Iceland Livestreams 10-Year-Old McDonald's Cheeseburger That Won't Decompose (bbc.com) 200
dryriver shares a report from the BBC: When McDonald's closed all its restaurants in Iceland in 2009, one man decided to buy his last hamburger and fries. "I had heard that McDonald's never decompose so I just wanted to see if it was true or not," Hjortur Smarason told AFP. This week, it's 10 years since the seemingly indestructible meal was purchased, and it barely looks a day older. Curious observers can watch a live stream of the burger and fries from its current location in a glass cabinet in Snotra House, a hostel in southern Iceland. "The old guy is still there, feeling quite well. It still looks quite good actually," the hostel's owner Siggi Sigurdur told BBC News. "It's a fun thing, of course, but it makes you think about what you are eating. There is no mold, it's only the paper wrapping that looks old." The hostel claims that people come from around the world to visit the burger, and the website receives up to 400,000 hits daily.
I'd rather watch.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously. The guy took a meal, that should have been mold free to begin with, and placed it in a sealed environment... and we are shocked that there is no mold? Maybe someone can explain how decomposition works because apparently I dont understand it.
He has proven that the food when given to the customer... is mold free. Isnt that a good thing?
Re:I'd rather watch.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't that a good thing?
He's just waiting and trying to prove Spontaneous Generation. That'll be Any Day Now.
Re:I'd rather watch.... (Score:5, Informative)
It's not sealed at all, it's a simple glass cabinet with a basic latch. There's nothing to prevent air, moisture, mould spores etc getting in the edges.
Most food gets mouldy after a week or two, even when sealed (properly) in a Tupperware container and placed in a fridge. Ten years in an unsealed, unrefrigerated container is not ordinary.
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Look at the article. I don't see a latch anywhere. Just a glazed case.
No humidity, a generally sealed environment.
Initial conditions that were unfriendly to mold growth.
And they're weirded out that they didn't get mold growth or maggots.
OF COURSE they didn't get maggots! You have to have flies laying eggs on the thing to get that. A fly isn't going to land on a hot burger.
"Not enough nutrients to support mold growth".
Bullshit.
It's environmental factors contributing to the longevity.
These people are just
Re:I'd rather watch.... (Score:5, Interesting)
It takes a single spore to mold food. There is zero possibility - none - that in this food's entire history, it's not been exposed to mold. And unless they specifically vacuum-sealed the chamber - including a long dessication period for the food - there's also moisture in there.
Try a different line of argument.
I personally don't know why it hasn't moulded. Maybe it dried enough, quickly enough, that combined with a high sodium content, it's not proven vulnerable to attack? E.g., mummification. But the lines of argument that it was "mold free to begin with" and there's "no humidity" just fall flat.
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I think it would be interesting to have the meal tested for pathogens. Why stock up on expensive MREs for your shelter if you can just shove a bunch of Micky-Ds in a corner and call it good?
Re: I'd rather watch.... (Score:2)
I think it would be interesting to have the meal tested for pathogens.
You're getting the point: nothing can live in that shit.
Re: I'd rather watch.... (Score:2)
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There's not ENOUGH moisture. It's a closed off glass case, heated constantly by a light bulb.
That box is as dry as Sahara.
So it's not saponification - there's too much air and not enough moisture for anaerobic bacteria to do their thing.
But yeah, salt (and sugar) are preservatives and desiccants.
That means they don't just absorb moisture from the air - they suck moisture out of bacteria and mold too. Dehydrating and killing them off.
It's basic food preservation.
Salt the meat and dry it out, salt and sugar f
Re: I'd rather watch.... (Score:2)
I kid, I kid; I wonder no such fucking thing but thanks for the amusement.
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The main thing that helps the burger stay unaffected by time is the thinness. If you make a 'real' burger patty yourself that is as thin as a typical McD patty, it won't visibly deteriorate either. Likewise, if you take the singificantly thicker patty from one of McDonald's 'premium' burgers they will go bad simply because germs and mold have time to do their thing before it can completely dry out.
It's 100% related to the moisture content.
