The burger that does not rot… or does it?

Karen Hanrahan, Sally Davies and countless others have documented that the McDonald’s burger, just like plastic, does not decay. Could this be true?

The Experiment

I came across an experiment done by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt of A Hamburger Today (read full article here) which aims to answer that question. He compared the rate of decomposition (if any) of a McDonald’s regular burger, a McDonald’s quarter-pounder, and home-made ground beef burgers made in the exact specifications as those McDonald’s burgers.

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

He observed them for a total of 25 days. What were his results?

1. The McDonald’s regular burger indeed did not rot! No molds were seen in the pattie!
2. However, before the McDo burger haters rejoice, surprisingly, the home made regular burger also did not rot… at all!
3. Both the McDonald’s quarter-pounder and the home-made quarter-pounder had molds growing in them.

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

What happened?

1. The burgers shrank as they lost their water content (through evaporation).
2. And without water, there is no life. No life (bacteria, mold), no decay.
3. Because of the small size of the regular burgers, they became dehydrated so fast (they lost 93% of their water content in 3 days) that they became inhospitable for growth.

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

The quarter-pounders, being larger in size took longer to get dehydrated. They needed 7 days to get as dehydrated as the regular burgers. The extra days allowed for spores to grow. However, after the 7th day, when the burgers were already dehydrated, no further growth of the molds was noted.

What this means?

What this experiment showed is that the reason the McDonalds’s regular burgers do not rot is not because of the preservatives in them, but because the burgers  lose their water content very fast. As proof, when he put McDonald’s burgers in zip lock bags (in effect trapping the moisture in), molds grew in them just as fast as those in the regular burgers.

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

After reading this, I suddenly had the urge to go grab a McDonald’s burger. However, before I could… I decided to read just 1 more article… an article published by the NY Times in 2004.

What’s in it?

1. McDonald’s, Burger King and other fast foods use processed beef as a component in their ground beef.
2. What is processed beef? Processed beef comes from the fatty trimmings of cow carcasses which was previously used only as pet food and cooking oil. The fat from the trimmings are liquified, and the protein in them is extracted through a centrifuge. This extracted protein is what is known as processed beef.
3. Processed beef is described by a USDA microbiologist as pink slime that should not be considered ground beef.
4. The processed beef is indeed treated with ammonia. It was found to be an effective way to kill bacteria in the beef. Since fatty trimmings have high bacterial counts of disease-causing Salmonella and E. coli.
5. Although ammonia treatment seems effective, there are some reports of bacterial contamination of beef containing processed beef.

What now?

If you still want to eat fast food burgers, be rest assured that their patties are indeed from cows, that they’re probably free from bacterial contamination, and rots if given the proper environment. But for me, I decided to stick to my resolution… no more fast food burgers for me! Why eat a product made with something initially fit for pets, and cleansed with something I use to clean my toilet bowl?

I will no longer eat a McDonald’s burger.

Yup. That’s my new year’s resolution…

I resolve not to eat a McDonald’s burger, or any fastfood burger for that matter, for as long as I can.

The Reason

I already know that it’s not the healthiest of foods. It is high in fat and is nutritionally deficient. I even know that eating one reacts badly with my body. Ever since I started running and attempted to eat more healthily, I’ve noticed that a few hours after eating a burger… I’d feel weird. It’s probably because of all the chemicals in the burger ‘poisoning’ my body. However, inspite of knowing all these, I never did stop eating McDonald’s burgers. Well, that is until I came across this story in the internet…

THE MCDONALD’s BURGER DOES NOT ROT!

In 2008, Karen Hanrahan posted in her blog Best of Mother Earth this picture of a McDonald’s burger that she’s kept for 12 years! The burger on the left is the burger from 1996 and the one on the right was a newly bought burger. They sure look quite similar…

* downladed from http://bestofmotherearth.com/2008/09/24/1996-mcdonalds-hamburger.html*

Just recently, this experiment was repeated by Sally Davies, a New York-based artist, who photographed her burger daily for 6 months to see what would happen to it. And lo and behold, six months later, the burger (and fries) has hardly changed! The only changes she’s noted is that “it has become hard as a rock,” and “the food is plastic to the touch and has an acrylic sheen to it.” (Probably looks like those food decors outside some Japanese restaurants).

*downloaded from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1319562/McDonalds-Happy-Meal-bought-Sally-Davies-shows-sign-mould-6-months.html*

However, I wasn’t sure if these claims were true. It just seems too perplexing. Why wouldn’t those burgers not show any hints of decay? Was it because they’re so full of chemicals and preservatives that they’re already resistant to decomposition?

An article in yahoo seems to confirm this since I read that to ensure that beef in burger patties are free of bacteria, they are usually treated with ammonia, which is a chemical found in fertilizers and some household cleaning agents. So is the ‘cleansing’ the burgers undergo so strong that no living thing can survive in them after?

In defense of the McDonald’s burger, I read that a McDonald’s spokeswoman has said that “McDonald’s hamburger patties in the United States (my question though is how about in other countries?) are made with 100% USDA-inspected ground beef. Our hamburgers are cooked with and prepared with salt, pepper and nothing else – no preservatives, no fillers.” In addition, she also states that Davies’ experiment was “completely unsubstantiated.” So if we’re to believe that statement from McDonald’s, why the heck doesn’t their burger rot?

 

To be continued…