GROSS

I'm currently reading Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. This book is very interesting and has made me consider a number of things, like whether I'll ever come within 1,000 feet of ground beef ever again. (Granted, the book was written 6 years ago so I hold out hope that bringing all of this to light has caused a great deal of change in the meatpacking plants, slaughterhouses, and fast food restaurants.) Of course it's also made me think about eating fast food. Here's an excerpt from the chapter What's in the Meat, page 222:

"Dr. Griffin has good reason to worry. A 1997 undercover investigation by KCBS-TV Los Angeles videotaped local restaurant workers sneezing into their hands while preparing food, licking salad dressing off their fingers, picking their noses, and flicking their cigarettes into meals about to be served. In May of 2000, three teenage employees at a Burger King in Scottsville, NY, were arrested for putting spit, urine, and cleaning products such as Easy-Off Oven Cleaner and Comet with Bleach into the food. They had allegedly tampered with the Burger King food for eight months, and it was served to thousands of customers, until a fellow employee informed the management.

"The teenage fast food workers I met in Colorado Springs, CO, told me other horror stories. The safety of the food seemed to be determined more by the personality of the manager on duty than by the written policies of the chain. Many workers would not eat anything at their restaurant unless they'd made it themselves. A Taco Bell employee said that food dropped on the floor was often picked up and served. An Arby's employee told me that one kitchen worker never washed his hands at work after doing engine repairs on his car. And several employees at the same McDonald's restaurant in CO Springs independently provided details about a cockroach infestation in the milk-shake machine and about armies of mice that urinated and defecated on hamburger rolls left out to thaw in the kitchen every night."

Gross, right? That stuff may or may not make you sick. The following is another excerpt from the same chapter, pg. 197, and to me seems much more serious:

"A nationwide study published by the USDA in 1996 found that 7.5% of the ground beef samples taken at processing plants were contaminated with Salmonella, 11.7% were contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, 30% were contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus, and 53.3% were contaminated with Clostridium prefringens. All of these pathogens can make people sick; food posoning caused by Listeria generally requires hospitalization and proves fatal in about one of every five cases. In the USDA study 78.6% of the ground beef contained microbes that are spread primarily by fecal material."

Really, you should read the book...unless you like fast food (and hamburgers!) too much to give it up. :)