When we're hungry and our tummies are aching for food, we don't think about the interworking of the kitchen or slaughterhouses. Unfortunately, it becomes an afterthought or we choose not to go there entirely.

Sometimes a shocking headline or one person's nudge, however, prompts us to go into these uncomfortable yet essential waters. So when u/Miserable_Papaya1814 recently asked the Ask Reddit community "What dark facts do you know about the food industry?", insider secrets spilled like Kevin's famous chili from The Office. To provide you with a comprehensive overview of what goes on behind closed doors in the food industry, we have curated a list of the most intriguing responses down below.

#1

The amount of waste thrown away every single day by grocery stores. I worked in the meat department of a decently sized grocery store and the waste their was nauseating. I s**t you not, we would throw away an industrial sized garbage bin worth of meat, fish, and poultry every single day. The expiration dates dictated everything which is obviously a sensible policy to have, but they wouldn't do anything about it. They wouldn't donate it, let employees take it home, or make adjustments to the orders so we wouldn't have to throw so much away. The reasoning was always "better have to much than not enough" which I guess makes a little sense, but when I am throwing away dozens of pounds of tenderloins, center cut fish and shellfish per night, its to much. Mind you, this is one department of one grocery store.

Sorry for the rant but I feel like it needed to be said.

Image credits: Zastrow_Studios

If you've seen the 2017 eye-opening documentary 'Wasted! The Story of Food Waste', featuring Anthony Bourdain, Osteria Francescana's Massimo Bottura and other celebrated chefs, you know what a terrible tragedy the food industry is. According to current data, there are approximately 1.3 billion perfectly fine foods available to us that simply end up in the bin.

And while it's appropriate to think that it's fine to do with food that you purchased as you please - even swim in 600 lbs of Nutella for that matter; that is enough food to feed 2 billion people - enough to feed starving folks across the globe twice. Or as Richard Swannell from Wrap, The Waste and Resources Action Programme based in the UK, explained to BBC: "[It] would fill 23 million 40-tonne trucks. Bumper-to-bumper, enough to circle the Earth seven times."

#2

As a former chef, I've got to say that I've never seen any of the horrible stuff mentioned here over my career (mostly higher end and fine dining establishments).

We on ocassion would have things like frozen airline chicken breasts brought in, but other than that we did all prep and cooking by hand with fresh ingredients from mostly local purveyors when possible.

We also broke down and deep cleaned every night from the ranges to the floors to the wells to the vents. Every night.

Myself and staff have always taken this s**t very seriously, and it's always disappointing when you hear of this kind of behavior. Do better, people.

It would be okay, however, if food waste would only concern our consciousness. But as it turns out, all that food that doesn't end up in our tummies produces 8-10% of overall global greenhouse gas emissions. You see, when food breaks down at landfill sites, it releases harmful greenhouse gases like methane into the atmosphere, thus increasing extreme weather disasters that's been going on around the planet.

If food waste were a country, it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind the US and China, according to a United Nations Environment Programme report. Definitely not a place we'd like to visit.

#3

I worked catering back in college, and the amount of food we threw away was nauseating.

One time I ran a wedding and we had so much food left over, I started not to give a f**k.

I'm not throwing $500 of filet mignon in the trash.

I divided it up for us, and we took it home.

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

#4

It’s more like a misleading labeling. No sugar. Right? Wrong if you read ingredients on a lot of these packaging it will say things like maltodextrin and dextrose. That’s actually a sugar. Because of regulation they only have to label it no sugar and people think it’s healthy, etc.

Image credits: SavemebabyK

In order to understand the inner workings on food waste, Bored Panda reached out to Luke, or u/Zastrow_Studios, as he's known on Reddit, who was one of the top-voted comments on the thread. "If I'm being honest, at the beginning, it didn't bother me that much," he explained in a message, referencing his experience working in a grocery store's meat department. 

