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| McDonald’s Food Doesn’t Break Down Over Time? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Sep 17 2010, 11:53 AM (19,173 Views) | |
| shure | Sep 17 2010, 11:53 AM Post #1 |
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McDonald’s Food Doesn’t Break Down Over Time? September 16th, 2010 ![]() Our intrigue regarding the eternal shelf life of a McDonald’s hamburger began after reading of New York photographer Sally Davies’ exploits involving a Happy Meal Project: Davies purchased a Happy Meal, and perched the McDonald’s hamburger and french fries on a table. As an experiment, she photographed the meal every few days to measure the rate of spoilage. Her photographs revealed that after 145 days, the burger and fries appeared as fresh as the day they were purchased from McDonald’s nearly 5 months ago. 12 Year-old McDonald’s Burger Shows No Sign of Decay Our interest was really peaked when we discovered that several other concerned consumers had conducted similar McDonald’s burger experiments. In these experiments, none of the McDonald’s hamburgers decomposed after extended periods of time raging from 1 year to over a decade. Nutrition consultant Karen Hanrahan kept a McDonald’s hamburger for, get this, 12 years. She purchased the McDonald’s hamburger in 1996 and posted her claim on her website in 2008. http://bestofmotherearth.com/2008/09/24/1996-mcdonalds-hamburger.html ![]() Author and obesity activist Julia Havey stored a McDonald’s cheeseburger and fries for 4 years, and Joann Bruso, a 62-year-old grandmother, held on to a McDonald’s Happy Meal for a whole year. All of these events were either videotaped or photographed. To illustrate what real food looks like when it spoils, Julia Havey’s video visually compares pristine looking four-year old McDonald’s french fries with a regular decomposed potato. Then there’s Leo Foley’s Bionic Burger video. Foley has allegedly been saving McDonald’s hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and Big Macs from McDonald’s for over 19 years, and “they look EXACTLY the same!” says Foley. “These hamburgers are not food substances (the way we normally think of food), says Foley, “they are chemical concoctions that contain the look, taste, and smell of food but don’t be fooled. There is nothing ‘food-like’ about these substances at all.” ![]() For nonbelievers, Foley has this so say: “I don’t want you to believe me. I would rather have you buy a couple hamburgers from your local McDonald’s and follow our instructions on how to create a Bionic Burger for yourself.” http://www.bionicburger.com/create.html McDonald’s Beef Patty/French Fries No, you won’t find embalming fluid listed among the ingredients in a McDonald’s beef patty, although I wouldn’t be surprised. McDonald’s issued a statement claiming: “No preservatives are added to the beef patties in McDonald’s hamburgers.” ![]() But according to Foley, what you will find is 1,1,1 – trichloroethane, 1,2,4 – trimethylbenzene, BCH, alpha Chloroform, chlorotoluene, chlorpyritos, DDE, p, p, DDT, p, p, dieldrin, diphenyl 2-wthylhexyl phosphate, and ethyl benzene, among a host of other chemicals found in fast food. Some suggest that since fat makes up about 50 percent of the fries’ caloric content and 35-to-54 percent of the burger patties’, “high levels of fat leave less room for moisture, which prevents mold from sprouting.” McDonald’s Bun Enriched bleached flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, folic acid, reduced iron), water, high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, yeast, contains less than 2 % of each of the following: salt, calcium sulfate, calcium carbonate, calcium silicate, wheat gluten, soy flour, baking soda, emulsifier (mono- and diglycerides, diacetyl tartaric acid esters of fatty acids, ethanol, sorbitol, polysorbate 20, potassium propionate), sodium stearoyl lactylate, dough conditioner (corn starch, ammonium chloride, ammonium sulfate, calcium peroxide, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, enzymes), calcium propionate (preservative). McFrankenstein Creation ![]() For those of you who consider these eternal McDonald’s hamburger claims over the top, consider this: McDonald’s chicken McNuggets contain tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), a petroleum-based product also added to varnishes, lacquers, resins, and oil field additives, and dimethylpolysiloxane, an anti-foaming agent used in Silly Putty. And prior to 2003, there were even more toxic chemicals in McDonald’s chicken McNuggets that so shocked a federal judge, the chemicals were ordered to be removed. In 2003, a federal judge dubbed the food “a McFrankenstein