No, burgers and sausages do not contain human meat from missing children

By: Arron Williams
June 26 2023

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Context

A video on TikTok claims that human meat and cells from aborted human fetuses are found in foods such as burgers and sausages. The video claims that the meat is from human children that go missing and is used as a way to "hide the bodies." The video further fixates specifically on the McDonald's fast food chain.

In Fact

Claims of human meat or fetus cells in food and soft drinks are not new and are frequently found on TikTok. However, these claims are entirely unfounded. 

There is no evidence that McDonald's burgers contain human meat. McDonald's addressed this claim on their website: "No we do not have any human meat in our burgers. We would like to assure you that we only use 100% pure, Halal beef and chicken in our food. That's it!" 

This claim originated from an online article by the satirical website Huzlers. While the website appears no longer active, the article can be accessed through the internet Archive. Huzlers' "About Us" page disclaims, "Huzlers is a satirical and fictional entertainment blog." The claim about McDonald's containing human meat is fictitious and not based on fact. The Huzlers article also states that meat found in Mcdonald's burgers belonged to human children. While it is satire, it is likely that the general claim of burgers containing meat from missing human children also originated from this article. However, there is no evidence that missing children are being turned into food sold for human consumption.

There is also no evidence that sausages, specifically hotdogs, are made of human meat. According to the New York Times, a study by the consumer marketing branch, Clear Labs found traces of Human DNA in just 2 percent of hotdogs sampled. However, this is a matter of food hygiene, as the tiniest parts of hair, nails, or skin can appear in these tests. There is no evidence that the findings of this study suggest hotdogs are made of human meat, just that they contained traces of human DNA. An article by Snopes critiqued the study and highlighted issues with Clear Foods' methodology. According to Snopes, Clear Foods does not appear to present vetted data and did not provide information on the credibility of their research, how they determined the percentage, testing conditions, or if other independent researchers confirmed or duplicated these results. 

To find out if there have ever been burgers or sausages made of human meat available for consumer purchase, Logically Facts reached out to the U.S. Department of Agriculture but has yet to hear back at the time of publication.

The video also shows an image of a man claimed to be "Rabbi Abe Finkelstein." Overlaid audio makes it appear like he admitted "we" steal 300,000 children every year to drain their blood, mix it with pass-over bread and grind the bodies into sausages and hamburgers. This element of the video is antisemitic and is used to push the harmful Blood Libel myth. According to the Anti-Defamation League, Blood Libel is the false allegation that Jewish people murder Christian children to use their blood in rituals and as an ingredient for Passover bread. This antisemitic myth has led to violence against Jewish people and was used by the Nazis to demonize them. Through a reverse image search of the picture, the man is not "Rabbi Abe Finkelstein" like the video claims, but an attorney called Kenneth Feinberg. This same section of the video was found posted alongside other antisemitic content.

The Verdict

There is no evidence that burgers or sausages are made from human meat. There is also no evidence that missing children are being turned into food. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.