Dear God, Someone Found What in McDonald's Fries?

There are few situations worse than finding an unwanted surprise in your food. These objects can range from the gross but relatively innocuous, like hair, to the absolutely traumatizing and projectile-vomit-inducing, like dead animals — partial or intact. But a new report reveals that in August one customer found something that throws the entire grading scale for a loop. A customer in Japan found a human tooth in her McDonald's fries. A human tooth. On a scale that covers gross to traumatizing, this one would cover the entire spectrum.

In August, a woman eating at an Osaka location was just munching on some fries, a normally very pleasurable experience, when she discovered the tooth. When she called the store manager over, he did little to mitigate the situation. Actually, he made things worse by "reassuring" her that the tooth had been fried. Phew! Why didn't you say so earlier? Pass me the ketchup.

The customer told Japan News Network (JNN):

The manager didn't really talk about how it got in and what action they will take in the future.

At a press conference on Wednesday, McDonald's Corp. executives in Japan admitted to serving some special items that weren't listed on the menu. Besides the human tooth, they apologized for an incident in which a child bit down on a piece of plastic in an ice cream sundae in December.

McDonald's Japan's senior vice president, Hidehito Hishinuma, told reporters:

A child suffered a mouth injury from a piece of plastic. We are deeply sorry for this.

That is indisputably horrible — and luckily nothing worse happened to the child — but at least it was plastic. It's not outside of the realm of comprehension how a piece of plastic could have gotten into the ice cream machine. But a human tooth? It's unclear how the chain's execs apologized for that one. According to the BBC, all Hishinuma had to say about the tooth was this:

We were not able to discover how it got in the food.

Very helpful, thank you. Although I can't imagine the investigators had any useful leads in the case.

During McDonald's independent probe, an expert examined the tooth, but wasn't able to conclude how it ended up in the french fry carton. They did, however, confirm that the tooth had not been fried. McDonald's also noted that none of the restaurant’s employees reported losing a tooth and that plant workers wear masks.

Takehiko Aoki, a senior executive at McDonald's Corp., said at the news conference:

To make such cases zero is our goal. We are doing our utmost to tackle them, one by one.

I really hope for the sake of McDonald's customers everywhere that more effective measures are put in place. Because of that tooth, an entire carton of french fries was probably wasted, and that is a true tragedy.

Images: Getty Images (3)