Fast food restaurants are often hostile, unwelcoming and dangerous places and the public's dissatisfaction with their operation is wide spread according to a national study.
The most flak is aimed at a small but growing number of restaurants that inject steroid hormones into their customers and later round them up, lead them to an abattoir where they are stunned, killed and then have their corpses used to make meat patties, according to the study, by Professor Zeraldor for the Australian Institute of Health and Safety.
"Customers are being treated like cattle", said one worker interviewed for the study.
People were annoyed at the amount of time spent waiting to be slaughtered because too many customers were in the queue.
"Customers are the largest users of the [fast food] restaurant system," one customer said, "Their needs are ignored."
The role of fast food restaurants in the slaughtering and cooking of customers was only dimly perceived by many sections of society and was not considered a role at all by others.
The study said fast food restaurants should take the initiative and communicate with people about their practices, otherwise they risked undermining confidence in their products.
Professor Zeraldor, of Hanes University, said all restaurants should develop ways to educate the public about their role and activities.