posted October 14, 2010 01:23 AM         

Vladimir Lenin, King Tut and the McDonald's Happy Meal: What do they all have in common? A shocking resistance to Mother Nature's cycle of decomposition and biodegradability, apparently.

That's the disturbing point brought home by the latest project of New York City-based artist and photographer Sally Davies, who bought a McDonald's Happy Meal back in April and left it out in her kitchen to see how well it would hold up over time.

The results? "The only change that I can see is that it has become hard as a rock," Davies told the U.K. Daily Mail.
She proceeded to photograph the Happy Meal each week and posted the pictures to Flickr to record the results of her experiment. Now, just over six months later, the Happy Meal has yet to even grow mold. She told the Daily Mail that "the food is plastic to the touch and has an acrylic sheen to it."

Davies -- whose art has been featured in numerous films and television shows and is collected by several celebrities -- told The Upshot that she initiated the project to prove a friend wrong. He believed that any burger would mold or rot within two or three days of being left on a counter. Thus began what's become known as "The Happy Meal Art Project."

[DIY: Make happier meals for your kids at home -- just don't forget one key tip]
"I told my friend about a schoolteacher who's kept a McDonald's burger for 12 years that hasn't changed at all, and he didn't believe me when I told him about it," Davies told us. "He thought I was crazy and said I shouldn't believe everything that I read, so I decided to try it myself."

Some observers of the photo series have noted that the burger's bun appears at different angles, and therefore aired suspicions that the Happy Meal may not in fact be as "untouched" as the project's groundrules stipulate. Davies says there's a simple explanation for the mobile-bun effect. "The meal is on a plate in my apartment on a shelf," she says, "and when I take it down to shoot it, the food slides around. It's hard as rock on a glass plate, so sure, the food is moving."

Davies' friend was the person who should have done the additional research. Wellness and nutrition educator Karen Hanrahan has indeed kept a McDonald's hamburger since 1996 to show clients and students how resistant fast food can be to decomposition.

As for Davies, she said that she might just keep her burger and fries hanging around for a while as well.
"It's sitting on a bookshelf right now, so it's not really taking up any space, so why not?" she said. It ceased giving off any sort of odor after 24 hours, she said, adding: "You have to see this thing."

[Video rewind: Gay-friendly McDonald's ad goes viral]
In response to Davies' project, McDonald's spokeswoman Theresa Riley emailed The Upshot a statement defending the quality of the chain's food. Riley's email also blasted Davies' "completely unsubstantiated" work as something out of "the realm of urban legends."

"McDonald's hamburger patties in the United States are made with 100% USDA-inspected ground beef," Riley wrote. "Our hamburgers are cooked and prepared with salt, pepper and nothing else -- no preservatives, no fillers. Our hamburger buns are baked locally, are made from North American-grown wheat flour and include common government-approved ingredients designed to assure food quality and safety. ... According to Dr. Michael Doyle, Director, Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, 'From a scientific perspective, I can safely say that the way McDonald's hamburgers are freshly processed, no hamburger would look like this after one year unless it was tampered with or held frozen.'"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101012/bs_yblog_ upshot/mcdonalds-happy-meal-resists-decomposition-for-six-months

_________________________________________________

quote:

---

You have to see this thing.

---

posted October 14, 2010 01:33 PM         

We are ingesting soda's that are used to eat away acid and this form of food preservation sounds hella scarey.

I'll admit I'm a soda hound and I frequent McDonald's... but makes me wonder just how badly I've screwed up my body.

posted October 15, 2010 07:56 AM         

i'd be wanting to know the environmental conditions where the burger 'n chips sit ..

specificaly .. air moisture content and ambient temperature ..
~~~~~~
( edited to add )

(some/most) vegetable oils .. tree oils .. will set hard if left out ..
and make a 'coating' .. ..
~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drying_oil ~

just a thought is all .. after putting olive oil on hair and leaving it ;-)
and thinking about 'laquer' applications .. ok laquer is different ..
but some contain tree oils ..
and the 'laquer' on my guitar fretboard is bloody Hard !!!! :-)))
even a tough nylon brush won't effect it .. grime comes off .. but not the set laquer ..
( ok it's marine -varnish ;-) .. slightly if not greatly different to cooking oil )
i.e. it be a rosewood fret board .. and despite using recommended lemon-oil ..
after about 15 yrs it was showing signs of splitting along the grain ..
hence the decision to 'laquer/varnish' it .. and it's worked a treat :-)
better tone as well .. given the laquer fill up any 'spaces' ..

posted October 16, 2010 12:48 AM         

Interesting, HD.

quote:

---

just a thought is all .. after putting olive oil on hair and leaving it ;-)

---

posted October 16, 2010 05:28 PM         

LTT i know what you mean about the nasty water...though i have to admit the first nasty tapwater i ever experienced was in london...poured some into a pot and watched in amazement as it bubbled (as if there were soap in it) and then noticed the "rainbow" streaks similar to an oil slick floating on the top. i even called the water board and they said that was OKAY, just the residue of the chemicals used to CLEAN the water...

i have been drinking filtered, one way or another, ever since!

posted October 17, 2010 02:12 PM         

... .. .. .. .. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm .. .. .. .. ..

don't rekon my hair would stand a chance with 'dawn' ..
it's taken enough of a battering as is ..
( what smidgin of o.o. i did try .. came out fine with regular tea-tree :-)

** well i guess the answer is to wash your happy meal in dawn before eating! **
.. LoL ..

posted October 18, 2010 01:23 PM         

And I think it depends on where you live regarding the water. I have a friend who lives in California and she refuses to drink the water. I visited her a couple of years ago and stayed at her house. I drank a glass of water from the tap and she asked me "did you just drink water from the tap?" I said yeah, looking confused. She said "girl you're crazy" and laughed. She keeps bottled water at her house. I used to live in Cali and drank it from tap all the time...

I live in Utah now and in the city I live in we get our water from a spring. To me it tastes SO good.

posted October 18, 2010 01:26 PM         

I remember in Cuyahoga Falls, the water was getting worse and worse (or was it our pipes?). We bought one of those Brita water filters, because of a build-up of white stuff that would end up in the glass. Ugh.