cost basis as most believe. "oh they must be sourced from 3 countries away because there they grow it in vast tents all year around and it's much cheaper"... no it isn't, once you have to pay for trucks to haul it for 5 days, have it go through 3 more days of screening and cleaning and pay 3x more people to do deal with the bureaucracy surrounding it. It's much easier reliable and cheaper to get it all as close as possible even if it costs a tiny bit more for the raw product.
The amount of raw food stuff that gets turned into burgers every day is insane. Just imagine how many trucks, planes ships you'd need to haul all that across the world.
Now, have you ever walked into a MCD or BK where any of the basic menu items was unavailable because they ran out? Sorry no Whopper, we are out of buns? Or sorry no BigMac, we ran out of patties? I've been going to these joints for 30+ years and never ever seen that happen. Ever. Specials run out, sure, and yes the icecream machine never fuggin works... But the basic menu items are always available at every location on Earth. Always. That's the most important thing for these fast food giants.
TLDR.:
There's two big misconeoptions I hear all the time:
First, fast food isn't made from real food. Wrong. At least here in the EU. It is made from the same produce you buy at your local market. Yes, really. Unless you are German, then they might sell you horse instead of beef. It's not grown and mixed with chemicals in a lab... It just goes through such processing to make it safe and uniform that it looses most of it's original quality. Believe it or not, factually the safest food you can get here is a whopper or a bigmac, and not because of additives, but strict regulation of sourcing and processing. Unless the cook forgot to wash hands after a dump...
The second one is that all these international fast food chains source their materials from the lowest possible quality for the lowest cost , regardless of distance, because that's the only thing that matters. Again, not true. They couldn't survive if they did. They source from the highest supply, most reliable sources, multiple, that is the closest, quality and per-item cost is a large but secondary consideration, because having constant supply is everything. Basic menu items never running out, ever. That's what they make their money on (incl. the drinks ofc), not the specials, not the seasonal extra named products, not by getting beef that is a cent cheaper at the source becasue it's lower quality. The thing that matters above all else is that "We ran out of fries" cannot ever happen at Mcd, or "we have no more whoppers" cannot ever happen at a BK. That is the most important thing, everything else is secondary at best.
Source: mother, worked for 40+ years at food safety govmnt dept. Wife, worked at Mcd, and at logistics company linked to BK. and no she wasn't that cook lol
"But eating at Mcd every day will kill you!" Yeah, maybe. I know people, thin people, who did that for decades. They just don't overeat, no 3x bigmac a day, they Move, not just drive and sit in front of a TV all day, and sometimes take whatever things they need to supplement, like vitamins or just munch on raw veggies and nuts and such regularly. Their health is perfectly fine, much better than mine for sure, even though I only eat at these large fast food joints like 10 times a year max.
Ah, and so my traditional yearly wall of text is done. Surprisingly, not a rant this time. I need more whiskey for that lol
@Lorddarthvik, that was a good read to me. Over here, hamburger is made pretty much the same way you describe. It's an industrial process done very efficiently and with quite a lot of both quality and regulatory oversight. So is preparation of fish, pork, poultry etc., fruits and vegetables. The companies involved in the industry do a good job of self regulation due to the fines they would receive if anything happens.
The problem in the fast food industry is not on that side of the equation, it's definitely the delivery to the final destination, which is your meal. They generally use unskilled part time labor. They are more likely to not understand the necessity and risk, or just develop bad habits because "it gets busy". There are too many things to list that could go wrong, not washing their hands before switching stations or returning from the toilet is just one. I've seen them put the fries into the same grease they just finished cooking chicken in. Once I got an E.coli infection from eating an order of fries. 2 weeks to recover. How does E.coli get into french fries? answer: cross contamination. I have not eaten at that very large restaurant chain since.
My wife is a biochemist, and I used to work in the food regulation industry writing quality control software. That's a huge part of how we met.
I have to protest this vile acusation good sir! Only the French eat horses! We eat dogs! Never heard of the German Shepperd (TM)? That's our cattle!
(Seriously though, back in my Grandpa's time dogmeat was considered a cure for ailments of the respiratory organs and stuff...)
There's a lot of misconceptions about fast food in peoples heads, most often that it's just fake food made of plastic toxic additives and no actual produce, because someone once left out a burger on a window sill and 3 weeks later it hasn't changed a bit.
The problem in the fast food industry is not on that side of the equation, it's definitely the delivery to the final destination, which is your meal. They generally use unskilled part time labor.
Personal FastFood Fail Numero Uno:
I reach into the bag and pull out the soggy packaging of my Hamburger Royal.
For those americans that have yet to watch Pulp Fiction, that's an... err... quarterpounder?
Anyhow, I free my lunch from the packaging and as I take a bite I wonder: "Where's the beef?"
Turns out the soggy part under the fr*ggin packaging was the patty.
How stressed out, or incompetent, do you need to be to put bun and toppings in the cardboard box, stack it on a sizzling hot patty and then throw the whole thing into someone's "Happy" meal?
So yes, a lot of the fails concerning FastFood happens on the last lap of the race.
PS: In German FAST translates to "almost". We got a lot of jokes about "almost eatables".