#5

that the fishing industry is destroying the oceans. its so horrible how much 'by-catch' is things like sharks, dolphins etc that die for no reason. also tuna are an endangered species bc of the fshing industry

Image credits: vfz09

#6

1. Your server might be working while sick. They don't get paid time off and most restaurant managers flip their s**t if someone calls out, so instead of missing their rent this month they just chug Dayquil to hide the symptoms. Could by a cold, COVID, who knows?
2. The ice maker could have mold growing in it and nobody would know. I've never seen a restaurant clean one, ~~except for the rare instances where some dipshit drops a stack of glasses near it and they have to melt the ice to pick out the shards.~~ (actually scratch that, it doesn't mean they clean the maker itself; just the basin)
3. The nozzles for the soda fountain might be moldy and slimy too; some restaurants clean these as part of their side work, some don't. You'll never know.
4. Your server, if female, has almost certainly been sexually harassed by someone on the staff.

Image credits: ItsGotToMakeSense

"However, as time went on, it became sickening. On numerous occasions, while disposing of an unthinkable amount of meat, I had to rush out of the back rooms to throw up because of the smell and the realization of what I was doing."

#7

Sometimes the salads aren't bug free. There were times where I received c**p for taking too long washing lettuce. Staff would wash a large container of lettuce like once or twice. I did it 3 or 4 times. I didn't stop until the water was clear and had no bugs. The others had a "who cares" attitude.

One time my boss needed my help and said to me frustrated, "The lettuce is already washed, unpack it in salads quickly." The lettuce looked dirty so I said to myself "I can't sell this to people."

I washed it and guess what the water looked like.

Dark brown from soil, 50+ dead gnats, a living and swimming spider the size of a penny.

Image credits: FightStageYouTube

#8

In my country, buffets often sell spoiled food, like if the employees see mold on top of the sour cream, they just scrape it down and continue selling it. Also, if they sell cooked meat, they often leave them on the counter for days and add some oil to it every morning to look fresh.

Image credits: Wooden_Potential_699

And while Luke's experience is quite shocking, for most consumers who haven't had firsthand experience with food waste on that level, it's rather difficult to digest the scale of this problem. According to 2010 data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), approximately 26% of all meat, poultry, and fish is discarded by Americans at the retail and consumer level. Which means that approximately 1 billion chickens, over 100 million land animals (primarily turkeys, pigs, and cows), as well as around 25 billion fish and 15 billion shellfish (mainly shrimp) are produced, raising global greenhouse gas emission levels, to only end up in the bin.

#9

That we can’t give newly expired food to the homeless. There was a single case of a homeless person getting food poisoning from donated food in the USA and the food industry used that as a reason to make it illegal. There is no reason for this other than so more people will be hungry and buy more food.

#10

Worse I participated in as kitchen staff in a rather top-flight restaurant….. on a slow summer Sunday afternoon, the boss sent us down to the walk-in meat coolers to spray paint the rusted walls. We were instructed to not remove the contents of cooler first; rather just shift the meat from one side of cooler to other. The coat of silver spray paint will come off during cooking

Image credits: Zealousideal_Lie_383

"Before working there, I considered myself mindful of food and avoiding waste. As a Boy Scout, I learned to respect my food, especially that which has been alive, and be mindful of my own waste production," Luke said. "Working in a grocery store strengthened my determination and made me realize how much corporations contribute to the waste problem."

#11

Chef from America, you don’t even want to know. I’m going to be honest, I just assume now that if I don’t make it with my own 2 hands, it’s not safe to eat. I’ve seen everything from plastic wrap, to sweat, to mold, to cleaning acids be served to people. And there’s more than that… that’s the arguably less nasty things.

Obviously that’s untrue, not every single thing you eat is unsafe. Probably not half, maybe half if you eat a lot of fast food, but for sure 20% of it… anyway, you just never know and I’ve seen way too much. I don’t trust restaurants, be it fast food or fine dining, unless I know someone who works there and they tell me it’s fine.

Edit : I’ll tell you, maybe, the worst thing I’ve “seen” and I’ll tell you where it happened. I’ve worked sports bars, steakhouses, Mediterranean restaurants and fine dining. You know which one takes the cake? Buffalo Wild Wings in WV, which really depresses me because I used to love getting amped on coke, watching UFC fights and getting that Asian Zing. My wife’s a server and typically prefers the sports bars, no s**t, she saw them use a microwave that had cockroaches crawling in and out of it, behind it, under it. That was one of their biggest things they used. Rat nest in the bathroom ceiling. Guess what? They passed their health inspection. So I guarantee it’s still like that.

