A Happy Meal - 1 Year Later

Peyton Manning

This is a happy meal the day it was bought, March 3rd 2009.

This is the exact same happy meal, 1 year later on March 3rd 2010.

Blogger and nutritionist Joann Bruso celebrated an unusual birthday this past March: the one-year anniversary of a Happy Meal on her office shelf.

Exactly one year ago, Bruso purchased a McDonald's Happy Meal --something the nutritionist probably wouldn't dream of eating or feeding to a child-- for the sake of conducting a bit of a scientific experiment. The test was simple: place the Happy Meal on a shelf, right behind the computer where she does her writing, and wait.

And wait she did, for one entire year, as the burger, fries and drink moldered away on the shelf. Only, contrary to what one would expect of food left out in the air for twelve months, the Happy Meal didn't gather any actual mold.

In fact, the Happy Meal looks mysteriously similar to how it looked one year ago. Bruso describes the miniscule changes that have occurred:

"The bread is crusty and if you look closely, you will see a crack across the top. The hamburger has shrunk a bit and still resembles a hockey puck. Yet, the French fries look yummy enough to eat. I never had an odor problem, after a couple of weeks, I couldn’t even smell the fries."

Bruso realizes that a Happy Meal exhibiting few changes after an entire year is not a good thing. Real food is meant to break down inside the body. If a burger can't be decomposed even by microbes, then it is true, she asserts, that "your child's body can't properly metabolize it either."

The reason for the lack of change in the year-old McDonald's Happy Meal is the number of preservatives in the food. While McDonald's has attempted to counter claims about its unhealthiness by posting calorie counts and featuring some slightly healthier menu items, the actual ingredients are something you won't hear them touting in their ad campaigns.

While McDonald's insists that they use no preservatives in their hamburger patty, the bun, pickle and french fries are a whole different story. In fact, for such a simple item, the list of ingredients for the humble pickle slice is lengthy: cucumbers, water, distilled vinegar, salt, calcium chloride, sodium benzoate or potassium sorbate (preservative), natural flavor (vegetable source), alum, polysorbate 80, turmeric.

The Happy Meal hamburger bun's ingredient list is sadly too long to reproduce, but includes the preservative calcium propionate (which is what keeps that year-old bun looking daisy fresh), along with ominous sounding ingredients such as calcium peroxide and azodicarbonamide. Yum!

The next time you think about buying a Happy Meal for your kids, consider the fact that it might just contain some of the same ingredients as the toy it comes with.

From here.


Mmmmmmm, preservatives.

*drool*

bad2dabone

i REALLY need to re-examine my diet.

Big time.

Rabies

take away food left for 24hrs in the open.
What did you expect.

Have you ever left a piece bread out over night?

kavsmdf

Anyone know what she's gonna do with that meal now? It'd be a shame to waste it....








Yum.

FearDark

Id still chance the hamburger. Love em.

Duggy747

She might as well have taken 2 photos at different angles on the same day!!

McDonalds food is gak, anyways!

This shìt ain't gonna kill ya if you don't feast on it all the damn time.

FearDark

Rabies wrote: »

take away food left for 24hrs in the open.
What did you expect.

Have you ever left a piece bread out over night?

Jeeeez at least read the article.

Piste

Isn't calcium propionate added to bread as a matter of course? I didn't think it was unique to McDonalds or other fast food outlets.

Rabies

FearDark wrote: »

Jeeeez at least read the article.

ha ha...
I seen one day not one year

Rabies Fail

Sharpshooter

It just looks better, right?

Peyton Manning

Sharpshooter wrote: »

It just looks better, right?

The box is the only thing that looks worse for wear in those pictures.

Opium led greed

The burger looks like its trying to eat itself.

4zn76tysfajdxp

The toy looks a lot sadder in the before picture.

3hn2givr7mx1sc

The puppy looks wayyyy sadder in the second one.:(

friendface

Can someone tell me what's wrong with this picture?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM8qT9Xop5k

DazMarz

"Miserable, squashed thing"... Love Falling Down.

But seriously, this is Super Size Me kind of, sort of, maybe being rehashed more than a little bit, in fairness.

