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.

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?

I began eating a McD hamburger 20 years ago. I was 28 at the time. 20 years later I have not wrinkled, aged, and my hair is still as red as it was then. It's amazing. Better than Botox and anti-aging creams. The only catch is my wife says I look very much like Ronald McDonald and smell like a side of beef.

I wonder if this would work with Wendy's or the BK Broiler??

In April 2007, I volunteered to help homeowners in New Orleans clean up after Hurricane Katrina. I was in a house 8 months after the storm that hadn't been cleaned out yet. This house had been under 5 feet of water for more than two weeks, then everything just sat in the house for 8 months. I cleaned out the refrigerator (which was on its side in the living room). Words cannot describe how disgusting that 'fridge looked or smelled, but one thing stands out. The only thing that was still recognizable in that 'fridge was a bout a pound of deli-sliced American cheese. It looked completely normal. Maggots ate just about everything else in there, but left the cheese alone. American cheese: It's Not Good Enough for Maggots!