Image credits: BakedShef

#12

Chocolate can have up to 60 insect parts per 100g and still be approved as safe for consumption by the FDA in the US.

Image credits: SereniaKat

Although Luke's stint at the meat department didn't last "due to a combination of wanting to focus on school and the interactions with individual employees and upper management that made working there a nightmare," he said that before leaving, he wanted to see to what extent this issue was rooted in the company.

#13

The deep fryer grease is long overdue for a change; but it’s expensive to do so nightly.

Image credits: Zealousideal_Lie_383

#14

McDonald's isn't as bad as you think and are actually really Adamant about food quality. Atleast a decade ago, I was surprised at how much care and handling happens in the kitchen (the good ones)


It was my first job and I thought I was going into the nightmares these types of subs attract but was humbly surprised that it was as clean as it was, I'd have to say the dirtiest part of the store was probably the grout in-between the tiles but even then those were done atleast every 2 weeks or monthly.

"While I was working there, I did talk to members of the deli department, and they confirmed that they were throwing out a similar or even greater amount of food," Luke explained.

#15

A lot of dietary guidelines in the US were created on the basis of lobbying rather than research. Meat, eggs, and raw milk are vilified without evidence meanwhile refined grains are touted as healthy. Saturated fats are demonized while highly processed seed oils are promoted as heart healthy. Food dyes are allowed despite wrecking havoc on hormones and being banned in the rest of the world.

#16

Grocery distribution warehouses are often extremely filthy and rarely cleaned. Wash anything canned, bottled or jarred!!! They're filthy as hell, covered in microplastics, rotten food, mouse pee, bird s**t, etc etc.


I used to do maintenance on conveyor systems for a major US chain and they just send s**t flying down the conveyors so fast that, its fairly common for glass to shatter because of the vibrations, food to fall off, etc etc. I saw Bats, Birds and Mice in that facility, but it was within tolerance of their health policy. Also saw people that were sick sneezing and coughing on products.


Never saw a floor scrubber go through the warehouse the entire 3mo I worked there and I was doing alternating double shifts! The only time I saw a broom was if there was shattered glass.

Image credits: -Plunder-Bunny-

#17

Here's a good one:

Health department regulations are EASILY skirted around, especially in the Chinese food industry, at least in the SF Bay Area, but as I've been told, everywhere around the US as well.

If a restaurant fails a health inspection, they usually have 30-60 days to correct it. After 60 days, they visit again, and if that restaurant fails again, they can get shut down. However, if the restaurant changes ownership in that time, they get another YEAR before being inspected again. So a lot of places will just shift ownership again and again throughout their family members; never ever bringing the restaurant up to code. It happens OFTEN. And it's something the health department denies again and again, and they even retaliate heavily against people who are outspoken against them.
I've seen health inspectors leave low boy doors open for 10 minutes and then take their Temps. Once it's above 40, you're docked. Health departments are corrupt as s**t. Heard rumors about bribes and all the other political corruption that plagues every aspect of the American legal system, but haven't seen anything in person besides that.

#18

The turkey in your Sunday turkey dinner at restaurant was likely cooked the night before. It sat out overnight cooling in the utility room. Maybe the automatic insect spray in the utility room dusted the turkey a few times during the night.

#19

Over the years, the sugar content of our grocery items are increasing so people will buy more.

#20

Your green salad lettuce has been floating in a trash-can sized bucket containing a mixture of water and some chemical that keeps it crisp.

Image credits: Zealousideal_Lie_383

#21

You'd never want to eat at a restaurant again once you saw how much of your $70 meal for two came frozen and pre-prepared in plastic bags.

Image credits: PhilipLiptonSchrute

#22

Don't eat at Unos. I worked BOH in salad and soup prep. I saw tons of trays of veggies accidentally dropped on the floor, walked over and picked back up with nary a rinse. The chili stays in the pot for days on end and they just add more water and beans. I saw unsavory things working at Friendly's too.

#23

Worked in the food industry for a couple years, all I can think of is how gross arbys roast beef looks in its bag before it’s cooked, just google it, hasn’t changed in 30 years.