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Re:I'd rather watch.... (Score:5, Insightful)
More interesting is the fact that Iceland has no McDonalds. Sounds wonderful.
Re:I'd rather watch.... (Score:5, Informative)
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I'm assuming that the lack of McDonalds indicates that they have other, better restaurants that out-competed it.
Re:I'd rather watch.... (Score:5, Informative)
That isn't to say I doubt they have better restaurants than McDonald's. I would venture it's nearly impossible not to. I'm not one to knock McDonald's, but I am realistic.
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Interesting... I know some places have very expensive McDonalds but I guess there is a limit.
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I see you've never been to Iceland. Protip: Food isn't why you go. McDonalds is a step up from the pickled shark and puffin.
In all seriousness, food is an interesting thing in Iceland. When you drive around the country, you quickly notice that there are very few croplands, cattle, large mammals, or animals of any kind except their prized horses (which are cool). It's a giant volcanic rock island so the food they eat reflects th
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I'm assuming that the lack of McDonalds indicates that they have other, better restaurants that out-competed it.
Most likely the costs of logistics bringing what is essentially commissary food delivered to the isolated small population of Iceland made the enterprise far too expensive to work.
Here in Canada we have huge numbers of A&W burger joints in smaller towns that cannot support a McDonald's. The McDonald chain is not as long term thinking in their placements of locations and frequently closes or moves their lower cost small locations. That is why you see them in Walmart not in gas stations. If your franchis
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That's funny because I live in a small town (~11K population) and we only have a very small McDonald's - but no A&W.
The reason being, McDonald's has a new "smaller size" restaurant category that didn't exist before. I think it only has 10 tables or so.
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You would be wrong. It's because Iceland screwed up their economy when their top 3 banks all defaulted in 2008. At this point the costs of importing anything made it unrealistic.
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They screwed up but at least they punished the guilty.
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What does that have to do with having access to good restaurants?
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I'm guessing that it refers to the fact that, not including the new world, the further you get from Africa, East Asia, and the Middle East the less interesting your food culture tends to be. A historical lack of access to spices and a very short growing season tended to result in heavy reliance on pickled vegetables (when available), root vegetables (potatoes, turnip, etc.) and salted meats. The (mostly white) Northern Europeans aren't known for their food prowess. I don't think this has anything to do w
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You could just not go to McDonald's. See TvTropes: Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch [tvtropes.org]
I go to McDonalds once every five years or so just to remind myself why I never go to McDonalds.
Seriously: How can anybody enjoy eating that pallid grey circle of cardboard/tendon/whatever it is that between the bread?
Then I look around and I don't think anybody else is paying attention to the food.
Re: I'd rather watch.... (Score:2)
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Re:I'd rather watch.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. The food was mold free to begin with. It's also dry food - there's very little moisture in McD's so if you leave the food out, it gets even drier.
Dry food doesn't rot - rot requires bacteria and such to do the decomposition. But dry food lacks the water for the bacteria to survive and thus, it doesn't do anything.
Anyone who owns a dog knows this - dry dog food doesn't really have to be kept all that well - heck it comes in paper bags. It keeps for about a year after manufacture in those conditions. It doesn't rot or go moldy because it's too dry to do so.
It's the same reason why honey keeps forever in a sealed bottle. The sugar in it is a dessicant, and any bacteria that would love to consume that sugar gets dehydrated and basically dies. It has to be sealed because honey will acquire enough water to actually allow bacterial growth from the air.
And yes, drying is a preservation mechanism. It's what you do to make beef jerky, for example and that stuff when properly dried keeps for around a year in edible condition. Smoking food is another preservation method, for the same reason. The smoking process dehydrates the food and it gets preserved.
And once it's dried, you don't need to seal it up - the air doesn't generally contain enough water to rehydrate the food to the point where bacteria can rot it. But if the food gets wet, it needs to be re-dried quickly otherwise it will start to rot until it dries out again.
If you've eaten McD's, you'd know how dry the food is. Food that rots quickly you know about because they contain a lot of water - fresh food like fruit, vegetables and meat contain a lot of water which is why they quickly spoil and go moldy.
