How Long Does a Hamburger Last?

The latest attack on McDonald's involves photographer and blogger Sally Davies's experiment with a Happy Meal, which she left to sit out for sixty days, apparently with no effect on the food.

McDonald's spokespeople seem very offended and insist that their hamburgers are made with "100% USDA-inspected ground beef" and cooked with "salt, pepper and nothing else -- no preservatives, no fillers" and that their buns are made with "common government-approved ingredients" (which basically means nothing considering that the government has approved trans fats and artificial sweeteners). Notice they say nothing about what the fries are made with.

But let's give them the benefit of the doubt. Let's say that this is true. What it means is actually scarier than if McDonald's was using preservatives.

First, it says that "USDA-inspected ground beef" is already so full of preservatives and chemicals that it is not a food. If I didn't have neighbors, I would cook a pound of the USDA beef and a pound of organic, grass-fed beef and let them sit out and see which went bad faster.

Second, what McDonald's doesn't mention is that both hamburger and fries are cooked in some kind of vegetable oil, which is itself "preserved" at high temperatures, making it rancid without any symptoms. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that cooking food in rancid vegetable oil will "preserve" it into a state of plasticity.

McDonald's deserves props for switching to trans-fat-free cooking in 2008, though this was a delayed reaction. However, under their "Nutrition" web page, the motto reads "It's all about delicious choices."

Really?

Of course people want their food to taste good. And those who eat McDonald's say that it does. But that is not what "nutrition" is about. I'm treading on thin ice here, because nutritious food should also taste good. However, this seems to indicate that taste is more important than nutrition; that it really doesn't matter what you're putting in your body as long as it tastes good and you get a variety.

How about "It's all about not getting heart disease" or "It's all about putting things into your body that benefit and nourish it"?

If I haven't convinced you, maybe this will.

So what are you supposed to do with this? Just be aware. You don't have to stop eating McDonald's. I'm not trying to make a point to ruin anybody's good mood. But you deserve to know what you're putting in your body and to make an informed decision. And if you get sick, you deserve to know that what you ate probably contributed to it, because knowing this empowers you to heal yourself by making changes.

Ignorance is killing Americans. It's not McDonald's fault, though they share some of the blame. It's the fault of deliberate and innocent deception and unawareness. And it's my passion and my goal to change that.