McDonalds is just way too easy a target nowadays IMO.

Sharpshooter

Opium led greed wrote: »

The burger looks like its trying to eat itself.

It looks like it has eaten itself.

And another thing, why is it that no matter how much food you eat from McDonald's you're hungry again in less than an hour?

CHD

Is it microwavable after a year?

TPD

Sharpshooter wrote: »

It looks like it has eaten itself.

And another thing, why is it that no matter how much food you eat from McDonald's you're hungry again in less than an hour?

You're not eating enough is why

x PyRo

These threads about food always make me hungry.

OutlawPete

I leave bread out for even a day, it's covered in mould.

So why is this bun so stale looking and mould free?

m@cc@

OutlawPete wrote: »

I leave bread out for even a day, it's covered in mould.

So why is this bun so stale looking and mould free?

My buns are usually mould free.

OutlawPete

m@cc@ wrote: »

My buns are usually mould free.

Nice and tight too I see

Dara Robinson

Man, I was a supervisor for MacD's years and years ago. The food was horrible, really bad man. The most shocking thing for me was the onions. The come freeze dried (you know, space age crap) and they look like rice. In fact when I first saw them I asked was there a new rice item on the menu... Anywas, soak them in water for 30 mins or so if I remember right and your rice is now onions..

/shudders

m@cc@

Dara Robinson wrote: »

Man, I was a supervisor for MacD's years and years ago. The food was horrible, really bad man. The most shocking thing for me was the onions. The come freeze dried (you know, space age crap) and they look like rice. In fact when I first saw them I asked was there a new rice item on the menu... Anywas, soak them in water for 30 mins or so if I remember right and your rice is now onions..

/shudders

Jeez, and you think you know your onions.......

x PyRo

m@cc@ wrote: »

Jeez, and you think you know your onions.......

Actually laughed out loud at that.

Overheal

How old do you reckon are the Buns they sell from behind the counter??!

I may be a little sick.

Sofiztikated

How'd you manage to leave it on a shelf for a year. Christ on a unicycle, if a McD's is anywhere near me for 5 minutes, its getting eaten. Year old, or not year old.

I know its not good for me, I know the nuggets are made from chicken poop and and the burgers are from the bits of the cow anatomy that still doesn't have a name, but I'm still going to eat it.

Overheal

Sofiztikated wrote: »

How'd you manage to leave it on a shelf for a year. Christ on a unicycle, if a McD's is anywhere near me for 5 minutes, its getting eaten. Year old, or not year old.

I know its not good for me, I know the nuggets are made from chicken poop and and the burgers are from the bits of the cow anatomy that still doesn't have a name, but I'm still going to eat it.

Jamie Oliver's food education fails to work on American Kids shocker:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/268500/march-30-2010/thought-for-food---corn-diapers--fatty-foods---jamie-oliver

Jamie Oliver: "This exercise never fails" [on normal children]

"Now that you know whats in a Chicken Nugget would you still eat it?"

Kids: "......Yeah."

"Why?"

Kid: "Because we're hungry."

Sofiztikated

Overheal wrote: »

Jamie Oliver's food education fails to work on American Kids shocker:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/268500/march-30-2010/thought-for-food---corn-diapers--fatty-foods---jamie-oliver

Jamie Oliver: "This exercise never fails" [on normal children]

"Now that you know whats in a Chicken Nugget would you still eat it?"

Kids: "......Yeah."

"Why?"

Kid: "Because we're hungry."

Thats simply brilliant!

Victor

Of course, if you put any food behind a computer where it is warm and dry, it will dry out. Mold won't grow without dampness.

m@cc@

Unless they had a control experiment going, it proves little on its own.

lorebringer

m@cc@ wrote: »

Unless they had a control experiment going, it proves little on its own.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on6BSfHlK_w

TheZohanS

Victor wrote: »

Of course, if you put any food behind a computer where it is warm and dry, it will dry out. Mold won't grow without dampness.

Ah so that explains why you get mouldy when you drink a lot...dampness...

old_aussie

OutlawPete wrote: »

I leave bread out for even a day, it's covered in mould.

