Guess What Happens When You Leave McDonalds Out For 6 Months? NOTHING!

[DesertRat]

Sally Davies left McDonalds food out for SIX MONTHS and photographed it. Guess what.. NOTHING HAPPENED TO IT!

http://jasonpollock.tv/2010/10/shocking-video-guess-what-happens-when-you-leave-mcdonalds-out-for-6-months-nothing/

[Ian David]

1. It's a hoax. n/t

[LiberalAndProud]

4. More info please.

I would like to understand why you believe this is a hoax. Got a link?

[Ian David]

7. I'll try and find the article. In the meantime, burden of proof is on The Magic Burger Theory. n/t

[TheWraith]

22. It's because the thing was dehydrated.

Somebody did some tests (Mythbusters, I think?) and determined that the way this was achieved was to dry out the burger and bun first. It still looks the same, but won't rot any more than properly kept dry rice and beans would. But that doesn't stop a wave of panic every time this story is "rediscovered."

[DesertRat]

6. Please elaborate. n/t

[MedicalAdmin]

16. He doesn't need to explain.

He has spoken. You must now accept his judgement as it is infallible and any questioning of data or logic is strictly verbotten.

[fasttense]

12. If you are going to claim it is a hoax, post a link.

Just saying something is a hoax does NOT make it so.

[dixiegrrrrl]

19. What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof....Hitchens

[salvorhardin]

2. What would you expect to happen? It's high fat, high salt, low moisture content food.

McDonald’s French fries, for example, which have repeatedly proven their hardiness to spoilage, contain citric acid as a preservative. But a bigger factor might be the fat content of the fries. About 50 percent of the total 250 calories contained in a small order of fries come from fat. “Anything that is high in fat will be low in moisture,” says Barry Swanson, a professor at the Washington State University department of food science. And low moisture means less room for mold to grow. They’re crisper and thinner than regular fries, which means that they’re exposed to greater heat per surface area, killing pathogens and reducing water content. McDonald’s fries are also coated in a nice, thick layer of salt, something we’ve been using as a natural preservative for the last 2,500 years.

The beef patty is also high in fat — varying between 37 and 54 percent of the total caloric content — and has been cooked at a high temperature. “It’s also very thin, which once again means high heat per surface area,” says Sean O’Keefe, a professor of food science at Virginia Tech. Davies noted that over time, her patty just shrank and hardened, losing whatever moisture it once contained.

A regular McDonald’s sesame-seed bun contains calcium propionate and sodium propionate — both preservatives. But the list of ingredients — down to the preservatives — is actually no different from what you’d find on the packaging of your average loaf of supermarket white bread. Wonder Light Enriched Buns, for example, are also loaded with calcium propionate. While neither list mentions quantities, it’s reasonable to assume that both are under the FDA-approved limit.

Ultimately, says O’Keefe, the McDonald’s haters have gotten their science wrong. “The ingredients are similar to anything you’d see in processed fast food,” he says. For better or for worse, McDonald’s is no more a chemical laboratory of secret compounds designed to embalm us from the inside than any other processed food maker. A Happy Meal manages to stay unspoiled because it is fatty, salty and practically empty of nutrients — which, really, are all good reasons to avoid it anyway.
Link: http://www.salon.com/2010/09/01/burger_that_wont_rot

If you misted that Happy Meal with water before setting it out, then you might get mold growth. Otherwise, you're just going to end up with a really desicated Happy Meal.

[DesertRat]

5. I would have expected some kind of biodegradation

Thanks for the link to the interesting salon.com article.

[baldguy]

11. You want it to get moldy? Put it outside in your garden for 6 months.

The way a McD's burger is prepared mimics to manner in which perishable food was preserved before refrigeration: salted, cooked & then dried.

[salvorhardin]

21. Excellent point!

I'll have to steal that the next time I post in response to Davies' art project.

[Life Long Dem]

18. I'd expect maybe a little mold on the bun.

If the bun is made of bread, then I would expect to see some mold - especially after 6 months.

[TheWraith]

23. Mold requires moisture in order to grow.

With a dried bun in a dry environment, no moisture.

[Life Long Dem]

32. Which would make the video a fake.

[salvorhardin]

38. No, not necessarily

It all depends on the moisture content at start, and how humid an environment it was kept in. She could have popped the bun in the microwave for a 30 sec. - 1 min. to get a lot of the moisture out of it, and we'd never know, but if she keeps her house of apartment dry, then that's really going to cut down on mold growth. It'd also probably make a sandwich a miserable experience at her place since her bread would tend to keep going stale quickly.

I don't know, but I think it's possible -- it just takes the right environment.

[qb]

3. Now I know what to stock my 2012 bomb shelter with!

[DesertRat]

9. good plan!

