Controversies That Will Always Haunt These Fast Food Chains
From severed fingers in chili to deep-fried rat heads in buckets of chicken, these fast-food controversies are sure to make you skip the drive-thru and stick to your diet.
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00:00From severed fingers in chili to deep-fried rat heads in buckets of chicken, these fast
00:05food controversies are sure to make you skip the drive-thru and stick to your diet.
00:10One of the most infamous incidents in fast food history was the McDonald's hot coffee
00:14lawsuit from the early 1990s. At the time, the lawsuit was the source of significant
00:19mockery, as the plaintiff was criticized for filing what many classified as a frivolous
00:24lawsuit. That viewpoint was even immortalized in a classic Seinfeld episode.
00:28You get me one coffee drinker on that jury, you gonna walk out of there a rich man."
00:34But the truth is far more serious and shocking than media coverage from the time suggested.
00:3879-year-old Stella Liebeck actually suffered third-degree burns to her groin and pelvic
00:43region, requiring skin grafts. She was in the hospital for eight days, and her injuries
00:48ultimately required two years of treatment.
00:51Amazingly, she wasn't even trying to get a big payday from McDonald's, but actually just
00:55wanted McDonald's to cover her medical bills, which came to roughly $20,000. Instead, McDonald's
01:00offered her just $800. She filed suit, and during the trial it was learned that McDonald's
01:06had paid out roughly half a million dollars to hundreds of people to settle previous coffee
01:10scalding incidents, but had refused to take any action to make their coffee less dangerous.
01:15Recognizing McDonald's had acted egregiously by intentionally heating its coffee to extreme
01:20temperatures, the jury sided with Liebeck. Consequently, she was initially awarded $2.9
01:26million in compensation for her suffering, eventually settling with McDonald's out of
01:30court for an undisclosed lesser amount.
01:33When a company is responsible for running thousands of locations throughout the world,
01:37like Burger King, which has more than 18,700 locations as of 2023, there's bound to be
01:43a bad apple here and there — or, more appropriately, a bad head of lettuce, as in the case of the
01:48disturbing 2012 controversy from a Burger King in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, where employees
01:54photographed themselves standing in the lettuce bins. That turned out to be a bad move, not
01:59just for the reputation of Burger King, but also for the employees themselves. According
02:03to Cleveland.com, the location of the boot-clad employee standing in lettuce was quickly identified.
02:09Bryson Thornton, director of global communications for Burger King, told Today in 2012,
02:15the franchisee took swift action to investigate this matter, and terminated the three employees
02:19involved. Still, even a decade later, anyone who saw the pictures has to wonder just where
02:24the lettuce in their Whopper came from.
02:27Now we turn to the story everybody is talking about, the finger in the Wendy's chili.
02:32Every fast food worker has likely had the urge to flip off a disrespectful customer
02:36at some point. In fact, we'd venture a guess that anyone who's worked in food service at
02:41any type of restaurant has stifled the desire to tell a customer how they really feel.
02:45But when you envision a Wendy's employee giving a rude customer the finger, you probably imagine
02:50that it's still attached to their hand, unlike the finger one woman found in her Wendy's
02:54chili in 2005.
02:56Now, the Dave Thomas-founded restaurant is fairly forthright about its use of fresh ingredients
03:01and never-frozen beef patties, but a human finger isn't what anyone has in mind when
03:06it comes to fresh meat. Thankfully, there's as much truth to this story as there is edible
03:11meat to be found on a human finger — as in, none.
03:14After some investigation, it was discovered that Anna Ayala had put the finger there herself
03:19in an attempt to defraud Wendy's. Her husband had bought the finger from a co-worker who
03:24had lost it in an accident. Ayala then cooked it herself before plopping it in the chili.
03:29Ayala ultimately spent four years in prison for the scam, while Wendy's reportedly lost
03:33more than $20 million in sales thanks to the negative press coverage before the scam was
03:39discovered.
