Use of antibiotics in have been a hot button topic over the last few years, and while some restaurants such as Chipotle and Subway have made big leaps in eliminating it from their meat, there are a lot of big names, such as Starbucks and Jack in the Box, who have not addressed the issue, earning themselves an "F" grade in a recent report.
For the second-straight year, a group of five consumer, environmental, and public health groups surveyed the top 25 fast food and casual restaurants in the US, then ranked them with a school-style grading system.
Out of all the restaurants tested, only Panera Bread and Chipotle received "A" grades, while 16 of our favorite eateries received solid "F" scores.
To get such low scores, these restaurants have either not reduced their use of antibiotics in meat, or have not been transparent about their antibiotic policies.
The report said while antibiotics are OK to treat sick livestock, they are often misused in order to make the animal gain weight faster, and prevent disease from their poor living conditions.
Including Starbucks and Jack in the Box, the 16 other failing restaurants were: KFC, Dunkin' Donuts, Sonic, Denny's, Olive Garden, Burger King, Applebee's, Domino's, Chili's, Little Caesars, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dairy Queen, Arby's and IHOP.
Check out the final grades below:
When you think about coffee shops like Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts, quality meat probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind, but being such monster chains, you'd expect them to get a little better than a failing grade.
Making the biggest positive jump in grades from 2015 was Subway, going from an "F" to a "B." Although their former spokesman was sketchy, their meat has been a little less dubious since they've announced plans to gradually remove all antibiotics by 2020.
Little by little, restaurants have been making changes. Even McDonald's switched up their McNugget recipe to remove antibiotics.
We can only hope to see less of our favorite restaurants in that failing, dark red portion of the scorecard.
