Reddit's Stomach Is Scrambling Over An Uncooked Wendy's Burger

It's not often you hear "fast food" and "fresh" used in the same sentence — that is, unless the words "is not" are being uttered in between them. The industry relies on frozen foods out of both cost and convenience, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, when it comes to something like hamburgers, eating a freshly made patty certainly sounds better than chowing down on one that's been sitting in the back of a walk-in freezer for who knows how long, even more so because the USDA says the quality of frozen ground beef starts diminishing around the four-month mark.

As such, some eateries have made the switch to fresh ground beef in recent years, including McDonald's, per CNN – though considering that Wendy's has already been doing that for more than 50 years, we don't think it's wrong to say that it's about time its competition caught up. The chain has been promising "fresh, never frozen" beef to customers ever since it opened its doors in 1969 (via Wendy's). And while it's easy to think that was just a marketing ploy created by founder Dave Thomas, many have come forward to vouch for the claim. "I have been working at Wendy's for over a year and have never seen frozen beef," one employee on Reddit shared.

The confirmation is definitely nice, but recently, another Redditor claimed to have received a Wendy's burger that was a little too much on the fresh side, causing a few stomachs to turn.

Wendy's may not be the fast food chain most likely to mess up your order. However, as with any restaurant, there are bound to be mistakes made from time to time, and last month, Reddit user u/Yeeyeedips claimed to have been the recipient of an undercooked hamburger from the chain. In their post to the Wendy's subreddit page on November 10, 2022, the Redditor shared two photos of their partially eaten burger that consisted of two patties that appeared slightly pink in the middle. "Bruh what this??????" they asked.

The seemingly underdone sammie caused a bit of an uproar on the social media platform. "That's fresh never frozen, it was also never cooked apparently," one Redditor commented. Reddit user u/One_Potato_7951 was a bit harsher and deemed the burger "disgusting" — though not everybody felt the same. "Ummmm anyone else just think this looks like...a medium well burger?" Reddit user u/newppinpoint asked. "Undercooked by wendy's standards, but safe to eat," another said.

According to the USDA, hamburgers need a minimum internal temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit to be considered safe to eat, though one operating manual for Wendy's grills suggests that the chain cooks their burgers to an internal temp of 175. Still, being that raw meat is unsafe to consume, if you receive a burger that looks a little off, following Reddit user u/5255clone's advice and alerting Wendy's staff may be wise.