If you dipped the food in water and kept it moist, it would rot fairly quickly and not last 10 years.
Re:I'd rather watch.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The food was mold free to begin with.
Almost certainly untrue. There are mold spores in the air all around us. It was touched by hands and packaging on which mold spores had almost certainly landed. It’s been stored in an unsealed environment in which mold could have landed on it at any point. I can buy bread from the grocer, never unseal it, and within a few days or weeks nearly any loaf, either fresh-baked or mass-produced, will be covered in mold.
It's also dry food - there's very little moisture in McD's so if you leave the food out, it gets even drier.
Yeah...it’s so dry it’s steaming when it’s served fresh.
Anyone who owns a dog knows this - dry dog food doesn't really have to be kept all that well - heck it comes in paper bags. It keeps for about a year after manufacture in those conditions. It doesn't rot or go moldy because it's too dry to do so.
It may not rot, but it sure goes rancid, as anyone who’s actually tried to keep it that long knows. My parents had to toss our dog’s dry food a few times when I was a kid due to it going rancid, and that was after only a month or two.
It's the same reason why honey keeps forever in a sealed bottle.
McDonald’s burgers and fries have natural antimicrobial properties based on their acidity, high osmolarity, and/or enzymatic production of hydrogen peroxide? [nih.gov] Who knew?
It has to be sealed because honey will acquire enough water to actually allow bacterial growth from the air.
If you leave it in a moist environment for an extended period [sleepingbearfarms.com], sure. But many of us keep honey in unsealed containers on our tables for months at a time without any issues, other than the same sort of crystallization you’d get in a sealed container.
Moreover, don’t you find it a bit cognitively dissonant to claim on the one hand that honey must remain sealed lest it acquire moisture that results in bacterial growth, while on the other hand suggesting that there’s no problem with a burger and fries remaining unsealed for over a decade?
I agree with most of the rest of what you said, however.
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The guy took a meal, that should have been mold free to begin with,
It depends. When you order a burger at McDonald's you have to specifically say:
"Hold the mold!"
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I always order my Big Mac with a double serving of mold!
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I'm not sure that processed cheese food counts as food, even for a mold.
No, you have ZERO clue how decomposition works. (Score:2)
There is no such thing as a mold-free, or rather, microorganism-free object.
Let alone one touched by human hands and fries scoops and whatnot.
Do you think things are sterile by default?
No, the humidity in it, plus the amount of sugars and starches and fats, plus oxygen, sunlight and heat, definitely sufficed for an entire ecosystem!
Hell, people HAVE demonstrated entire closed system ecosystems in sealed containers like that! You can watch them on YouTube!
Jeez, I bet you're one of those morons who believe so
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Dude, you can probably watch that in your fridge.
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Seriously. The guy took a meal, that should have been mold free to begin with, and placed it in a sealed environment... and we are shocked that there is no mold? Maybe someone can explain how decomposition works because apparently I dont understand it.
And despite the claims, it doesn't look terribly good. Old, dry, kinda like what one would expect from food stored in that locale.
Best thing about this story is it's housed at the Snotra House
Bonus round! For those that enjoy watching people eat old food, we have Steve1989mreinfo on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Steve is I guess what you would call the military ration gourmet. He opens and inspects and sometimes eats old Military food. I somehow managed to get hooked on his channel.
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The article says he kept it in a plastic bag in his garage the first few years.
Re: I'd rather watch.... (Score:2)
Here we go again... (Score:4, Insightful)
Wash, rinse, repeat. The reason this food does not mold is science, and has nothing to do with the fact that it came from McDonald's. I used to expect a higher level of intelligence on Slashdot, but that Slashdot is gone.
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Re: Here we go again... (Score:2, Insightful)
What, back in the day when a site might be on a server or two powered with the equivalent of a Pentuin 3 running it 550MHz, and connected to the internet via an expensive 10mbs link? Even if /. had the same number of users and behaviour, modern systems have way more capacity and means to cope with the /. herd affect.
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Brand decomposition matters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Some of us don't call that food...
