I had a professor in high school that had Mcdonalds french fries in a ziploc bag pinned up in his classroom since 2004 i believe, when i graduated in 2008, the fries still looked fresh. Disgusting.

I am, quite frankly, disgusted by this article. Nothing to do with the fact the food has not decomposed, but due to the fact this woman has actually concluded that McDonalds food is bad for children, as it does not decompose. This is wildly farfetched and no person should take any notice of what this woman has to say.

Matt...then go ahead and feed this just to your kids...they will be saying thank you in 20 years when tehy ave kids with 3 arms and such!

Matt:

you are either one of the people who eats mcdonalds religiously and is extremely obese or have no strand of intelligence at all to say that what she is saying is false or untrue

I purchased some kids meal (with french fires) after taking kids to egg hunt, the french fires were left inside the car by mistake.

after a month, I found the french fires inside the car, it didn't look fresh, but is hasn't been decomposed, and there is no odd inside the car.

This totally blows me away! I know that happy meals are bad news but now they will NEVER be bought by me again. Thankfully my 6 and 3 year olds have only had a handful of them. YUCK!

OMG this is sick!! What sort of food are these companies selling the public? Plastic! Money making is all people are worried about these days. Not peoples health. Mcdoanalds should be ashamed of themselves...

am i the only one who got hungry from reading this?

I am going to stock my bomb shelter.

I'm not sure how much I believe the author. I had a prior roommate move out and I found a regular half-eaten mcdonalds cheeseburger in his room covered in maggots. So the flies here did not pass it by.

uh. I guess the same can be said for margarine... maybe someone ought to do a test on that. Eat butter, people.. BUTTER.

Bingo. You are totally right on the margarine. That is NOT food, folks.

Hey stupids,
Dried out food DOES NOT MOLD. Simple. Leave your McD's in the fridge under plastic wrap and it WILL mold. Try it.

Are you telling us you have never had a loaf of bread go bad , left on kitchen counter?

grosssss

Definitely don't believe this story. I worked at McDonald's for several years, and we tried this ourselves over a weekend and nobody wanted to go near it after a few days due to it being mouldy and gross.

She states that even a year later it looked 'pretty good' - I can tell if a McDonald's meal is 15 minutes old; the buns and fries shrivel, and the meat becomes discoloured and dry, for example.

This was in the UK, though. Perhaps in the US the recipe is different and contains more preservatives, but I still doubt it.

Also, if the food is sufficiently dried-out it won't go mouldy very quickly; leave bread out to go stale and you'll see what I mean.

I bought a happy meal when they were first launched in 1932 and didn't have time to eat it, so I put it in the loft for safe keeping. I found it 2 days ago

It's called dehydration people. The food has dehydrated, as it does in environments like inside peoples homes (constant temperature, air conditioning). This has been a technique used for years for preserving food.

This VERY unscientific article does nothing to prove the the amount of preservatives in Mcdonlalds food. All it does it serve to enlighten us how ignorant this person is of basic scientific principals. How do you draw the conclusion that food must be evil and bad for you if it dehydrates after being left out? have you ever eaten dried apricots? Those things don't get mouldy either! they must be awful for you. or "insert any dehydrated food stock here" they must be terrible!!! SHOCKING.

Anyone who thinks this "experiment" is cause for avoiding Mcdonalds, is very gullible, or very stupid.

Sure Mcdonald's food is full of sugar and fat, ITS ON THEIR LABLES! A little now and then won't hurt your kids. Just like too many donuts isn't good either. Moderation folks.

i dont doubt dis at all.mcdonalds has a reputation of doing many bad and disgusting tings but dis is on a hole new level.im never goin 2 by food from dose sickos again.in fact hoo wants to start a campaign 2 get mcdonalds out of business so dey can never feed anyone this filth again. if u agree say yeaaaaaah in a comment 5 times.

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

This is total bogus, the food has dried out. McD's contain a completely healthy amount of preservatives that keep it fresh for a day or two. In which time it dries up. Dry food will not go bad for decades. It works with normal bread if you dry it out. Toast also lasts just as long if cooked properly.

Kind of related, kind of not, but I did an experiment last year in my sophomore science class, and we left a twinkie sitting, unpackaged, for the whole year from August to June, and it was still fresh-looking... I will never eat another twinkie... EVER!

Ive worked at a mac shack, and ive left frozen food out overnight and some of the chicken patties melted into these pools of liquid, you know that cant be healthy

Thank-You! and again Thank-You for your experiment and post.

Really people, give your heads a shake! Do you know what's in McD fries? Potatoes, that's it, potatoes cooked in vegtable oil and salted with plain old soduim chloride. Burgers are 100% beef seasoned after cooking with a salt & pepper blend. Heinz ketchup, mustard, ordinary pickles and rehydrated onions (just add water) and a slice of regular processed cheese. The worst part is the bun which has the same formulation as most white buns you buy at the grocer. It's not poision people, it's high fat to be eaten in moderation, and yes, if you leave it out it will dehydrate, not mold unless you live in a very damp climate.

I'm curious to find out WHY there are so many preservatives? The 'food' in question only has to last long enough to ship and get eaten, so I do understand why they put SOME preservatives in, but why make them indestructible? What's the point?

So a few days ago my friend Scott and I went to lunch and on the back to school as I putting my drink the cup holder I noticed a fry so I picked it up and ate it. Scott then preceded to tell me that the fry has mostly likely been there since October when he spilt all his McDonald's one afternoon. Needless to say it tasted the same as a 'fresh' McDonald's fries but a tad bit crunchier.