Image credits: KeyStoneLighter

#24

Right out of college I had worked at a food testing lab. We did QC for vegis, cooked food, and meat. We mostly did beef.

Our two biggest customers were the near by slaughterhouse, the largest in the US, and one about 5 hours away in Nebraska.

The larger of the two, was honestly decent as far as food quality went. They had issues here and there but handled everything the way they were suppose to. Did everything by the book as far as food quality went. And even did more depending on their customer asks. They had burger king and wendys as two major customers for example and both of those two organizations have higher food quality standards than whats at your grocery store. (They still get cheaper beef but they are much pickier about what they will accept as servable.) Worker conditions though, that was a different story. I witnessed several walkouts and mass no call no shows. Much of their work force was placed there by immigration as they were largely refugees.

As an aside the city was built around that slaughterhouse and its history and diversity is really rich because of its immigrants. You can tell what generation a lot of families are there by their stories about the slaughterhouse and income levels now. Like in the 80s there were a lot of Vietnamese refugees at the slaughterhouse now a lot of the Vietnamese population still there is upper middle class, business owners, same w/ first wave mexican families from the 50s and so on. I'm not saying the slaughterhouse was good though... by in large it was a terrible place for workers. It was just a place where mom and dad busted a*s and their kids ended up much better off and started their own businesses or moved beyond being mass production butchers.

The smaller slaughterhouse in nebraska though... they prided them selve on being open range beef, organic beef... I can never prove it, though I have A LOT of circumstantial evidence, they bleached their samples to get negative test results. Part of the QC process is you need to forcibly rot the meat to make it grow whatever is in it. That way you make sure whatever makes ir rot isnt really bad. Like, E coli O157H7, or 0122 or O145 or several strains of salmonella and some other stuff... after you let meat rot for 14 hrs it smells like rotten meat. Not this place though. After 14hr in an incubator it smelled like bleach.

I have plenty of other storys but the latter sticks with me and I left out A LOT on it.

Image credits: toxic_badgers

#25

Worked in a pepperoni factory 20+ years ago as an accountant. Found that the more MSP in the bill of materials, the lower quality and cheaper the product. Looking at the stuff, it looked kind of like an old square crumbly eraser if you remember those.

So I asked what MSP was. It's "mechanically separated pork". When I asked what that means, they told me that after all the good meat is cut off of a pig, a power washer is used to blast the remaining flesh off the carcass. That's scooped up, dried out and packaged as MSP.

Enjoy your next cheap pepperoni pizza.

Image credits: Lahk74

#26

After Chernobyl Nestle bought up all the milk that was unsuitable for human consumption in the EU. They powdered it and sold it to developing nations as baby formula.

Image credits: AdParking2320

#27

Worked in food distribution warehouse. When the big blocks of cheese got moldy they were frozn and the mold scraped off. Then the cheese was sold to discount pizza places.

#28

Pub basements are often absolutely disgusting and vermin can be seen running around. Nobody seems to care unless you are a CAMRA registered pub and even then you might only get inspected once in a blue moon.

Image credits: airwalkerdnbmusic

#29

The chicken in PF Changs chicken lettuce wraps are just the fat and gristle cut from the regular chicken they use in all their other dishes

#30

They. Don’t. Wash. Their. Hands.

#31

Most animals raised for food, live miserable and unnatural lives

#32

Spice factory worker here.
Companies don't care about expiry date of what we put in the packet, they only count the expiry date once its packed. Like you buy the ground pepper, expiry date is 10.10.23, but if we pack it on 15.06.23, the expiry date will be 2 years from 15.06, so basicly you can easly buy a 2year expired pepper which have more chance to infect you with salmonella.
Ohh also brands. We put the exact same things in all of brand, cheaper-expensive one? Its the exact same.

#33

Raw milk is really f*****g bad for you. You're playing bacteria roulette with it. No matter how clean and careful the milking process is, dirt, cow s**t, and animal-borne bacteria get in the milk.

