Finger Food for Thought
May 5, 2005 — -- Do you cautiously lift your hamburger bun to inspect what's inside before biting down? With recent stories -- both factual and fictional -- about pieces of human fingers and other unsavory items turning up in fast food, close inspection would seem reasonable.
But how many of these horrific allegations turn out to be true? Not many, according to David Mikkelson, who rounds up both urban legend and fact on his Web site, Snopes.com.
"In most of these cases it turns out that there is no evidence of these things and no way to corroborate the stories," said Mikkelson who founded Snopes.com, a Web site that lists urban legends. "There is a general distrust of the fast-food industry. The idea that fast food is just yucky gives these stories some lasting power."
In March, Anna Ayala claimed she found part of a human finger in a bowl of chili at a Wendy's in San José, Calif. As a wave of nausea spread over fast-food fans everywhere, Ayala threatened to sue, and business at Wendy's restaurants in the San Francisco Bay area dropped about 7 percent, according to Steve Jay, regional spokesman for the chain.
Investigators, however, determined it was all a hoax, and Ayala was charged with attempted grand theft. She maintains she did not plant the finger part. It's not clear where the digit came from.
But there's no mystery about the origins of a fingertip that ended up into a container of frozen custard sold at a North Carolina eatery. Clarence Stowers said he wasn't suspicious about the object in the chocolate dessert he purchased Sunday from a Kohl's Frozen Custard in Wilmington, so he put it in his mouth.
"I thought it was candy because they put candy in your ice cream or whatever to make it a treat," he told ABC News affiliate WWAY-TV in Wilmington.
"I said, 'Gosh this ice cream is good.' Then I said, 'Gosh, there's something hard in my ice cream,' " said Stowers.
He removed the object from his mouth and rinsed it off at the kitchen sink. "[I] realized it was a human finger, and I just started screaming," he said.
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