McDonald's answers 'Why doesn't your food rot?'

About 20 years ago, I was out bike riding in the woods with my nephew and his friends in a coastal South Carolina state park. We stopped prior to the adventure and had lunch at McD's. I had two small hamburgers and a large order of fries. About 30 minutes into the bike ride, I began to get nauseated due to the extreme heat/humidity and forcibly expelled the McD's meal onto the ground.

A week later my nephew and I returned to the same trail to ride it again. I decided to stop and examine where I had taken my little break a week earlier. The remnants of my meal an entire week later appeared exactly the same as they looked when I first deposited them. The scavengers had not even taken a nibble out of this pile.

Being that this occurred in a very hot and humid time of the year I seriously doubt that any lack of moisture contributed to my personal experience of watching McD's food not decay. There was something in that food that caused microbes, raccoons, and possums to refuse to partake of it. I've always suspected the chemical adjuncts as the root cause of what I observed.

The answer is that macdonalds 'food' is actually 100% preservatives, theres not actually any food in their food.

I posted this a few months back when this was last discussed.

There is actually no mystery to this at all - and it is something almost unique to their regular ham/cheeseburger. The main reason that food decomposes is bacterial growth. By a quirk of their design, McDonald's ham/cheeseburgers are a poor evironment for this to happen. The secret is the amount of water and the shape.

1. A standard McDonalds patty weighs 45g (or 1/10th of a lb, basically). That 45g contains a relatively high amount of fat - something like 7g from what I can gather. Like all McDonalds food, it's fat instead of water that gives the juiciness. Water is actually undesireable in batch cooking products, so the water content has been lowered.

2. That 45g patty is presented as a thin, wide shape. This makes it very easy for what moisture you do have to evaporate... even inside the bun.

3. The high fat content of the burger means the condiments won't penetrate the meat, keeping it dry. Basically it turns into McDonald's jerky!

What these videos don't show is that the bun will have rotted at least some where the condiments inside are placed. The shape and weight of the bun allows it to dry out (like the patty), but it will certainly decompose a little inside... it's simply that the bun will dry out completely before rot can fully take hold. Fat is what keeps the bun, patty and fries looking anywhere presentable - but it's the simple absence of water that stops it rotting.

Any other product from McD's would rot - it's simply that this product is a 'perfect storm' of conditions to prevent it.

Hope that helps!

I dropped a McDonalds french fry nearly a year ago on the floor of my truck, and it has yet to decompose. I often pick this fry up and vacuum around it and place it back where it was, as a sort of personal motivator to never go back there.

The fry has only hardened, almost to a plastic consistency, but shows no molding or decomposition yet.

This makes me question how fresh the food there actually is. With an extreme environment shelf life of over a year, can we trust that any of the food there is fresh?

I don't know if they are sold everywhere, but McDonald's serves apple slices in Canada, and if left out to the air for even a full day, the slice will not even turn brown. I'm pretty sure apples aren't designed to have their moisture evaporate quickly.

a reply to: oneupShadow

Fries are another food item unlikely to rot. Potatoes are low in water anyhow and when cut thin, fried and salted most of their natural water will simply evaporate. The surface area is very high compared to the overall mass. The fact it's gone hard suggests it's completely dry, and hence inert from a decomposition stand point.

This doesn't just go for McD's fries - it's even the case with the larger, thicker British style fry we have here in Fish and Chips. As I say, fat is what keeps food looking any way presentable when the moisture has gone.

As for the apples - the brownness comes from the iron in the flesh reacting with oxygen. Essentially the apple rusts.

I have no idea if McDs do anything to their apple slices - but it might well be that they're either simply cut with an incredibly sharp blade which reduces the surface area for the reaction, or they're washed in water with a little absorbic acid in it. That doesn't necessarily mean using chemicals though - you could just add the juice of a lemon to ten litres of water without it creating a noticeable taste.

You could also wash the apples in salt water (about 1/2tsp for about 4 litres) but I'd be surprised if they do that to be honest.

I know this stuff as I used to work at a photography place that did a lot of food styling.

a reply to: pdawg67

I always felt that Mcdonalds "food" is not really food but a chemical approximation of food. Imitation food that's engineered for taste and nothing more.

I had an interesting experience with the Fries. I remember having my nephew for a few weeks one summer and was driving a Jeep Cherokee at the time. We stopped at Mcdonalds and he got a happy meal, which included a small fries. He left the mostly empty bag in the back seat. For some reason he didn't eat the fries, at any rate he went home,I put my jeep in the garage and locked it up, and we went on vacation. I remember coming home like 3 weeks later, and finding the bag on the floor in the back seat, containing the uneaten fries, which looked EXACTLY like they did the day they were purchased. No decay, no mold, nothing. I think its the high sodium content that keeps the mold and bacteria at bay. But its rather disturbing that this food seems to be only desired for consumption by us humans.

originally posted by: Biigs
The answer is that macdonalds 'food' is actually 100% preservatives, theres not actually any food in their food.

a reply to: KingIcarus

actually I believe they do use ascorbic acid (my Toast-siblings would always get apple slices in their happy meals)

Also a true fact, my Toast-Step-Mom used to dip our apples in orange juice to keep them fresh in lunch bags

When I was little, I crammed a bunch of Micky D's fries in my cabbage patch dolls mouth. I had forgot about doing that until 20 years later, when I was going to give it to my daughter. She was playing with it when I noticed the head sounded like a rattle, which was something it didn't do when I played with it as a child. When I tore it open I found rock hard, completely blackened fries (definitely identifiable as McDonald brand). So I know that 20 years inside a cabbage patch doll is "the right environment."....