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Seriously, why is this on slashdot?
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Not true, all the relatively well preserved Viking artifacts and burial sites are really McDonald's which was their main staple food supply.
Obligatory Harold (Score:2)
https://i.imgflip.com/36vvpe.j... [imgflip.com]
Re: Here we go again... (Score:2)
. The reason this food does not mold is science, and has nothing to do with the fact that it came from McDonald's.
Clearly logic isn't someone's thing.
Re: Yes it has! (Score:2, Funny)
But come on, are you really telling us that McD created artificial meat decades ago? Or that they solved the food problem for Mars exploration? Do you really think they created this thing is some sort of injection molding?
God, people are so obsessively anti-McD. The only really problem with their food is that it's very high in calories. It's only really unhealthy from a 1st world society that lives in the plenty.
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It's also extremely high in sodium.
It's because of moisture and salt (Score:5, Interesting)
Whether, or how fast, a food will decompose is largely affected by moisture and salt content. My hunch is that the cold, dry air where the experiment was set up (late October 2009 in Iceland), in combination with the high salt content in the fries killed off the background mold spores before they could begin significant decomposition.
Without adequate controls of different environments and burger brands, this experiment doesn't reveal as much as implied about McDonalds burgers.
Re: It's because of moisture and salt (Score:5, Insightful)
This is missing with a control, isn't it? Where's the home made burger made from fresh ingredients placed next to it in the same environment?
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This is missing with a control, isn't it? Where's the home made burger made from fresh ingredients placed next to it in the same environment?
You mean the one that doesn't have the soup of toxic preservative chemicals in it the McDonalds burger is full of because they are banned in Iceland? I expect it degraded into compost years ago.
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This is missing with a control, isn't it? Where's the home made burger made from fresh ingredients placed next to it in the same environment?
You mean the one that doesn't have the soup of toxic preservative chemicals in it the McDonalds burger is full of because they are banned in Iceland? I expect it degraded into compost years ago.
"This experiment didn't use a control, but that's OK because foam argle fargle bargle ...."
Re: It's because of moisture and salt (Score:2)
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It's been eaten 10 years ago, because there's starving children in Africa.
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I didn't think about the cold aspect - as it's indoors now - but you're right, the article says that it was initially kept in a bag in the garage. For reference, it's 2C here right now (9:30 AM). Average low/mid/high for October is 2,2 / 4,4 / 7,0, and for November, -0,5 / 1,9 / 4,2. Call it a little higher for being in a garage; it was basically at refrigerator temperatures. So if it was allowed to air out well, perhaps it just desiccated fast enough that the high salt content protected it.
The "food" had enough moisture. (Score:2)
You know Icelanders actually heat their indoors, yes? (And increased heat + breathing, showering cooking humans = increased humidity.)
This is most likely due to, yes, salt, and various preservatives. Plus it was heavily denatured (cells already went through self-destruction after having been ground and fried and turned into white powder based foams and pastes) and sterilized before.
So the preservatives only had to kill the germs that came from packaging and wrapping and unpacking and placing it there.
Which
Old story (Score:2)
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Yes, of course it needs to be repeated again. Every decade or so, in fact.
How else are the new generations of Internet users supposed to be annoyed by the fact that this story comes out every decade or so?
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It's not just that the story keeps being repeated, it keeps being repeated in a way which makes people think MacDonald's is doing unspeakable things to their hamburgers. This fits in entirely with the pattern of "these guys are bad so I will believe anything bad which is told about them".
What does this food do to your gut? (Score:3)
The technology developed to make food that does not spoil logically has the unintended consequence of compromising our microbiome and making it difficult for our body to absorb the nutrients it needs from the meal.
This is no longer a hunch, the science is rolling in: https://www.nature.com/news/fo... [nature.com]
You know who would eat it (Score:2)
Annnddd... (Score:2)
Drying as a preservative (Score:2)
This is idiotic (Score:5, Informative)
This has been debunked so many times. From the article:
https://www.iflscience.com/hea... [iflscience.com]
"Nine different burger combinations were made by mixing and matching the buns and patties from McDonaldâ(TM)s and from his kitchen [using store-bought beef himself]. Some of his patties had added salt, while others did not, and he also varied the types of packaging. His hands never made direct contact with any of the burgers, which were all left in the open air.
