A woman bit into a pepper from In-N-Out and was traumatized by what she found inside.
In a viral video that has nearly a million views, Darlene Gonon (@darlenegonon) shared what she called a “traumatizing experience” with viewers online to prevent someone else from going through the same thing.
Beloved burger chain In-N-Out is known for its secret (and not-so-secret) menu items, and this is one of them. If you’re feeling spicy you can order hot peppers, specifically cascabel chilis, either chopped up on your burger or served whole on the side.
These peppers are such a fan favorite that people were outraged last year when In-N-Out was facing a shortage of the cascabel chilis, known to reach 1,500-5,000 heat units on the Scoville scale, and instead replaced them with the much milder (sitting around 500 Scovilles) banana pepper or pepperoncini, Tasting Table reported.
In fact, there were multiple articles written about it, TikToks, and even a Reddit thread on the matter.
With this being such a fan-favorite you can imagine Gonon was pretty happy to get her hands on the pepper, only to be horrified when she bit into it.
Inside of her bright yellow pepper was an equally bright yellow worm or caterpillar. While we couldn’t identify exactly what critter it is, we found out that these kinds of pests can attack certain produce, feeding on the fruit or leaves.
It seems this creepy critter got stuck and died inside of the pepper it was feasting on.
“Guys be careful with In N Out !!!” Gonon warned.
@darlenegonon CHECK YOUR IN N OUT !!!! Horrible experience will NEVER EAT HERE AGAIN !!! @In And Out @In and out burger #innoutburger #cascabellapeppers #phoenixaz #foodtiktok ♬ original sound – Darlene Gonon
At the end of the video, Gonon shared two rather dramatic photos, one of her looking extremely sad while hugging a child and another of her looking off into the distance contemplating what she just went through.
“The photo shoot at the end lol,” the top comment read.
“The hug the dramaaaa,” a person wrote.
The video has more than 1,700 comments, some from people who wish they hadn’t seen the TikTok at all and others who said it’s not a big deal.
“Don’t do this to me rn,” a commenter said.
“We eat the worm at the bottom of the tequila bottle this is just a chili version lol,” another wrote.
“NOOO i ate that last night and i just ate it whole,” a person lamented.
The Daily Dot reached out to Gonon for comment via Instagram direct message and to In-N-Out via email.