creation of various elements not utilized by the home cook.” The ingredients allowed to remain are tBHQ and dimethylpolysiloxane. How to create your own Immortal Burger: 1. Buy some hamburgers from your favorite fast food restaurant: McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King (any place that serves hybridized, chemicalized, genetically altered, hormone/ pesticide-laden food) – BUT DON’T EAT THEM! 2. Put your hamburgers in a fairly dry location and let them sit for many, many years. WARNING: Do not put your hamburgers in any sealed containers, like jars. The moisture needs to escape the food naturally, so letting them breathe in the open air works best. 3. And that’s it! You are now the proud owner of your own Burger Museum! After 6 or 7 days, you can display them proudly. No animals or insects will touch them – which makes me wonder why we would ever touch them! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYyDXH1amic source: Friendseat |
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| shure | Sep 17 2010, 11:56 AM Post #2 |
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How about ants? Will they touch that stuff? Rodents? Wednesday, Sep 1, 2010 13:15 ET Salon says, nothing to see here, move along, but I’m not so sure. The secret to the immortality of McDonald's food The chain's burgers can resist rot for years. Scientists explain why they have the shelf life of the undead ![]() Ever since Morgan Spurlock held up that jar of mysteriously well-preserved fries in "Super Size Me," the list of exhibits in the McDonald’s museum of food-that-refuses-go-bad has grown exponentially. The latest entrant is the Happy Meal Project, a burger and a packet of fries that have soldiered on undecayed for 143 days. Started by New York photographer Sally Davies, as a part-art, part-food science experiment, the Happy Meal Project involves Davies documenting a Happy Meal every few days until it spoils. At day 137, the meal still looks pretty great. And then there are other, more shocking examples of McDonald’s food's weird indestructibility: like this poor burger that’s been around for 12 years. This one managed to stave off mold for a year and this one’s been around the country in this lady’s purse for more than four years. Each experiment, of course, brings with it a new wave of fear and outrage over the chemicals and preservatives that are making our fast food almost inorganic. For its part, McDonald’s has remained largely silent. The fast food giant’s Chinese arm released a statement this May to counter the hysteria over Joann Bruso’s year-long experiment. It announced that all its patties are made of 100 percent USDA-approved beef and are completely preservative-free. Sneakily, though, it made no mention of its fries, bread, cheese or sauce. But preservatives alone may not be responsible for the fungus-resisting powers of a Happy Meal. Marion Nestle, chairwoman of New York University’s food studies program, told us over e-mail that McDonald’s would have to use "really a lot of" sodium propionate to prevent bacterial or mold growth. 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. source: salon |
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| shure | Sep 17 2010, 11:58 AM Post #3 |
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McDonald’s Hamburgers: Almost Entirely Indestructible 8/26/10 at 6:25 PM http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2010/08/mcdonalds_hamburgers_almost_en.html ![]() Left: Day 1. Right: Day 137. Terrifying. Photo: Courtesy Sally Davies/Refinery 29 In the name of both art and science, New York photographer Sally Davies decided to buy a hamburger happy meal from McDonald's, set it out on a table, and take a picture of it every day until it disintegrated. That was 137 days ago and the end is nowhere near: The fries look as fresh as the day they came out of the fryer, and the burger — minus a little patty shrinkage — is virtually unchanged. Davies plans to keep going with the project until something happens, but she'd better be ready for a long haul: A twelve-year-old McD's burger surfaced a few years ago looking shockingly well-preserved. If you find yourself in possession of a fast-food hamburger and eating it (or trashing it) isn't an option, there's always the scientific method. Take a cue from University of Nottingham chemistry professor Martyn Poliakoff (who, we must note, has fantastic hair) and dunk the whole thing in a vat of hydrochloric acid, as demonstrated in the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NddZ5ftQb0Q More: McDonalds Happy Meal Project http://www.flickr.com/photos/sallydavies/sets/72157624739645253/ |
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