More than three weeks later, the McDonaldâ(TM)s food hadnâ(TM)t rotted, but neither had the homemade patties. The homemade patty with no added salt looked no different than the those with extra salt, indicating it wasnâ(TM)t the causal factor.
The key appeared to be moisture levels. "
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Oh and the closing comment from that article?
"If you want to hate fast food because you find the nutritional content objectionable, go right ahead. But criticize what it is, donâ(TM)t speculate and fear monger about what it is not."
Mummified (Score:2)
New McDonald's meal (Score:5, Funny)
The Dorian Gray burger. The burger keeps it's looks while the consumers age rapidly.
Re:Wrong word (Score:5, Informative)
Both spellings are valid, one is American English and the other is British English - both can be used to refer to fungal growth.
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I thought the French invented English?
You thought wrong ...
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Between the Norman conquest and nearly 30% (more than any other living language) of “English” words originating from French, there’s a strong argument to be made in his favor.
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Between the Norman conquest and nearly 30% (more than any other living language) of “English” words originating from French, there’s a strong argument to be made in his favor.
No.
Re:Wrong word (Score:5, Funny)
Between the Norman conquest and nearly 30% (more than any other living language) of “English” words originating from French, there’s a strong argument to be made in his favor.
No.
Your compelling argument has swayed me.
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The French invented french fries and the English invented the English muffin.
And what did the Americans invent? The goddamn cheeseburger...
$deity bless America!
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The French invented french fries and the English invented the English muffin.
And what did the Americans invent? The goddamn cheeseburger...
$deity bless America!
The Belgians invented French fries.
Boston English is more original English (Score:3)
Of one wanted to hear and read English as used by "who invented English", one would go to Boston, not London. The language in England has changed (decayed?) while it has been preserved in Boston.
Upgrades Installed (Score:2)
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What colour is it?
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I don't know that!
Re:Wrong word (Score:4)
Having analyzed the article, in its defense I recognize the meager humorous difference in linguistic flavor.
Now bugger off with a fizzy drink and some crisps, you daft boffin.
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Yes sir, Leftenant!
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Did you mean defence?
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Nope, looked it up. Americans often like c's, but not in the case of defence.
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It's simply gotta hurt when your most famous reference dictionary [oxfordlear...naries.com] disagrees with you. Maybe that other one [cambridge.org]... wait, nope, they disagree with you too.
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I know, I've only been to six continents and more US states than most Americans.
You still can't fucking spell.
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Ah, so touring the empire that you lost entitles you to judge how to correctly spell words? Let's put that to a vote... 330 million Americans versus 66 million wannabe-ex-Europeans.
You lose.
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Tell that you your political "leaders."
British Honduras. Falkland islands. Morocco is not a continent. Gibraltar. India and Hong Kong.
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I haven't been to British Honduras, the Falkland Islands, the British colonial countries of Africa, Gibraltar or India.
So I've very successfully been to Central and South America, Africa and Asia without visiting former parts of the British Empire, thus successfully not "touring the empire" as you claimed.
I didn't claim Morocco was a continent either. You're nitpicking because your ignorance is being shown up. Give up, and go and learn English. It's a marvellous language and it's used worldwide - something
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Your statement was "As for "touring the empire", I don't recall Central and South America, Morocco, various parts of Europe or indeed big chunks of Asia ever being part of the British Empire."
Which was demonstrated to be incorrect.
Re:Highly successful (Score:2)
Highly successful?! You're on the verge of losing Scotland and Northern Ireland in your glorious quest to empire yourselves right out of the European Union. Soon it'll be Used-to-be-Great Britain and you'll have to come up with a whole other name for the rump state comprised of England and Wales.
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Refresh your memory [wikipedia.org]. My school system apparently taught better recall skills than yours.
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Stop fighting, eh?
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News for SJW, politics that matters.
Re: Thanks? (Score:2)