#34

Store brand food is identical to similar nationally advertised/distributed brands. One of my college summer jobs was at a grocery chain’s industrial bakery. We used to make hundreds of thousands of hotdog and burger rolls for sale at our local stores. On summer holiday weekends we also were subcontracted to make hundreds of batches for a national brand. Same recipe, same ingredients, same bakers, different bags with much higher prices printed on them...

#35

I’ve been in hundreds of kitchens and I can say(generally) the super popular local favorite places to eat are disgusting. The buildings are falling apart. The food is outdated. The walls, ceilings, and floors are alive with all kinds of bugs and rodents. Hopefully this is just my area and not widespread throughout the country…

Image credits: BugDude0

#36

They crush roaches when crushing chocolate beans. Too much work, not enough time.

More than most likely if you have a reaction after eating, it's due to the bugs

Image credits: patchway247

#37

Escargot. Ugh. Be wary.

Those exotic looking shells are reused many times. After being sent through the dishwasher, sometimes extra care is taken to make sure the soap hasn’t settled inside the shell.

The snail meat itself comes from a can and is stuffed into the shells.

Image credits: Zealousideal_Lie_383

#38

Artificial strawberry flavor used to come from beaver a**l glands.

#39

The onion soup you’re eating now was started in a huge vat the prior night. The chef started it at end of shift and left. Then, the cleaning crew came along and cleaned the stove and the vents & fans above the stove using a powerful corrosive “degreaser” chemical. The soup vat isn’t covered.

Also if your steak tastes like rubber, it’s because the cleaners’ sneakers melt a bit while standing on the stovetop (griddle or char-grill) to clean the vents&fans.

Image credits: Zealousideal_Lie_383

#40

They know most of their s**t is bad for our health but it all comes down to money, money, money

#41

Former chef here.
Never send send food back unless of course the chicken is still raw sorta problem

The daily specials are fridge clean outs.

Don't order fish on a Tuesday unless the establishment is a seafood restaurant

Last but not least try not to alter the menu and food to suit your taste. Chefs and owners work hard to create menus and recipes and get very upset when you ask for no ham in the chicken cordon bleu.

Image credits: Mugroid

#42

I spent a very brief time on dishwasher duty at a very popular seafood restaurant in our town. They served a lot of crabmeat au gratin in those small oval bowls. I couldn’t get that hard cheese ring off the inside of the bowl so I asked the manager what the trick was. He said “Just wash it. Those rings of hard cheese don’t come off and have been on there since we bought them.”

Image credits: asimovsroomba

#43

people regularly have sex in and hotbox the freezer

Image credits: fartpeeass

#44

Your local Ski-Resort, one that stays closed most of the year is likely infested with mice/rats in the off-season.

Same goes for any seasonal restaurant/food truck.

Image credits: LrckLacroix

#45

That mechanically separated meat has now been replaced with a technological advancement to remove the label, but at the end of the day, it is essentially the same thing.

Listeria is a major major concern and lots of plants have issues with it, but they don't find it on food often at all so you don't hear much about it.

Ready to eat and ready to cook are the difference between cleanliness and testing at plants. Ready to eat has a much stricter testing policy.

Major companies determine thier own health standards. The USDA and FDA only enforce company standards and do not have many universally recognized federal health standards.

Hogs, cattle, and poultry is sprayed or soaked with chlorinated water as well as other chemicals to kill bacteria. However, this reduces "shrinkage" by adding water weight to meat. Once it's cooked that water weight is removed, and a 16oz steak will be the equivalent of a 12 Oz. This isn't necessarily a bad thing except for the price you pay for water.

The number of animals killed to support the human population is unbelievable. I have personally worked at both beef kill plants in dodge city, KS. In those 2 plants alone, 10,000 head of cattle are killed every day. Sanderson farms (which I have also worked at) between all thier chickens kill over 1 million chickens per day, and over 500 million per year.

I could go on, but overall I think this all stems from the lack of small local farmers.

Source: I am an industrial Refrigeration guy who specializes in Anhydrous Ammonia Refrigeration.

#46

If bananas ripen and produce brown/black spots all over them and the stem is still green/yellow, they're chemically ripened. (Not organic)

If bananas ripen with the stem turning brown/black without spots all over the bananas, they're naturally ripened. (Organic)

Also, the produce food label stickers with the numbers can also tell you which foods are organic and which ones are not.

