Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

This is quite amusing because I did the same exact thing but with a McDonald's fry. I have had it in my car's ashtray for almost a year. It has not rotted one bit. It still has it's color. Kind of scary if you think about it.

Well for a food to mold, there are several factors tat need to be met, including acidity, fat content, temperature, moisture content, etc...

Generally, foods with very high fat contents will not mold (such as a mcdonalds burger patty). A normal slice of bread will get quite moldy, but dip it in oil, and it will essentially stay looking fresh forever in a relatively controlled environment.

Just a side note - unless you are eating unprocessed, whole foods - you are eating the same crap that is in mcdonalds. The entire food industry is (like any other industry) concerned primarily with profits, not with peoples health or safety in mind. I am all about the free market, but when it comes to the things we put into our bodies, profit shouldn't trump everything else.

Forget about the burgers. Get a MickyD shake, leave it at room temp and see what doesn't happen. A real milk shake will consolidate back to liquid as it warms...Not Ronalds ...Chemicalada is what I like to call 'em.

@jessie I was just thinking that myself. I looked at the picture and thought okay the one on the left is the newer one, then I read the article and found out the one on the right was the new one.

Neither looks like the McDonald's burgers I've seen. These are both made for studio appearances and not for the consumer. But that’s OK with me, I would only eat at McDonald’s if it was the only thing open and I was starving.

Are you guys serious, I am in pest control and some of those ingredients I spray spiders and termites with, there were a few listed that are banned in Australia and now I am cured of eating McDonalds.

My friend bought a loaf of Wonderbread out of desperation (got home late after a long weekend camping & no food in the house). Went shopping the next day for real food, and weeks later when she came upon the Wonderbread still in the cupboard it was still soft & unchanged. THAT is not good for you.

Reduce the water content of any food product enough and it will not "rot." No magic or insidious plots here. If it makes you feel good to bash companies like McD's, have at it, but they are not ruled by some evil group of people whose only goal is to put one over on you.

It's like the ancient Twinkie I remember my high school history teacher kept in his drawer, bright and yellow.

Not only the burger, but the bun on the one on the left still looks awesome and better than the 2008 bun.

The reason McDonald's burgers don't decay is due to the inert gases that make up its molecular structure (inert gases are those that contain 8 electrons in their outer molecular layer, therefore they don't mix with anything in their environment, thus avoiding decay brought on by chemical reactions). That explains why, after eating McDonald's burgers, my farts smell as delicious as the burger itself when unwrapped.
Makes sense?

That's every day I eat a McD hamburger. Two on Sundays.