McDonald's hamburger from 1999 looks exactly the same today

Wednesday, May 01, 2013 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: McDonald''s, preservatives, processed foods

(NaturalNews) A Utah man's recent discovery of an old fast food hamburger hiding in a coat pocket serves as a reminder to us all about why we continue to choose fresh foods as close to their natural states as possible over processed foods. What began as a month-long experiment to see how long it takes for a basic McDonald's hamburger to decompose turned in a shocking revelation for David Whipple, whose 14-year-old McDonald's hamburger still looks almost exactly the same today as it did back in 1999 when he first purchased it.

Mirroring a similar experiment involving a McDonald's Happy Meal in the 2004 documentary Super Size Me, Whipple set out back in 1999 to see how long it would take for a McDonald's hamburger to grow mold and decompose, normal processes that typically occur in natural foods. After one month, the McDonald's hamburger appeared mostly unchanged, and Whipple eventually forgot about it. Several years later, however, his wife discovered the hamburger in a coat pocket and observed that it still had not changed in appearance, texture, or even smell.

"It wasn't on purpose," Whipple is quoted as saying about the now 14-year-old hamburger by ChristianPost.com. "I was showing some people how enzymes work and I thought a hamburger would be a good idea. And I used it for a month and then forgot about it. It ended up in a paper sack in the original sack with the receipt in my coat pocket tossed in the back of my truck and it sat there for, I don't know, two or three months."

"My wife didn't discover it until at least a year or two after that. And we pulled it out and said, 'Oh my gosh, I can't believe it looks the same way.'"

Whipple held onto the hamburger for many more years, according to reports, and eventually garnered the attention of the TV show The Doctors, which invited him on the show to feature the eerily-preserved hamburger. As can be seen in the following video clip, the hamburger itself, other than having a dry appearance, has maintained its brown, meat-like color all these years. And the bun, which normally would have molded if it had been made of real bread, is still a toasty golden color with a white inside:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com

"If the mold won't eat it, if fungus won't eat it, if bugs won't eat it, maybe we shouldn't be eating it," stated Dr. Jim Sears, M.D., a pediatrician and co-host of The Doctors, after seeing the burger.

McDonald's hamburgers loaded with preservatives, fillers, and other chemicals

In response, McDonald's has since claimed that the reason its burgers do not mold, decay, or change in any perceivable way over time is because they are dried while being cooked and toasted. But this explanation fails to address why even the bun does not mold or decompose.

The real reason why McDonald's food in numerous tests does not decompose appears to be its high content of preservatives, filler ingredients, and other chemicals that not only keep the highly-processed food appearing fresh, but also detract living organisms from actually eating it. As explained on the blog World's Oldest Hamburger, a McDonald's hamburger bun contains at least 20 different additives beyond just the flour, salt, water, and yeast typically used in creating breads.

According to reports, Whipple and his wife have been offered large sums of money for their preserved hamburger, including a $5,000 offer by an East Coast radio station that wanted to use it for a shock promotional campaign. But the couple has held on to the novelty hamburger, and currently keeps it in a small tin shaped like a hamburger.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com

http://www.christianpost.com

http://oldesthamburger.blogspot.com/