Food Finds Worse than a Fly in Your Soup!
Okay, we all know our food is full of trans-fat, high-fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors and preservatives, but it could be a WHOLE LOT worse.
Like these unlucky people who found used bandages, a dirty knife, mice, stones, metal shards and even--I'm NOT joking--a condom in their food!
Fast Food Freak Outs
Want Band-Aids with those fries? Bad news for McDonald's, a senior at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign freaked out when she found a used Band-Aid mixed in with her French fries. The manager said it was an "honest mistake."

Subway cuts like a knife. By now you probably heard about it, but a resident of Queens, New York is suing Subway after he discovered a 7-inch knife in his 12-inch sub sandwich and to make matters worse, the knife was filthy and gave him food poisoning.

McDonald's chick head. Yup, you guessed it. That's a deep-fried chicken head! A Newport News, Virginia woman found it in the box of McDonald's chicken wings. It was the beak and eyeballs that tipped her off that wing was in fact NOT a wing at all!
Heavy Metals
"Razor blades" in the burgers. Last year Cracker Barrel pulled hamburgers from 313 restaurants after a 56-year old patron cut her mouth on metal embedded in a meat patty. They're not sure if it was a razor blade, but investigators called them sharp objects.
Metal chunks in the baby food. A mother in the U.K. found that bullet-shaped piece of metal in a pre-made meal she was sharing with her twin daughters. Luckily she discovered the metal and quickly pulled the food away from her kids in time--PHEW!
Sharp and spicy tamales: In November of 2007 Circle Foods had to recall 3,750 pounds of frozen beef tamales because they might have contained metal pieces. Fortunately equipment detected the metal and no injuries were reported.

Macaroni and cheese, and nails! Just the other day a British bride-to-be swallowed a nail that was apparently holding her macaroni and cheese together. She's currently in the hospital, on morphine and waiting for the nail to pass--good luck with that!
Not-So Mighty Mice
Mouse head and beans. When this 49-year old dumped out a can of Allen's Cut Green Beans she found a severed mouse head on top of the pile. Company representatives said every once and a while something like this happens--love that quality-control!
A popeyed mouse? A Baltimore man was on the second piece of his Popeye's three-piece chicken meal when he realized he'd received something extra, a fried mouse. Health inspectors were looking into it, but the restaurant remained opened for business.
Frito bandito mousey. A 66-year-old guy was noshing on some chips when he felt something fuzzy between his fingers. Realizing it was a mouse he ditched the crispy rodent. Frito-Lay was sending out a representative to retrieve the bag and mouse.
Other Stuff
Bread hits rock bottom. A customer bought that loaf of cinnamon raisin bread from When Pigs Fly bakery and got the rocks for free. The bakery blamed the drying process for grapes at the Chilean raisin company--those darn Chileans and their raisins!
Spaghetti and meat stones. Families in the United Kingdom are bent about finding stones inside tins of Heinz spaghetti bolognese. Here's the kicker, Heinz actually had the STONES to keep the product on stores shelves.
Prophelective chowder! A California woman won a settlement with McCormick & Schmick's seafood restaurant after she had the displeasure of finding a CONDOM in her clam chowder! Hey, at least they were using protection.
So gross! That's thirteen reasons to NEVER eat ANYTHING not prepared by your own two hands. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go throw up.
Oh, and SlashFood just compiled their own list of bizarre food finds; including things like oak leaves, syringes and rat feces. Now I've REALLY got to vomit!