03:40When it comes to chicken parts worth prioritizing for culinary purposes, nothing may rank lower
03:45than the bird's head. But what if a chicken head arrives at your doorstep without any
03:49warning, as appeared to be the case in 2000, when a woman named Catherine Ortega claimed
03:54to find a breaded chicken head in her McDonald's order?
03:57There were a couple of details that didn't make every news report on this one, though.
04:01First, it was widely stated that the chicken head was in an order of McNuggets, but that
04:04wasn't actually the case. Instead, it was reportedly an order of Mighty Wings, which
04:09was being test-marketed at the Virginia location where the head was purchased.
04:13It's also worth noting that, unlike many similar incidents, Ortega didn't sue McDonald's over
04:18the chicken head. Disgusting as it was, finding a chicken head in a box of chicken apparently
04:22wasn't weird enough to justify a lawsuit. Still, that's one point in favor of becoming
04:27a vegetarian.
04:28"'This image may have done more to promote vegetarianism than any number of PETA protests.'"
04:35Nobody likes rats. But as gross as rats are when they're scurrying around in the garbage
04:39or jumping on pirates in the Enchanted Forest, it's even worse when you find a rat in your
04:44fast food order. That's what apparently happened back in 2015 when a man claimed to have found
04:49a deep-fried rat in his KFC order.
04:52But despite the photographic evidence displaying an alleged rat in the customer's order — long,
04:57disgusting tale and all — the authenticity of this claim was always somewhat suspect.
05:01For one thing, KFC hand-breds each piece of chicken in-house, meaning there's often
05:06little homogeneity between its chicken pieces. This, in turn, opens the door for some truly
05:11unusual-looking final products, even ones that might resemble another animal entirely.
05:16In November 2016, KFC announced that a DNA test determined the so-called rodent was,
05:22in fact, chicken all along. Still, even though it turned out to be bogus, the controversy
05:27damaged the brand.
05:29Speaking of America's least favorite chicken substitute, KFC wasn't the only fried chicken
05:34brand that came under fire for supposedly serving rats to customers. In 2016, the same
05:39year as the bogus KFC rat incident, Popeyes also came under fire for apparently frying
05:44up a rodent. In this case, a woman in Harlem claimed that she found a rat's head in a bucket
05:49of Popeyes chicken, and it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility.
05:53According to the New York Daily News, several health inspections of the restaurant in question
05:58between 2013 and 2017 noted evidence of mice or live mice present in the facility's food
06:04and or non-food areas, and a 2015 health inspection noted that the facility was not vermin-proof.
06:11Still, that doesn't mean it actually was a rat. Popeyes suggested that, like KFC, it
06:16might have just been some rat-shaped chicken. Even Snopes wasn't able to determine whether
06:21or not it was a rat.
06:22But just to be on the safe side, if you find something in your chicken bucket that looks
06:26like it might be a rat, we suggest not eating it.
06:30Most major companies try to avoid controversy. And then, there's Chick-fil-A, who seem to
06:34have built their entire marketing strategy around being as unapologetically controversial
06:39as possible. We're referring, of course, to Chick-fil-A's openly anti-LGBTQ stance. Now,
06:45it's no secret that Chick-fil-A is a staunchly Christian organization. After all, its restaurants
06:50are closed on Sundays, which Chick-fil-A expressly states is to allow employees a chance to quote
06:55and worship if they choose.
06:57It's also widely known that Chick-fil-A has openly and consistently donated money to Christian
07:01charities that actively oppose same-sex marriage and the LGBTQ community. In 2012, when Chick-fil-A
07:08owner Dan Cathy was confronted about his open opposition to equal marriage rights, he responded,
07:14quote,
07:15"...guilty as charged."
07:16In a PR move, Chick-fil-A announced in 2019 they as a company would no longer be donating
07:21to anti-LGBTQ charities. However, according to Esquire, Cathy himself continues to funnel
07:27millions of dollars of his Chick-fil-A fortune into organizations fighting against equality.
07:32Though the company's position has generated some backlash, overall they have actually
07:36gained in popularity, as pandering to the right wing has proven to be a savvy business
07:41move.
07:42If you order a hamburger at a restaurant, would you be able to tell if it was ground
07:46horse meat rather than beef from a cow? Maybe not, but that doesn't mean you want to eat
07:50Seabiscuit. Unfortunately, that was nearly the case for diners at several UK Burger King
07:55locations in 2013, when it was discovered that the fast food chain had purchased meat
08:00from a supplier called Silvercrest Foods, where traces of horse DNA were found. To Burger
08:06King's credit, it immediately terminated its contract with Silvercrest Foods upon this
08:10discovery, and strongly insisted it never actually served horse meat burgers at any
08:15of its locations.
08:16Still, we'll never forget this controversy, and neither will pop culture. Thanks to the
08:21classic Bob's Burgers Season 7 episode, they serve horses, don't they?
08:25Oh my God, Teddy, we don't sell horse anymore.
08:28In 2017, the crap hit the fan when a BBC investigation found traces of fecal bacteria in ice from
08:35a UK Starbucks location. That discovery set off a virtual poop storm online.
08:41But was it really that big a deal? Not according to LiveScience. They explained that just because
08:45the ice tested positive for fecal coliforms doesn't mean there was actually feces in it
08:50or that it's dangerous. That's because fecal coliform is a category that contains a lot
08:55of different bacteria, not all of which are found in feces, and not all of which will
08:59get you sick.
09:00Still, even if the controversy turned out to be a tempest in a chamber pot, it was enough
09:04to put people off coffee for a while.
09:07Back in 1991, Kentucky Fried Chicken changed their name to KFC, a decision that many fans
09:12of the famous franchise found baffling. Why would a company with such widespread name
09:16recognition ditch its name?
09:18It wasn't long before a bizarre urban legend took hold, as the rumor spread that KFC had
09:23to legally change their name because they no longer sold actual chicken, but instead
09:27some kind of mutated chicken product.
09:30You probably don't need Snopes to debunk this one, but just in case, the truth is that KFC
09:35changed its name in part because the state trademarked the name Kentucky and the chicken
09:39chain didn't want to pay royalties. Still, the mutant chicken theory at least explains
09:44how Colonel Sanders got superpowers.
09:47When it comes to pizza chains, there are a lot of options out there. Domino's, Pizza
09:51Hut, Little Caesars, the list goes on and on. And one thing those chains all have in
09:56common is that unlike Papa John's, their founders didn't become famous for dropping racial slurs
10:01in public.
10:02Yes, it happened in a 2018 conference call. Ironically, the whole purpose of the call
10:07was to discuss strategies to help founder John Schnatter avoid public relations issues.
10:12The meeting followed in the wake of a controversy Schnatter found himself embroiled in, following
10:16some ill-advised statements surrounding Colin Kaepernick's protests against police brutality.
10:21Instead, Schnatter decided to use the call as a forum to whine about the fact that Colonel
10:26Sanders had been even more publicly racist than Schnatter without facing serious consequences.
10:31During his indulgent episode of Whataboutism, Schnatter used the N-word.
10:36Upon the public learning of the incident, Schnatter was forced to step down and has
10:39since blamed, quote, the progressive elite left for his self-inflicted downfall.
10:44When it comes to disturbing fast food controversies, none may be more uncomfortable to discuss
10:49than the downfall of Subway spokesman Jared Fogle. Fogle became rich and famous after
10:54Subway's sandwiches supposedly helped him lose hundreds of pounds, and his popular ads
10:58reportedly helped Subway's sales surge by 20 percent.
11:02But something dark lurked underneath Fogle's mild-mannered persona, and in 2015, Fogle
11:07pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography as well as having sex with a minor.
11:12Fogle was sentenced to 15 years in prison by a federal judge, which was actually several
11:17years longer than the prosecution recommended. Additionally, he'll be forced to register
11:21as a sex offender upon release, with law enforcement monitoring any electric devices he owns in
11:27the future as well.