Report card in fast food shows Panera & Chipotle get 'A grade' in no-antibiotics meat

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We choose what we put into our mouths and with the wide range of choices we have outside our homes, it's tricky to find out what really goes into the food we consume. A recent report by the Food Animal Concerns Trust, Keep Antibiotics Working, Consumers Union, and the Center for Food Safety revealed the best and worst restaurants to eat in if you want your meat antibiotics-free, CNN reports.

According to TIME, the non-restriction of antibiotics use in poultry and animal rearing has contributed to the immunization of bacteria, and therefore resist the drugs that are specifically designed to kill them. The U.S. CDC also reported that every year, over 2 million people get infections that are resistant to antibiotics, and 23,000 lives are taken by antibiotic-resistant infections.

"When livestock producers administer antibiotics routinely to their flocks and herds, bacteria can develop resistance, thrive and even spread to our communities, contributing to the larger problem of antibiotic resistance," the study authors wrote. "The worsening epidemic of resistance means that antibiotics may not work when we need them most: when our kids contract a staph infection (MRSA), or our parents get a life-threatening pneumonia."

TIME reports that according to Dr. David Wallinga, a senior health officer at the environmental nonprofit the National Resources Defense Council who contributed to the report, "Consumers should be as concerned as the foremost infectious disease doctors are—which is very concerned."

Wallinga also said, "We know that overusing antibiotics, including in the meat supply, is a driver of the [drug-resistant bacteria] problem and yet the consumer public is in the dark when it comes to what companies’ policies are."

The group's report analyzed the practices and policies of 25 of the U.S.'s largest fast food and fast-casual restaurants to find out if they are exerting efforts to reduce or eliminate antibiotic lade meats in their menus. Points were awarded for restaurants that have a quality antibiotics program, with proper implementation by the company. What qualified as a "good" program was one that banned any antibiotics for disease prevention or growth promotion.

Among the 25 restaurants, Panera Bread and Chipotle garnered an A grade for providing detailed, publicly available plans, the L.A. Times reported.

Wallinga said: "Some of the companies have incredible amounts of detail on their website. They’re very clear about what they’re going to do and when. Companies like Chipotle and Panera, their policy isn’t limited to one type of meat."

Chick-Fil-A received a B rating, while McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts got a C, and Starbucks and Subway received an F. Thirteen other companies were not awarded any points because of their lack of publicly available antibiotics policy.

Study authors recommended that restaurants "use their considerable purchasing power to make meat and poultry produced without the routine use of antibiotics more readily available to consumers."