

A McDonald's burger - 14 years on - tonteldoos
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/mcdonalds-burger-that-looks-the-same-as-day-it-was-cooked-14-years-ago/story-fneuz8zj-1226628424189

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vitaminc
> In 2009, nutritionist Joann Bruso decide to keep a McDonald's Happy Meal
> uncovered on a shelf for a year. Apart from a few cracks in the bun, it
> remained unchanged. "Food is supposed to decompose, go bad and smell foul
> eventually," she wrote on her blog.

> "The fact that it has not decomposed shows you how unhealthy it is for
> children."

How does that show it's unhealthy for children? I'm not saying that a burger
from McDonald's isn't unhealthy, but _why_ is this evidence of it?

Also, beware if you copy and paste from that page—a "Read More" link is
appended to your clipboard.

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derefr
Indeed; it's the most basic form of "begging the question."

The fact that it has not decomposed shows that A. it is made with
preservatives, and that B. the ingredients were manufactured to dessicate
before they decompose. (The burger mummified, basically.)

To write a proper article, you must take those two premises, and explain how
either of them entails "bad for children." It's not hard, but you actually
have to do it if you want to write an article that properly convinces people
of something; you can't just go "look, it still exists, that means something
something biology!"

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molecule
[http://skepticalteacher.wordpress.com/2010/11/14/the-myth-
of...](http://skepticalteacher.wordpress.com/2010/11/14/the-myth-of-the-non-
decomposing-mcdonalds-hamburger/)

~~~
tonteldoos
Good read...but not conclusive either way, based on the comments?

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AjithAntony
Probably just dried out before anything could grow on it.

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xk_id
Exactly, and this can happen to any food.

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leoh
Gross, weird, surprising.

I don't eat McDonald's. But could someone do this with a non-fast food burger
for a control? Some things are not so likely to decompose, say, because of
salt content or because of cooking.

~~~
Lazare
It's been done, repeatedly. And the answer is there's no difference between
McDonald patties and homeade patties.

Any small cooked ground beef patty is unlikely to mold; it dries out too fast.
Larger burger patties will mold, as will smaller ones if kept in the right
conditions.