I once bought a jar of peanut butter that had a rock in it. I sent it back to the company and they sent me several hundred dollars worth of products.
ReplyGabrielle,
I think that company did a good job. If they had done any less than give you a bunch of free stuff, you would have spread a lot of negative press about them, which would cost them a lot of money in the long run.
I actually haven't opened any containers with strange objects in them, although I have (at least three times) bought cans that were empty inside.
ReplyI bought a can of salsa once that I swear had a big piece of plastic in it ... but it could have been a big chunk of onion or something. It weirded me out enough that I threw out the rest, but I still buy the same brand.
At a restaurant a couple days ago, there was beef (I don't eat dead cows, but I'm not vegetarian) in a dish I'd specificaly asked about and been told did NOT have beef. That's almost as gross to me as otehr dead critters. I complained and got $50 in gift certificates, along with a big apology and a promise they would review the menu to make it absolutely clear that it had beef in it. They redeemed themselves, and I'll go back.
But a dead mouse? GROSS!
ReplyThe worst I ever encountered was related to hair. I bit into a round bun and when I pulled my head back there were hairs all through all of my teeth and still connected to the bread. Talk about puke! I guess a bunch of hair (or one really long one) got stuck in the machine that turns the dough.
Their response? "So what, you want refund??"
I was 17 and didn't really press the issue.
ReplyMy worst experience was as a child I got a cinnamon roll with a bandaid in it...I could taste a sort of antiseptic taste, but didn't really think much of it until the worst happened..........
Replyi was at a diner in new jersey with my family; i got a waffle with fruit on top. i was about to eat a piece when my aunt asked me a question; after answering i took a look the bite i was about to take and good thing i did: there was a horsefly sticking out of my waffle, wings and all! needless to say, i dont go to that diner anymore and i have an OCB thing where i disect everything that i haven't made myself...
ReplyWow, this is disturbing. Yet another reason to stop dining out and buying processed foods.
ReplyThat definitely took away my appetite! So many of these companies or their suppliers are always looking to cut corners. When you cut corners to save money mistakes like this happen. In some ways it is unbelievable that these businesses cover it up they way they do and recover so fully after.
ReplyGross.
ReplyMy mom bought a box of fish fingers and when she opened the box and took a few out she found a hairnet in there. ICK.
Oh well at least they ARE using hairnets at that company I guess??
Ugh, gross. I once bought a bag of fresh spinach that had a dead cricket in it. I took it back to the store and they gave me a new bag of spinach plus my money back. I still buy fresh spinach, but I always check it first now!
ReplyI once had some big, crazy looking bug fly out of a box of greens to hit me in the face. Reminded me of one of those snakes in a can.
I still ate the half a box that he didn't poop on.
ReplyWhen I was 17 I worked at this restaurant where the cook premade all the pizzas for the 'by the slice' orders each morning. The pizzas would sit on the counter all day and they would take a slice off, put on the toppings and reheat the slice as needed. What the customers didn't know is that the pizzas sat by the bucket of dirty bucket full of dead flies. The waitresses would use the water to clean the tables and the pizzas would get splashed with the gross grey water full of floating things when they wrung out the cleaning rags.
gross.
ReplyI found the comments interesting on the article about the woman who swallowed the nail in her mac and cheese.
They recommended that she actually chew her food. Looking at the size of the nails, I would have to agree. How do you accidentally swallow that???
The knife in the Subway sandwich is gross, I don't even know how that could happen. I used to work at one.
ReplyBesides a spider baked into an egg and cheese biscuit from McDonald's, the absolute worse was ordering a coke at a local martial arts tournament that contained mostly tobacco spit in it. I was 5 and still messed up about that to this day.
ReplyThis is a fabulous post! It's enlightening, educational, and frightening, all at the same time! I guess I need to consider cooking more at home.
ReplyAustin
http://drughealth.blogspot.com/
What about the giant cricket found at the Bluebird Cafe in Culver City. Now I'm gonna pick all of my food apart, thanks to this.
Replyhttp://www.tinyurl.com/5gxmzy
Worst I'd had was seeing an inch worm, inching across my computer desk. "Hmm, that's odd, at this time of year?" Looked into the bag of peanuts I was half-way through to find a caterpillar tent, full of his cousins.
Despite the fact that inch worm has a better nutritional profile than peanuts, I threw the rest of the bag away.
ReplyAmazing!
ReplyI remember that Subway story about the knife. Wasn't it inside the bread dough? So, the Subway people probably never would have seen it.
Once at a bar, my friend ordered a drink and it came with a dead fly in the glass. She sent it back. We saw the guy take a NEW GLASS and make a new drink. It, too, had a dead bug in it. She asked for a third. We again saw him get a new glass and dump out the old drink. This third drink had a bug in it!!! Three strikes and you're out -- we left the bar.
ReplyOh My Gosh! These are horrifying stories. Really keeps you on your feet & makes you think before you eat.
ReplyMy brother was enjoying a White Castle burger in NY when we were kids. He took a bite he hit something hard. When he looked down he found a whole molar in his burger. The white castle told him he could have infinite burgers for that day.
Looking back I would have sued them. But it was the 80's
Reply