[HopeHoops]

8. That's old and was debunked long ago.

No argument that the shit is gross and full of unmentionables, but it gets just as moldy as anything else.

[DesertRat]

10. I can't find anything debunking it

Do you have a link? Also, the artist is still documenting the project, most recently two weeks ago on day 611.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sallydavies/sets/72157624739645253/

[HopeHoops]

13. And you reference flickr?

This is probably the most coherent and well constructive analysis. The conclusion is that it doesn't matter if it is McD's or any other burger - they all rot at the same rate under the same conditions, including home cooked.

http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/11/the-burger-lab-revisiting-the-myth-of-the-12-year-old-burger-testing-results.html?ref=carousel

Keep in mind that I'm a 20+ year vegetarian and don't do McFood, but this is a really well prepared and documented study of the myth. I don't think the guy who did the research got laid very often during the study time.

[MedicalAdmin]

17. For the record she referenced a posting on a picture storage site.

She referenced the post on the site. Your subject line is like saying "you referenced the library" when what was referenced was a book.

Nitpicking aside that was a good post.

However what that study (by the aforementioned unlaid researcher) failed to connect where the dots between actual food and what passes for food these days in too many places. But I get that autistics need to post too (and thank goodness or I'd never have anything to read given my obscure interests). But being vegan you understand nutrition in ways few are forced to if they eat "stuff" out of bags, boxes and windows.

[HopeHoops]

26. Well, I'm not vegan - I do eggs and dairy - but the link I posted...

Is actually one of the better with respect to showing that it isn't just McD's, it isn't just fast food, but even home-made will not rot because it dries out. The researcher also put McFood and a home-made one in their own little zipper baggies and it didn't take long for them to mold. The basic conclusion is that the things dry out and there's nothing for the mold to feed on. He's by no means the first to come to the same conclusion. The premise of the myth is that McD's pumps their food full of preservatives. While that's probably still true, it isn't why the burger didn't rot - the damn thing petrified in a manner of speaking.

Curiously, I'm not trying to defend McFood or fast food in general because it's all pretty disgusting - and that's not even an editorial from a vegetarian perspective - face it, the stuff's gross. But I do have to put the "Happy Meal Doesn't Rot" story in the "Jesus toast" category.

[MedicalAdmin]

34. Shhhhhhh.

If words gets out I'll have to close my $5 per peek shrine....

Blessed be...

[DeathToTheOil]

14. Meh

I prefer Burger King anyway.

[Kablooie]

15. Cool. Future archeologists that unearth land fills can still enjoy a Big Mac.

[Taitertots]

20. If you ate that, you would get diarrhea...

Nothing happened to it!

It doesn't really matter what it looks like, as long as they are not using harmful ingredients to do it. It is not like they are spraying the burgers with hexaclorobenzene to stop it from degrading.

[tammywammy]

24. Here's a good article on this

http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/11/the-burger-lab-revisiting-the-myth-of-the-12-year-old-burger-testing-results.html?ref=obinsite

The Burger Lab: Revisiting the Myth of The 12-Year Old McDonald's Burger That Just Won't Rot (Testing Results!)

-snip-
Well, well, well. Turns out that not only did the regular McDonald's burgers not rot, but the home-ground burgers did not rot either. Samples one through five had shrunk a bit (especially the beef patties), but they showed no signs of decomposition. What does this mean?

It means that there's nothing that strange about a McDonald's burger not rotting. Any burger of the same shape will act the same way. The real question is, why?

Well, here's another piece of evidence: Burger number 6, made with no salt, did not rot either, indicating that the salt level has nothing to do with it.

And then we get to the burgers that did show some signs of decay.
-snip-

[DesertRat]

27. That is an interesting read. n/t

[DeathToTheOil]

25. Who you gonna call?

MYTHBUSTERS!

[NYC_SKP]

28. This is NOT a hoax. A group of 6th graders replicated this experiment.

God how I love science projects.

A group of sixth graders I personally judged in science fair replicated this project.

The stuff dried up but it didn't mold and it didn't rot, but it did finally have to be thrown away.

A different group in the same class in the same school proved to THIS judge's satisfaction that a kitty's mouth if far more germ-ridden than a human's or a dog's.

The dog has the cleanest among the three species, as measured by the visual growth of gunk in petri dishes that have been swapped with saliva.

[Vanje]

29. They do NOT have a labrador.

nt

[DesertRat]

30. LOL

My black lab and I appreciated that.

[Logical]

33. Wow, people on the DU sure are food snobs. I get sick of it actually. n-t

[Odin2005]

35. Hoax.

[tammywammy]

36. It's not. Having it out in pretty dry air would dry out the burger and fries.

See the article I linked to above, they did an experiment with McDonald's burgers and homemade. It's a pretty interesting article.