Expert Explains Why You Should Avoid Fast Food Joints on Mondays — And It's Quite Disturbing

Sunday slips inside the blanket of the calendar, and you realize that you can’t spend the rest of your life feeling these Monday blues. So, you try to distract your mind by ordering a burger and a cold coffee from a nearby restaurant. But sadly, that does more harm than good. According to an expert, Monday is the worst day to order fast food from a restaurant. There’s a whole lot of restaurant science behind this, as Shalvi Singh, founder of Healthengine.us and senior product manager at Amazon AI, revealed in a conversation with Food Republic. 

The first reason is staffing gaps. "Weekends attract this chain's top performers, so Mondays tend to be manned by novice staff who do not prepare food the same way every time, so there are many order mistakes," Singh told the outlet. After Mondays, Tuesdays are the busiest days at restaurants when most of the pantry items are old or expired ingredients shoved a day or two earlier in the freezer or near the heat lamps. "[Many perishable foods] also have a delivery schedule on Tuesday, which means that items like buns and fries that are kept under heat lamps used during Monday service are out of date and stored for over a week," Singh warned.

Another reason is “stagnant oil.” Southern Green Industries explains that restaurants are likely to change oil weekly or bi-weekly, with the frequency varying based on factors like fryer size, filter quality, and filtration frequency. When this cooking oil that might have been sitting around all weekend long is used by the restaurants to serve new orders on Mondays or Tuesdays, the stagnant oil poses a hazardous risk to the customer who eats the meal. Wong Fong Academy shares that eating food cooked in old oils can trigger a range of health issues, including the development of chronic diseases, cholesterol imbalance, digestive disturbances, or the formation of trans fats. "This creates off-flavors and poses a. risk to food safety due to FIFO (first-in, first-out) protocols failing to be performed," Singh elaborated.

The expert also recommended prioritizing restaurants and food chains that are known for their high food quality, not just cheap prices. In-N-Out Burger Only, for instance, brings in local sponge-dough buns, Singh explained. She revealed that no frozen items are used in making these burgers, and the fries, too, are made on the spot. "All items are made to order — there are no freezers, microwaves, or heat lamps on the premises. Every burger is indeed made to order,” elaborated Singh. Another option, according to Singh, is a restaurant called Raising Cane's. It’s a food chain that uses fresh ingredients made to order.

Chipotle also embraces an open concept where customers can watch ingredients being prepped in real time. Shake Shack and Wendy's, too, are also known to serve fresh burgers, not frozen, so there is a higher likelihood your food will still taste fresh, even on a Monday, Singh said.  So even though, at the end of the day, your job has secured you with all the money you need to have all the food you want, you can’t really escape the Monday blues. The trick here is what all those men who meditate on the mountaintops suggest: just surrender. Everything is temporary. Eventually, Monday will pass, and then you’ll have access to that notorious thing called freedom. In this case, the freedom to order your favorite pizzas, noodles, and all those tantalizing snacks!