Happy Meal at 137 Days



New York artist Sally Davies bought a plain hamburger Happy Meal from McDonalds. She didn't eat it, but took pictures of it every day -for 137 days so far. The project will likely continue at least until the meal starts to look different. Link -via Cynical-C

Great as the MC donalds is bringing newer and newer things with good price really affordable to all.The project will likely continue at least until the meal starts to look different.
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I don't doubt that it's real. I recall a post about a guy who found a hamburger in the pocket of a jacket he hadn't worn in a year or two, and it looked the same as it did new. There was also a post on an experiment where different food items were put into jars to see the changes over time, and the french fries never changed, while various other foods rotted.

I can't find those posts, however, so they may have been somewhere other than Neatorama.
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this has been done multiple times before...
the thing i wanna know is, why pick on mcdonalds? they at least try to make healthy foods. look at a place like long john silver, that greasy shit will kill you in a week....
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why does this get press every time someone does it? It has been done before, it's not new, it's not creative.

Heres a 12 year old mcdonalds hamburger

http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2008/09/12-year-old-mcdonalds-hamburger-still-looking-good.html

Also, would you rather have food without preservatives? Good luck with your botulism.
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@Michelle: "Also, would you rather have food without preservatives? Good luck with your botulism."

Yes, I would definitely prefer food that way and it's not impossible, even for fast food. In-n-Out is a fast food company that uses only fresh vegetables, meat that is never frozen (this is the reason they refuse to expand outside of the south-western states nearest their beef farms), and they cut fresh potatoes into french fries.

There's never been an outbreak of botulism at In-n-Out as far as I know. Don't fight the fear of truth with fear-mongering, you nazi.
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"Preservatives" are probably not responsible for the food maintaining its appearance. More likely, the experiment was conducted in a location with relatively low humidity, and the specimens gradually desiccated.
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This is a stupid experiment even if it wasn't so unoriginal.

McDonalds' food is very salty. Salt has long been our number one preserver of food. Case closed.

Salt kills and inhibits the growth of microorganisms by drawing water out of the cells of both microbe and food alike through osmosis.

Microbes are what cause decay, the saltiness of their food ensures there are few microbes, therefore the food does not decay.
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I posted this on Twitter, but I swear the anti-McDonalds crowd would actually PREFER them to use bacteria-ridden meat so that it disintegrates faster!

Here's a shocker: when you irradiate meat to remove the preservatives, then cook it well-done because the health department is always on your ass, it lasts a long time. Duh.

It's not news (and even if it was, it'd been covered to death). It's not interesting. I'm sick of seeing it.

I'm glad you have posters here who engage their brain and recognize this pointless fear-mongoring for what it is. Kudos to Michelle, Minnesotastan, gryt and Agricola. We need more critical thinkers in the world, and less "artists."
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Jim Bob, no need to call Michelle a Nazi.
Unnecessary and also inaccurate. The Nazi's never fought the "fear of truth" with fear-mongering. They distorted the truth / told lies / made stuff up / motivated hate and aggression with fear-mongering.
So if you cannot control your need to label Michelle a Nazi, then at least be accurate with you hyperbole.
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@ted are you suggesting because it is a non-story it isn't artistic or are you making two totally different points. If you are then the answer to your question is, it is artistic because its creator intended it to be so. We are decades beyond the Dadaist movement. We should all be painfully aware that "to be artistic" has no boundaries. No one can say "that is not art" if someone else believes the contrary.
So, ted, although a total non-story it is art because it is art.
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This thing has been done before, it seems people are running out of ideas... from people painting the virgin Mary with guns, to the ones using Jesus Christ in sandals, some cheap-ass ideas without originality.
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I did a puppet show in a bar once; I was asked to sing at an Elvis Presley cover night, but I didn't feel like singing. So I took a frozen hamburger, put a styrofoam quiff on top of it and attached it to my hand with wire and did a puppet show of cc rider, with two hamburger boxes as back up singers. After the show I put the hamburger on a shelf above the bar. I forgot about it and left it there. A year later I remembered forgetting about it and called the owner of the bar; she checked and it was still there, no smell, no mould, not liquified, just hard as rock. Just like Elvis.
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Katie: why is it worry-some?

Would you prefer the burger cooked rare and loaded with bacteria that decomposes quicker?

Come on, engage the brain here. Are you seriously saying that eating well-cooked clean food is "worry-some?" I'm not saying that McDonalds food tastes good, but come on! People act as if it's a biological weapon.

And I'm really sick of seeing people doing this same old boring stupid experiment over and over again to get free pageviews from blogs like this one. But I guess it works because people think it's "worry-some" even though they have absolutely no reason to think that.
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I'm sorry, if that is art, then Sallie is not the artist. The crew at the Maccas are.
If I bought the happy meal, rolled the fries in glitter and bedazzled the heck out of the rest of the meal, then I am the artist.
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China Doll. Sorry you didn't understand my comment. I did have two separate thoughts there.

Non-story: cliché, unoriginal, and uninteresting. I'm glad you agree on that point.

Not artistic: although the person claims to be an artist and may consider her creation as "art", this can not in any way be considered "artistic" or created with any skill or art. It's a picture (or series of pictures) of a desiccating happy meal. Simply intending something to be art does not make it artistic, in the same way that putting on makeup does not necessarily improve one's looks. Or, in the same way that calling someone a nazi does not make that person a nazi.
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Ditto lulu -

If you hate McDonald's so much, just don't go there. If you don't go there now, then shut up, you don't have any meaningful argument.

And yawn.... This has been done before. Someone above had it right; its not the preservatives its simple dehydration. ANY low humidity environment is going to produce the same results on almost any food...
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The burger and fries have dried out for heavens sake,thier appearance will no longer change. How long are you going to continue to monitor and document these items?

All you have done is make me and many others crave a hamburger - a Mcdonalds hamburger.
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They always do this with a Happy Meal. Because they know the smaller the patty, the quicker it will dry out (in their temperature- and humidity-controlled air conditioned room). It is intellectually dishonest.
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Yes, the food has dried out and is not likely to change further. I'm wondering if part of the reason they did not turn green is because they are loaded with salt. Salt is a preservative which restricts bacterial growth in many foods by, you guessed it, lowering the moisture content. Golly, wish I had a double cheeseburger right about now.
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yeah, yeah, we get it. corporations evil, soybean, tofu-eatin' liberals glorious heroes.
what the hell? don't eat food unless it gets moldy and hideous in a certain amount of time? what's the point...unless this is the best she could do to draw attention? more power to you, sally. maybe work on that bicycles good, autos evil project now.
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