Morgan Spurlock did this in Super Size Me, for about a year. But Karen Hanrahan has kept a McDonald’s hamburger since 1996.
Yup, she’s had this burger for 12 years!
And it still looks ready to eat. That’s frightening!
McDonald’s (and other factory fast food joints) use a lot of preservatives to keep their food fresh-looking (note: ‘fresh-looking,’ not ‘fresh’) during it’s production, transportation, and storage. This keeps their food looking good a lot longer than is natural. (See the end of this post for the current ingredients in a McDonald’s Hamburger bun.)
Under regular circumstances, if you grilled a burger and put it on a bun and put it in a container for a month, you’d have to scrape the mold off just to see it.
As Karen says, “Ladies, Gentleman, and children alike – this is a chemical food. There is absolutely no nutrition here.”
Karen is a wellness consultant and uses the 12 year old burger as a prop in her talks. See all the photos and read Karen’s description on her blog, “Best of Mother Earth ~ Creating Healthier Lives”.
NOTE: Regarding the hamburger wrapper in the photo that is clearly a more current wrapper with the “I’m lovin’ it” slogan, Karen explains this in her post: “The paper and bag in the backround is circa 2008 – to add decor to the photo. My friend Robyn’s idea.”
McDonald’s Hamburger Bun ingredients (as of 2008):
Enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, high fructose corn syrup, yeast, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, soybean oil, canola oil, contains 2% or less of each of the following: salt, wheat gluten, calcium sulfate, soy flour, ammonium sulfate, calcium carbonate, calcium phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, ammonium chloride, baking soda, sorbic acid, deactivated dry yeast, dough conditioners (may contain one or more the following: distilled monoglycerides, DATEM, sodium stearoyl lactylate, calcium peroxide, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, mono- and diglycerides, enzymes, guar gum), calcium propionate & sodium propionate (preservatives), soy lecithin.
Note: Calcium and Sodium Propionate are ‘mold inhibitors,’ hence the fresh looking 12 year old bun
Did you Know?
Most folks assume that a chicken nugget is just a piece of fried chicken, right? Wrong! Did you know, for example, that a McDonald's Chicken McNugget is 56% corn?
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan is a fascinating book that details the changing eating habits of Americans. I can't recommend it highly enough. It explains how, over the last 30 years, we have become a nation that eats vast quantities of corn much more so than Mexicans, the original "corn people."
But perhaps the most alarming ingredient in a Chicken McNugget is tertiary butylhydroquinone, or TBHQ, an antioxidant derived from petroleum that is either sprayed directly on the nugget or the inside of the box it comes in to "help preserve freshness." According to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, TBHQ is a form of butane (i.e. lighter fluid) the FDA allows processors to use sparingly in our food: It can comprise no more than 0.02 percent of the oil in a nugget. Which is probably just as well, considering that ingesting a single gram of TBHQ can cause "nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse." Ingesting five grams of TBHQ can kill."
Bet you never thought that was in your chicken McNuggets!
Source
Save on production costs and go to You Tube. The beauty of social networking...apparently these plonkers are now millionaires because they made a rap about Chicken McNuggets and posted it on the internet. McDonalds capitalised on their bad skin and poor musicability, slapped their logo on it and voila! Instant success!
Freaky or wot?