8 fun (and some gross) facts about fast food

Fast food’s everywhere. It’s cheap & fast, and also quite interesting when you look past the drive-thru window. Behind every burger combo, there are decades of shortcuts and weird little surprises most people never think about. Here are eight quick bites about fast food. Which one of these facts surprised you the most, and why?

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The first McDonald’s drive-thru was built for soldiers

Yes, you read that right. The very first McDonald’s drive-thru was built in 1975 in Arizona, near a military base. Soldiers couldn’t step out of their cars while in uniform, so the restaurant decided to cut a hole in the wall & build a window. They passed food through it, and with it, drive-thru culture as we know it took off.

A 20-year burger stayed almost unchanged

In 1999, David Whipple bought a hamburger from McDonald’s, then threw it in his coat pocket & forgot about it. He found the coat again 20 years later. The burger looked essentially the same, including the bun and the patty, and there was no sign of any rot. How did this happen? It’s because the bread & beef had dried out enough that bacteria couldn’t survive on it.

Fast food logos are designed to trigger hunger

Any red & yellow color combinations you see on fast food logos aren’t random. Companies choose them because they literally get your brain moving, as the colors catch your eye and make you feel hungry. This encourages you to order quickly. As a result, many chains use the same shades as a kind of psychological bait.

McDonald’s once tried a bubblegum-flavored broccoli

There was a time in 2014 when McDonald’s decided to make their vegetables taste more fun. So they made bubblegum broccoli. However, the problem was that kids didn’t know what to make of it, since the mix of sweet & savory was confusing. The product never made it onto shelves and was cancelled during testing.

The smell of fried food spreads faster than most cooking odors

Anytime you smell fried food from way down the street, you’re not imagining it. Hot oil kicks tiny aroma-packed droplets into the air, which float around longer than steam from soup or baked bread. As such, that’s why a fryer can make a whole parking lot smell like lunch, even with no food in sight. The smell really is that strong.

Soda fountain ice can be dirtier than toilet water

Time for a gross fact. Tests on ice from drink machines have found quite a bit of bacteria, although it’s usually in the machine instead of the water. When workers don’t clean the inside properly, slime builds up & that’s where the nasty stuff hides. Then it ends up right in your cup. In some cases, the ice has been found to be dirtier and more bacteria-ridden than toilet water.

Fast food salads sometimes have more calories than burgers

Salads sound healthy, but those dressing packets & fried toppings, as well as piles of cheese, make it anything but. Some of the “healthy” options at big chains have more than 800 calories. That’s more than a lot of burgers on the same menu, even though people think lettuce makes food low-calorie. But it’s really just dressing with leaves underneath.

Some burgers contain DNA from unexpected animals

Not every burger is exactly what you think it is. ClearLabs ran DNA tests on fast food patties and picked up traces from animals that weren’t supposed to be there. Thankfully, these were tiny amounts, stuff you’d never notice, but they included chicken & even rat in a few cases. It’s usually down to how everything’s processed on massive shared equipment.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article: