Woman leaves McDonald’s Happy Meal sitting out for an entire year, food barely decomposes. More »
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The Power of Preservatives [Experiments]
March 19th, 2010 
pro2go
Posted in Gossip Gossip Gossip! 
Tags: Experiments, Happy, McDonald, mcdonald s happy meal, meal, power, Preservatives, Woman, year
@witville_com: Win.
Btwbfdimho
@LeftCoastLady: Preachin’ to the choir, I see.
Oy Veh (Informality Reigns)
@Claire Buoyant: Thanks!
LeftCoastLady
@misha trotsky: Ha! I read that one imagining Ali G. saying it.
liserly
@meechybee: Then how come my bread gets moldy when I leave it out? I don’t think this was meant to be a scientific experiment, usually that stuff is left to, you know, scientists.
dinalohan
@Oy Veh (Informality Reigns): Amen to that!
LeftCoastLady
People, don’t forget James in Birmingham: “Mcdnlds is safe ennit, wen me n ma mates wnt sum munch, mcdonalds is da plce 2 b. bare gd munch n choons bruv innit.”
Who knew Texas ran the school system in Birmingham, England?
misha trotsky
@SkinnyNerd: That shit literally made me LOL
If it ain’t broke…
….does this mean I can now call myself an ar-teest?
liserly
@liserly: Knowing when to leave a great work of art alone, is an art form in itself.
SkinnyNerd
@Merricat: Holy shit dude, I just said one thing about wanting to know about preservatives, and if they’d fuck you up. Sorry I didn’t go into the depths of what I do know about natural preservatives and assumed we were talking about whatever keeps McDonald’s food from deteriorating at all. Besides, Denver isn’t completely sans water. The humidity is low, yes, but it’s not unheard of.
FWIW, I know a guy who did this a few years ago, only just with the burger, and the results were the same. I definitely live in a humid area, and while he didn’t let it sit for a year, it was pretty much through the hottest summer months, so there’s that.
missing_piece
@Claire Buoyant: If I needed inspiration to stop going to Mickey D’s everyday for a number 10, that is it.
I did need it and now I have it. Thanks.
marciax3
I’m kind of disappointed that the nutritionist didn’t have a “control” (like Morgan Spurlock did in “Super Size Me”). I’m sure that if left a burger on my countertop it would pretty much dry out and look the same weeks, if not months, later. (Mmmmm, jerky!)
The way Spurlock did it — in a (sterilized) glass jar to help cut the flow of air and speed up the decomposition process — is the way the test should be done.
(It’s pretty surprising how much environment affects decomposition rates. I remember reading an article years back about some researchers who peeled back the layers of a landfill, and found layers of meat, some still in the wrappings, that still looked pretty recognizable. When they dated the layer, they found it to be from the early 70s — at about the time of the “beef shortage”. Turns out that many people hoarded meat, thinking there was a crisis looming, and ended up throwing it away. The layers of trash and lack of air actually slowed the decomposition process.)
I’m not defending the amount of preservatives in McDs, I just think she would have gotten a lot more science out of the test.
meechybee
holy hell — the toys don’t even last a month.
H_in_Brooklyn
How long before we start injecting fast food into our foreheads for their anti-aging principles?
femme-bot
It’s a flat out hoax!
I’ve seen that happen when someone left a McDonald’s meal out because they left suddenly & forgot it, in a few days it was disgusting.
And I once forgot a couple of store bought burger buns on a counter & they were totally covered in mold after the week that I was gone.
This has the look of something left in a bag in the refrigerator for a while, it gets moldy.
Jars of commercially made spaghetti sauce will also get moldy in the fridge after just a few weeks.
Greasy Thumb Guzik
argh, screw Darwin, even bacteria is smarter than us.
witville_com
@Claire Buoyant: The fries are infused with saturated fat, which works as a preservative in this case.
