AnckSuNamun said:

I used to think the same thing, but after reading this story, I'm hesitant to even try one of their fruit bowls (or ANY of their food, for that matter). I would hate to be enjoying some nice, fresh fruit, and then to look down and see a severed finger or some other body part in there.

I just did a search on the Urban Legends website, and this story is on there:


Finger Food


Claim: A patron dining at a Wendy's fast food outlet found a human finger in her bowl of chili.


Status: True.


Origins: Claims of human body parts turning up in food products are the most horrifying of contaminated food legends, both because of our very strong societal taboo against the eating of human flesh, and because such a discovery suggests a human death, almost certainly one that was accidental rather than natural (and which conjures up images of a slow and painful death by industrial accident), or at least a painful dismemberment.

Fortunately, improved health and safety standards in food processing make such occurrences quite rare, and most reports of consumers finding body parts in food turn out to be cases of mistaken identity — something that looks like a human body part is found, upon examination by experts, to be something else entirely. (See, for example, our page about a scare involving a finger supposedly found in a can of menudo.) If recent reports are correct, however, such a grisly discovery has indeed been made.

On the evening of 22 March 2005, Anna Ayala, a 39-year-old resident of Las Vegas was dining at a San Jose outlet of the Wendy's fast food restaurant chain when she discovered what appeared to be a human finger in her bowl of chili. According to the San Jose Mercury News:

Devina Cordero, 20, was with her boyfriend at the fast food restaurant when she said the woman, who has not been identified, began gasping and ran up to her saying: "Don't eat it! Look, there's a human finger in our chili."

Cordero said the object appeared cooked and seemed to have a long fingernail at the end. All three people soon became sick.

"We went up to the counter and they told us it was a vegetable," Cordero said. "The people from Wendy's were poking it with a spoon."

[San Jose police officer Enrique] Garcia said the Santa Clara County Health Department is taking over the investigation. "It was some sort of small mass which appeared to have a fingernail. It's a small piece," Garcia said. "They collected the finger and placed it in a freezer for the health department."

A health officer described the unfortunate diner's reaction to the gruesome discovery:

"Initially she did put this object in her mouth, and did bite down on it, and wasn't sure exactly what it was," said Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, a health officer. "She's doing okay. Initially, she was a bit grossed out, as she described to me and vomited a number of times mainly because of the unpleasant experience of having this finger in her mouth."

The Wendy's restaurant temporarily closed but reopened later that evening (although they maintained they had run out of chili for the day).

The following day, Santa Clara County health officials announced at a press conference that they had confirmed the object found in the bowl of Wendy's chili was indeed a human finger, and they were planning to trace the ingredients back to the source to determine where it came from, whose it was, and how it got into the chili. The Associated Press reported that officials believe the contamination did not pose any health danger:

Officials said the fingertip was about 1-1/2 inches long and contained part of a manicured nail. The woman, who asked officials not to identify her, immediately spit it out, Santa Clara County Health Officer Martin Fenstersheib said.

"She was a bit grossed out it was described to me, and vomited a number of times," he said.

Health investigators seized all the ingredients at the restaurant and are tracing them back to their manufacturer. They believe the finger got into the chili at an earlier stage and was cooked at a high enough temperature to kill any viruses.

Investigators have ruled out the possibility that the finger formerly belonged to an employee of the San Jose Wendy's outlet:

Employees at the Wendy's store were asked to show investigators their fingers after the Tuesday night incident. All employees' digits were accounted for, officials said, adding the well-cooked finger may have come from a food-processing plant that supplies the company.

"All of our employees have ten digits," said Denny Lynch, a spokesman for Wendy's International Inc., based in Dublin, Ohio.

He said there have been no reports to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration of injuries at any supplier of chili ingredients to Wendy's.

"By law, you can't hide that sort of stuff," Lynch said.

"All of our chili suppliers report no accidents."

A medical examiner has opined that the finger portion appears to have been torn, not cut, from its base:

"The segment of skin has very irregular torn edges, it looks like its lacerated," said Joseph O'Hara, a medical examiner. "It's not incised — incised meaning it would have been with a sharp edge like a knife or something, that was not the case — it was torn, it had multiple puncture defects."

The county medical examiner said the human finger was cooked but not decomposed.

Investigators are trying to trace the finger to its origin through fingerprint matching, and determine whether the finger was introduced into the ingredients used to make chili or dropped into the finished product afterwards:

Meanwhile, the hunt for the former owner of the finger — that would be a person missing about an inch and a half of a digit — continues. Capt. Bob Dixon of the Santa Clara County coroner's office said Friday the crime lab has completed the first part of attempting to lift a usable fingerprint from it.

The idea, he said, is to run the print through a database and try to match it to its owner.

Then, one would imagine, there would be many, many questions. Such as, did you know we had your finger? Why was Wendy's serving your finger in its chili? Do you want your finger back?

Dixon also said that so far it's impossible to tell whether the finger was cooked along with the main batch of chili or somehow dropped into the serving cup afterward. The lab is going to try to determine if there's some kind of test to figure that out.

There is as yet no evidence that (as is often the case) someone intentionally put the finger in the chili in order to perpetrate a scam, but Ms. Ayala has retained a lawyer, who told the Mercury News:

"All I can say is she has suffered tremendously," Jeffrey Janoff, a San Jose attorney, said. "People are making jokes about this, but this is a really serious thing. How many people have bitten into human flesh? It's revolting."

Business at Wendy's restaurants has reportedly dropped off sharply in the days since the gruesome finger discovery, particularly at the outlet where the incident occurred and throughout Northern California.

Last updated: 26 March 2005
[Edited 3/26/05 17:32pm]

psychodelicide said:

Man, unless you prepare it yourself just get ready for anything (no matter where you are)

That's for sure! You can never be too careful nowadays.

gives a new meaning to the term “finger food”.

AsianBomb777 said:

psychodelicide said:

I don't see whats so bad about that, its better than wasting it. Besides, it's only a day or two old, VS stuff like campbells soup thats been sitting on a shelf for months.

As for dropping meat on the floor, it happens at alot of restaurants. I'm suprised they would do that at a fast food place tho, considering a hamburger only takes a minute or two to cook. I've seen it happen with NY Strips and Filets though when I was a cook.

Tom said:

I agree w/you Tom. Unfortunately, I noticed this nasty unsanitary habit in the restaurant where I used to work as a Salad Chef. If people knew what went on behind the doors of some of the kitchens, hell I sure that they would not want to eat out every again even at a fine restaurant at that.

Hotlegs said:

SO TRUE... if you think about it too hard everywhere is pretty gross

Hotlegs said:

I like my food fresh, and that includes my meat. I hate to think of eating meat that's been sitting around for a few hours or more.

The thing that really grosses me out is people dropping food on the floor and still using it. A lot of times, the floor in a fast food restaurant is so dirty, that I would not feel right about thinking it was okay to use the meat anyway. If I were a boss at a fast food joint and saw one of my workers doing that, they would get bitched at for sure.

Shouldn't this be in the Associated Artists Forum?

Wendy?
Yes, Lisa
Is the water warm enough?
Yes, Lisa
I think I lost my finger
Yes, Lisa

ROFLMFAO @ PANDURITO!!!

I guess a scarier headline would have been "Sales Increase at Wendy's After Finger Found."