Many across the country are outraged after an E. coli outbreak linked to onions served on McDonald’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers has sickened forty-nine people nationwide, and left one dead in Colorado.
Though McDonald’s took swift action to remove the menu items associated with the outbreak in several states, people remain worried for their safety.
As a former food service and McDonald’s worker, this is deeply concerning; as someone who at one point ate McDonald’s daily, I feel sickened.
Elkhorn High students are also concerned about the outbreak.
“It makes me feel scared for my health,” senior Adriana Pagan said.
“It makes me not want to go to McDonald’s anymore.” senior Maddie Jones said.
Pagan and Jones said they occasionally eat at McDonald’s, though they don’t normally get the current E. coli contaminated item, the Quarter Pounder. But the two said they are quite concerned that the outbreak likely came from a food-processing plant many companies source products from. This means that although the outbreak is linked to McDonald’s, other fast-food restaurants may have used ingredients from the same plant. In fact, many have already begun recalling some of their own ingredients, and trying not to tarnish their images in the same way McDonald’s has.
“[The outbreak] makes me feel like they don’t care about their consumers, and are all about their product.” Pagan said.
Pagan and Jones are certainly not alone in their concerns, as many consumers across the country are taking this as a wake up call regarding over-processed foods.
Oh, and by the way, this isn’t the sole dangerous recall active in our country.
In case you were unaware, there is a massive recall right now for frozen waffles over concerns of listeria, another potentially deadly bacteria. So I’m sure you can imagine the horror I feel days after eating seemingly normal, delicious blueberry frozen waffles and then suffering with nearly all of the listeria’s symptoms.
If there is anything these two recalls have taught me it’s that our country seems to have low standards regarding food safety.
At least one EHS student isn’t as concerned about the outbreaks and their cavalier attitude mirrored the opinion that many of you reading this article may hold.
“I’m not going to stop eating processed food. I think [coming down with any of these diseases] just isn’t likely to happen to me,” the student said.
I leave you with one final thought: before you shovel some overpriced, overprocessed garbage down your throat, maybe consider the poisons you may be exposing yourself to.
