In an amazing display of patience and self-restraint, Jennifer Lovdahl reportedly kept a Happy Meal from McDonald's intact for six whole years. Then, last Wednesday, Lovdahl shared a picture of the chicken nuggets and fries which, despite the passage of time, have apparently retained their youthful look.
It's been 6 years since I bought this "Happy Meal" at McDonald's. It's been sitting at our office this whole time and has not rotted, molded, or decomposed at all!!! It smells only of cardboard. We did this experiment to show our patients how unhealthy this "food" is. Especially for our growing children!! There are so many chemicals in this food! Choose real food! Apples, bananas, carrots, celery....those are real fast food.
"The receipt has disintegrated more than the food," Sarah Guyer Krug commented. April Arno chimed in with her own tale of preserving a McDonald's meal and said "the bag actually started decomposing before the food did." Not all comments were negative, though. "I'll be there in a minute... With BBQ sauce!" Aaron Hunter wrote.
There is a possibility Lovedahl's test is accidentally disingenuous, though. A few years ago, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt did an experiment at Serious Eats comparing the decomposition between a McDonald's burger and homemade burger. After a few weeks, the appearance of mold on the two burgers was more or less the same. Lopez-Alt's overall observation was that McDonald's food isn't unique in its failure to rot, and that the food's appearance days later is related to rapid dehydration, which creates an unsustainable living environment for bacteria.
Science aside, it's impressive that people worked daily in Lovedahl's office for six years without either eating or accidentally throwing away that Happy Meal.