They say “ignorance is bliss” — and that saying goes double when it comes to fast food. Next time you grab some grilled chicken or chili from a fast food joint, consider these insights we’ll bet you wish you never knew.

Reddit asked fast food workers to name the “one menu option at your employment that you would recommend people never to eat.” 24 hours and 6,000 comments later, some truly stomach-churning stories came to light revealing the revolting practices that go on in fast food restaurants, including branches of Wendy’s, McDonald’s and Subway.

Chicken nuggets were quick to come under fire. A former McDonald’s employee wrote: “I accidentally left a whole bag of about 100 chicken nuggets out on a counter for way too long. They melted. Into a pool of liquid. I never understood why. But they were completely indiscernible as being the nuggets I once knew.” (We are definitely not “lovin’ it” right now.)

And if you were thinking of taking the “healthy option” of grilled chicken, think again. Another McDonald’s employee said, “We use three squirts of liquid margarine on the bottom of it. To keep it juicy, once we’ve lain the frozen blocks of chicken, three more squirts of liquid margarine are applied to the tops.”

Meanwhile at one Subway branch, a worker described how defrosting grilled chicken involves leaving the frozen meat in hot water for hours before wringing them of liquid at the end of the day.

And an ex-Wendy’s worker claimed their beef chili recipe is made from left-over beef patties: “The meat comes from hamburger patties that sat on the grill too long to serve to customers. They take them and put them in a bin and then throw them in the fridge. When the chili is made they take it out, boil it, chop it up and dump them in the chili.”

Heather Oldani, a spokeswoman for McDonalds, said that much of the Reddit conversation about the restaurant chain was “inaccurate” and that tales of Chicken McNuggets melting is an “urban legend.”

Still, we are certainly going to pause before going for that late-night fast food fix –- at least while this Reddit thread is still fresh in our minds.

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