This Opinion article is part of a Narcity Media series. The views expressed are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Narcity Media.
Ignorance is bliss, and unfortunately for me, it’s hard to ignore all the weird and potentially gross things I know about the McDonald’s menu in Canada.
I worked at McDonald’s for a few years in my teens, and I’ve seen things that would make many people avoid the restaurant for life.
Luckily, I’m not many people, and I still eat at McDonald’s at least once a month because it's still so tasty. I may have quit McD’s years ago, but I can’t quit McD’s, if you know what I mean.
Still, experience has taught me a lot when it comes to ordering from the fast food chain. There are many menu items that you couldn’t pay me to eat, and several others that are my go-to as someone who knows what it’s like to flip burgers and assemble fajitas for the Golden Arches.
Of course, things change over time, and McDonald’s may have tweaked its standards along with its menu in the decades (yikes) since I worked there. I was there in the early 2000s and I remember when Justin Timberlake kicked off their “I’m lovin’ it” slogan, so that should help you place me on the timeline.
I should also point out that a lot of this info isn't meant to take down McDonald's itself. McDonald's has food safety standards, but I can tell you from experience that staff don't always follow that standard, and that's where the issues start.
With all of that in mind, I’m going to share with you what I know from my years of working at McDonald’s, and what you should watch out for when you’re ordering from the Golden Arches in Canada.
Don't order the grilled chicken
Seriously. Don’t.
If you ordered a McDonald’s grilled chicken sandwich in the early 2000s, you were taking your life in your hands. We’d sell one or two of those things in an eight-hour shift at my small-town McDonald's, and it was a lose-lose proposition for everyone involved.
Why? It all comes down to cooking times and whether you can trust a bunch of teenagers to follow the rules. You see, you can cook the big and small burger patties on a grill in less than two minutes, and they’ll last for about 20 minutes in a heating cabinet before you have to use them up or throw them out and make more. These patties are used in a bunch of different burgers, so typically they'll get used up before they expire.
Not so with grilled chicken. Those things had to be made in a special steaming rack and they took seven minutes to cook through, meaning that if McDonald's doesn't have a grilled chicken sitting around when you order, then you’ll be waiting a while for us to make you one.
Alternatively, there just might be a grilled chicken sitting in the heating cabinet when you order. And that grilled chicken might be into Hour 3 of its one-hour shelf life, because staff would rather reset the timer than go through the trouble of making it again for seven minutes.
So why won’t I order a grilled chicken? Because chances are I’ll have to wait seven minutes for it to get made, or it’ll be old and rubbery by the time it lands in my takeout bag.
You'll scream when you hear about the ice cream machine
The McDonald's ice cream machine is complicated and prone to breaking down, but you probably already knew that.
What you didn't know is that it's also a beast to clean, with all sorts of interlocking parts, seals, rods and connectors that need to be flushed in sanitizer, hosed off and reassembled in the proper order. It's like taking apart an IKEA couch, washing it and then reassembling it — if that couch had first been dipped in cream and left to dry.
So maybe you skip a step or two. Maybe you don't take everything apart. Maybe you bundle all the pieces back together and leave it for someone else to fix, and that's why it never works.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, how much do you trust a 16-year-old idiot to complete a task like that? Because as a 30-something-year-old idiot who remembers what he did, I can tell you I still don't buy ice cream at McDonald's.
The hotcakes are disappointing
McDonald's describes its hotcakes as "fluffy, golden-brown bites of heaven," but do you know how they're cooked?
I can tell you from experience that no one's doling out spoonfuls of batter to make the McDonald's hotcakes. Instead, they come in pre-made frozen stacks. These are great for frisbee wars with your co-workers when you're a teenager, but if hotcakes don't get turned into projectiles, they'll spend a minute in the microwave before they hit your plate.
That's right: McDonald's microwaves its hotcakes (or pancakes, if you want to call them that). They're still edible and they're tasty with syrup, but just know that they're not exactly fresh.
Egg McMuffins aren't rocket science
I mentioned earlier that I can't stay away from McDonald's, and there's a big reason why. I absolutely love their breakfast. Their hashbrowns are solid (spectacular when compared to Tim Hortons' trash) and their Bacon 'N Egg McMuffin is out of this world.
But did you know that a McMuffin is super simple to make? It's just an English muffin, a slice of cheese, egg and whatever other thing you want on there, like bacon or sausage or so-called "Canadian" bacon.
There's really no secret to the McDonald's breakfast sandwiches, except perhaps the eggs. You can actually make McDonald's-style eggs at home by cracking an egg into a circular metal ring, breaking the yolk and then covering it with some tinfoil. That'll cook it into a puck-shaped piece of delicious that you can use to make the rest of your breakfast sandwich.
Still, it's nice when someone does it for you. Consider this the one entry that you shouldn't avoid. You could make yourself an Egg McMuffin at home, or you could go out and buy one with a hashbrown. Win-win!
McDonald's can still make the grilled cheese Happy Meal
McDonald's offered grilled cheese as a Happy Meal option from the early 2000s until they discontinued it in 2018. However, that doesn't mean you can't get it in 2023.
I worked at McDonald's when they introduced this little number to the menu, and let me tell you: it's a big joke. There's nothing grilled about the grilled cheese, though I'm not going to yuck your yum if you like it.
The McDonald's grilled cheese was made without any use of a grill. Instead, you'd take two middle layers out of a Big Mac Bun, toast one side of each, then slap a slice of cheese in between and stick it in the microwave.
Boom. Toaster-and-microwaved cheese.
McDonald's may have stopped selling the grilled chese, but they absolutely still have those Big Mac buns and the cheese on hand. Ask nicely and maybe they'll make one for you.
Or, if you're really adventurous, you could ask them to do one better: fold some cheese into one of those Big Mac middles, pinch it closed and drop it in the deep fryer for a few minutes. Then you're really in for a treat.
I only order one type of meat at night
The later you go to a McDonald's, the more you're taking a risk with the quality of your food.
As I pointed out with the grilled chicken, every piece of meat at McDonald's has a timer on it after it's been cooked. The small and large beef patties have short timers (about 20 minutes), while chicken and fish are in the 30-60-minute range.
However, all of that can get a little iffy late at night when stuff will often expire before it gets used up, leaving staff to decide between making fresh meat or fudging the numbers on what's already there. That's why if you're ordering something at 11 p.m., you really should be careful.
I've found that burgers with small beef patties (e.g. the Big Mac, cheeseburger and McDouble) are safest, because those patties sell fast and get remade just as fast, even later at night. Larger patties (e.g. the Quarter Pounder) don't get used as often, but there's still a chance they'll be safe. Same goes for the McChicken and Chicken Nuggets, because those things always fly off the shelves.
What you really want to look out for though is the filet-o-fish. If you order one of those at midnight, chances are it's been sitting around since 10 p.m. and it's less-than-fresh, to put it mildly.
In other words, your safest late-night McDonald's food is probably the classic Big Mac, if only because it's the closest thing to fresh that you'll be able to find. And don't even get me started on the worst item: You should know by now that it's definitely the grilled chicken.
I can't speak to what's fresh at an overnight McDonald's, but hopefully these tips will help you avoid a Rotten Ronnie's experience the next time you go.
Godspeed!
6 Things I Wish I Didn't Know About McDonald's Menu Items After Working There In Canada
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