So why is this bun so stale looking and mould free?

Cause mould doesn't eat plastic, it has better taste.

bonerm

DazMarz wrote: »

But seriously, this is Super Size Me kind of, sort of, maybe being rehashed more than a little bit, in fairness.

SuperSize Me already did this. It's not in the film intself but there's a clip on the DVD extras where yer man buys half the mcdonalds menu (and some stuff from some other places like chippers iirc?) and then just leaves them in glass bell-jars indefinetly. He found that the chipper style stuff did decay quickly but that a lot of the McDonalds stuff wasn't changing at all.

The "experiement" was ended after something like 2x months when one of his co-workers accidently threw out all the food.

YT is down for me atm but if you search "YouTube - Supersize Me - McDonalds Fast-Food Test " you might be able to see the footage.

nice1franko

The stuff they use in America must be different to what we use Ireland.

I worked in McDonalds for 2 years when I was a young lad I can tell you that there is nothing wrong with the food. The burgers are 100% traceable Irish beef (I know one student who used to take a stack of the burgers home and make bolognese with it). There are some preservatives in the bread but certainly no more than is in a standard loaf of bread in the supermarket.

Some things are bad there - the mayo is higher in fat than your standard Hellmans (but is way nicer in fairness) and the grease they fry the chips in is actually a type of lard (and yes, the chips are made from Irish spuds and are not flour or some other BS).

Don't take my word for it though... go and spend 3 euro (or whatever it is) on a happy meal, leave it on a shelf and come back in a few days

alwaysadub

See,this is why i eat Burger King. :pac:

consultech

Having looked both pictures; Did anyone else go back to the first picture to check if the toy was happy? Or was that just me?

thetonynator

The weird thing is that despite knowing everything about how disgusting it is etc. we all still eat it and have done for years and it hssn't caused any one any problems except for those that eat it too often and get fat. But we haven't died because of reeze dried onions . . .

Lizzzard

I'm fairly sure someone did this with a BigMac meal before and left it in their fridge for something like 2 and a half years, ended up looking the exact same, can't find the link at the moment but will post if I find.

Gummy Panda

I know people who buy McDonalds for their lunch when they feel a bit consitipated.

Apparently it does the job

consultech

thetonynator wrote: »

The weird thing is that despite knowing everything about how disgusting it is etc. we all still eat it and have done for years and it hssn't caused any one any problems except for those that eat it too often and get fat. But we haven't died because of reeze dried onions . . .

That's the thing, we literally couldn't give a sh1t, as much as we pretend we do. "Supersize Me" made me hungry ffs, I went to McDonalds literally straight after it.

GLaDOS

consultech wrote: »

we literally couldn't give a sh1t,

Try laxatives?



If I ate mcdonalds I wouldn't care, but it's not that nice or filling so I usually avoid it anyway

--LOS--

Dara Robinson wrote: »

Man, I was a supervisor for MacD's years and years ago. The food was horrible, really bad man. The most shocking thing for me was the onions. The come freeze dried (you know, space age crap) and they look like rice. In fact when I first saw them I asked was there a new rice item on the menu... Anywas, soak them in water for 30 mins or so if I remember right and your rice is now onions..

/shudders

what's wrong with freeze-drying? All it is is freezing and removing the water through sublimation, doesn't harm its nutritional value. Rather freeze-drying than artificial preservatives.

jimmycrackcorm

Gummy Panda wrote: »

I know people who buy McDonalds for their lunch when they feel a bit consitipated.

Apparently it does the job

I find a McD's does tend to come out not long after it goes in...

--LOS--

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I find a McD's does tend to come out not long after it goes in...

that must be why it doesnt fill you if its too hard to breakdown.

listermint

I call Shenanigans!

She drank the drink, otherwise it leaks through the base of the cup. I know from experience. Those cups dont hold for more than a couple of hours.

Jesus Wept

This has been done before, long ago.
It's not news and at this point the strangest thing in my opinion is that anyone has paid her any attention.

tipperaryboy

What's the big difference between the photos?

Mint Sauce

tipperaryboy wrote: »

What's the big difference between the photos?

the lighting/flash settings