Merricat
I was trying to come up with something witty but it’s really hard to top this comment from that article:
“well you englin peopil laff at me cauis i cant spell none but im smart enuf not to eat this stuf. whos the dummie now? – mookcollins, timberville, va, 19/3/2010 23:08 “
can.not.stop.laughing
help!
liserly
@missing_piece: I’m with you!
Want a piece of my beef jerky? Oh wait.. well how about some of these banana chips? How about some of this honey?
This ‘experiment’ is neither notable or surprising to anyone who has any knowledge of the methods used to preserve food before everyone had a fridge. She kept the food in a low humidity environ till it dessicated. Once that happened, visible spoilage is almost ensured not to happen. Mold needs water. Period.
You could have raised and butchered your own cow, grow and harvested your own potatoes and wheat and made this meal from 100% entirely ‘organic’ materials and still obtained the same results.
As far as the ‘anti’ preservative stance goes, you do realize that many foods contain their own natural preservatives, right? The issue isn’t preservatives, it what preservatives.
And as far as that goes, I’ll let you do your own research. But this ‘experiment’ has nothing to do with natural or artificial preservatives. Simply with the fact that “Mold won’t grow if you don’t got water”.
Merricat
At this one place I worked they would hand out those cheap grocery store brand cupcakes with the playdoh frosting and sprinkles to celebrate some co-workers birthday. I’d leave them on my monitor and the next year, when they handed out more cupcakes, you couldn’t tell the one I left out to the new one. Fuck that shit.
Noah Jacquemin
@Claire Buoyant: Vodka has always been part of what makes my meals happy.
Oy Veh (Informality Reigns)
@Oy Veh (Informality Reigns): It works with alcohol, too, so I hear.
Claire Buoyant
So are you saying that if I eat a happy meal a day I won’t deteriorate either?!? It’s a veritable high-fat-fountain-of-youth!
Oy Veh (Informality Reigns)
Then why is it that their fries go from crispy, warm, and magical to disgustingly soggy in the two minutes between the drive-through and my front door?
Look, I expect more from my neighborhood rodent-slinging evil corporate juggernaut.
tipsy_hausfrau
A crazy lady near my work built had a Safeway cake in part of the “art installation” that was her yard. That thing did not change in almost 2 years and that was even in rainy Seattle. Scared the hell out of me!
NoodlePress
@LeftCoastLady: Here you go. Which, actually, brings up a problem that I have with the Mail story and Ms. Bruso’s methodology — that is, it’s misleading. I hate to sound like I’m defending American fast food (because I’m not), but if you leave bread and meat out with good air circulation, they’ll likely dry out before they mold. After all, drying meat is one of the more ancient forms of preserving it, without using chemical additives. The same burgers molded in Spurlock’s glass jars. That said, I don’t know what’s going on with the French fries in either case.
Claire Buoyant
@LeftCoastLady: It was on the DVD special features, if I remember right. Not the regular movie I don’t think.
Still, same thing. And that DVD should be required viewing for everyone, EVEN IF you love McDonald’s as I do. (And I still do.)
badasscat
@John Thompson in: Are You There God? It’s Me, Danzig: I don’t know, but I’d rather have the assurance that preservatives don’t fuck you up.
missing_piece
That is certainly aesthetically displeasing, but I wish they had more concrete conclusions than “this has not decomposed, ergo it is unhealthy”. I mean, the fat content and all that, that’s a no-brainer. But have there been any inquiries into the health effects of preservatives? I’m reminded of the people who go on and on about chemicals in tap water that are trace, harmless amounts. It pays to be skeptical sometime. Do we have assurances that preservatives themselves can fuck you up?
John Thompson in: Are You There God? It’s Me, Danzig
Can I apply it to my face instead????
doggotmyshoes
Wasn’t this done in “SuperSize Me” as well? I can’t remember the length of time, but I recall Spurlock’s experiment having similar results.
LeftCoastLady
While visually similar, I imagine the one on the right has more texture in that it’s crunchy like a brick.
DogsOfWar