After 11 days of sitting at room temperature in a Ziploc bag, this is the photo of the 2 burgers. Obviously, the one on the right is the homemade burger and the one on the left is the McDonald's cheeseburger.
The McDonald's burger was purchased about 30 minutes before I made the control burger.
The McDonald's cheeseburger smells the same as when it was purchased. When opened - it showed no signs of decomposition.
The homemade cheeseburger had to be tossed out because it smelled really bad.
Why didn't the McDonald's cheeseburger rot?
My answer is simple. It isn't food. Here is the definition of food:
Any nourishing substance that is eaten, drunk, or otherwise taken into the body to sustain life, provide energy, promote growth, etc.
Where I get stuck is the word nourishing. If bacteria or fungi aren't interested in "eating" this cheeseburger, how can it be nourishing to human beings?
On a personal note, I used to eat fast food regularly. My university was across the street from a McDonald's and my home in San Francisco was about 100 yards from a Burger King.
I'm not sure when exactly it was, but I starting getting bad stomach aches whenever I ate a cheeseburger from a fast food venue. My stomach just couldn't handle the food. At first, I thought it was because of the grease. But, I can eat other really fatty things without a stomach ache.
Maybe I am getting stomach aches because my body cannot DIGEST this burger. If bacteria from the air can't digest the McD's cheeseburger in 11 days - how is my intestinal bacteria (along with stomach acids) supposed to digest it in 24 hours? Just a thought.
Every school science class can do this experiment for $3, and I think it is worth doing. We need to discuss this "food" with our children and our families and decide how it contributes to our overall health.
Food for Thought??? Story found at http://www.snack-girl.com
Excellent post! This would make a great science fair project.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. Haven't eaten fast food in years, and for the majority consume real food. My husband reluctantly accepted a mcdonald's breakfast burrito the other day from a man he works with thinking "how bad could it be", well a couple hours afterwards he got a raging stomach ache and had to take a few trips to the bathroom during work because of it.
ReplyDeleteI get a lot of great recipes off this site: http://nourishedkitchen.com/