What One Customer Allegedly Found In Their Filet-O-Fish Has McDonald's Fans Second-Guessing Their Orders

Even the most casual McDonald's customer knows exactly what should be found tucked into the steamy golden bun of the fast food chain's iconic Filet-O-Fish sandwich: a crispy cuboid of Alaskan pollock, a mere half slice of perfectly melty American cheese, and a tangy slick of tartar sauce. If you're looking for a little variation, you might jazz up the McDonald's classic with one of several brilliant Filet-O-Fish hacks, like adding french fries or Big Mac sauce. However, one thing most people would hope to never find in a Filet-O-Fish is (brace yourself) a parasitic worm.

Unfortunately, that's just what one Reddit user claims to have discovered in their Filet-O-Fish. In a post on the subreddit r/McDonalds titled, appetizingly, "Parasite in Filet-O-Fish?," the user shared a stomach-churning picture (you've been warned) of a half-eaten McDonald's Filet-O-Fish with what certainly appears to be a nematode nestled in the flaky Alaskan pollock. This is certainly enough to have even die-hard Filet-O-Fish fans questioning their orders, but the good news (or the bad news, depending on your perspective) is that finding parasites in cooked seafood is not as extraordinary as most casual fish consumers might think.

Of course, you can't believe everything you see on the internet, and there's no way of verifying whether this Redditor's wormy Filet-O-Fish trauma is genuine. However, the uncomfortable truth is that parasites are common in wild-caught fish. By some measures, over 90% of store-bought wild-caught fish are infected with some form of parasite. In other words, eating parasites is an inevitable part of eating fish. Some even go so far as to compare finding parasites in fish to coming across bugs in fresh fruit and vegetables.

The good news is that parasite-carrying fish should be safe to eat as long as it has been properly cooked, so there's no need to swear off seafood forever. Freezing or heating fish to an appropriate temperature should kill any parasites, making it perfectly safe for human consumption (although, obviously, it's advisable to remove any visible worms). Since McDonald's Filet-O-Fish is made with wild-caught Alaskan pollock that has been flash-frozen and then cooked through, the alleged roundworm theoretically shouldn't pose a risk to anything other than the unlucky diner's appetite. In fact, one Redditor suggested that the wormy discovery proves that McDonald's Filet-O-Fish is the real deal, as parasites are less common in farmed fish. In any case, if this revelation has you rethinking your McDonald's order, check out our ultimate McDonald's burger ranking for your next Mickey D's fix.