#47

You've almost certainly been served decaf if you've ordered coffee towards the end of a night; you've possibly been served watered-down half and half if you asked for whole or skim milk with it

#48

Yesterday's meatloaf is today's sloppy joes.

#49

they allow a certain amount of pus from infected utters to be in the dairy

#50

Walmart deli, store 5307. Mold, and only once in the time I worked there did we change the grease. They never taught me how.

#51

Chef here. I’ve been at this 4 star resort for 3 years. I’ve never seen the beer tap lines cleaned.

Image credits: Obvious-Dinner-1082

#52

My boss fished out a bag with a tiny amount of milkshake mix remaining, he told me to use it, but I pointed out it had been there for over 2 hours. He then told me to do it anyway, when I suggested against it due to food poisoning risks, he did it and glared at me.

#53

PAM and spray oil is pure fat

they are allowed to say it is 0 fat or calories because the portion size is under the cut off for what they have to report

Image credits: typesett

#54

That nobody gives a s**t about deep cleaning and everything is covered in a thin film of grease.

#55

Not much in the grand scheme, but the local KFC would spit in food or worse if they didn't like you. Could be order was too complicated, came around too much, or even just gave a slight attitude in their eyes.

#56

I work in the food and dairy industries. If you could smell some of these places or see the amount of s**t they're allowed to get away with you'd never drink milk again.

Image credits: saltfly626

#57

McDonald's never repairs Ice Cream machine because the company that owns the ice cream machine can only repair the machine, and if they use any other company to repair the machine they sue

#58

The mashed potatoes at Red Lobster are the powdered ones from Walmart

#59

You know why the food in adverts look so perfect? Because for pudding they add glue to make it look more creamy, for burgers they stuff the middle with paper

#60

Chef Boyardee had an acceptable level of rat meat per vat of ravioli filling. Basically the weight of everything going into the slurry should equal a specific total bit occasionally the total would come in a couple pounds heavy. When this happened it was due to rats falling into open pots.

Image credits: 6inchVert

#61

Used to work for a big American Chinese food chain. the brown rice is actually soy sauce mixed into white rice instead of actual brown rice.

#62

Papa John's pizza tried to sell trademark and patent pizza recipe Pizza Hut pizza, and got sued for Patent and Trademark infringement $467,000/sale, basically Papa John's was selling you Pizza Hut

#63

Everywhere food gets made is filthy. You can't even understand until you've seen it. I've worked at water treatment plants where they handle all the human s**t... I'd rather eat lunch outside there, than in most of the production areas in most of the food plants I've worked.

I got some horror stories...

#64

some cooperations remove fiber from foods (like bread, white bread is white because of the removed fiber) so they taste better, expire quicker (meaning that people will buy the product again), and to taste sweeter which can appeal to the youth. This causes problems in people such as obesity and mental health issues.

#65

Cockroach. So many cockroaches

#66

"Food" doesnt mean its safe for human consumption.
The FDA is full of people that are corrupted by money, sex, or ideology in the favor of "food" coorporations in order to get s**t labeled as "safe for human consumption" to increase their profit margins.
Do yourself a favor and shop the parimeter of the grocery store and avoid the interior.
.
"The big fat suprise" by nina tiesholz.
.
Humans have removed themself from natute but that doesnt mean nature has been removed from humans.

#67

The ingredients of Nutella

#68

(trigger warning. Anything you think you know about the meat and/or dairy industry, it's so much worse.)

Surprised no-one has posted ["Dominion"](https://www.dominionmovement.com/watch) here.

#69

When the Green M&M redesign debacle was going on it was because they were being sued by former child African slaves, from the Ivory Coast, that the chocolate company uses.

So they pushed the stupid story of the redesign of a ficticious commercial character to focus attention on that instead of the fact they were being sued by former child African slaves

#70

Almost all the the chocolate you buy from commercial sources comes from child labour and trafficking. People are literally kidnapped and taken to farms where they are held at gunpoint. Children as young as 8 using machetes. No health care, no schools.

Companies like Nestlé and Mondalise (don't think that is spelled right) turn a blind eye and work from "plausible deniability"