Entry #9. Preserved by Greed

 

Image by Angelika OSIEWALSKA

    Above is image of a burger and fries from McDonald's. More specifically, it is a meal from about 10 years prior to the photograph perfectly preserved in a glass box, preserved with zero additives or chemicals after being made in the kitchen. The meal was originally purchased by a man in Iceland who decided to purchase it before every McDonald's closed in Iceland. He had heard of a rumor that the meal would never mold or decompose and after keeping it for three years in a sealed plastic bag, decided to donate it to the National Museum of Iceland. After changing hands a few times, it has ended up in a glass case in Reykjavik. 

    The man was curious as to how the burger was holding it's structure and after giving it to the NMI they decided they were not equipped to "preserve" food. However it seems that the burger has perfectly preserved itself over the past decade. After posting about this phenomenon, many other online users began to share some of their experiences.

    One user online described their experience with a teacher who used to keep a burger on his shelf for years to present it to students. None of the meals ever rotted, smelled bad, decayed, or attracted any sort of bug. But why does this happen?

    McDonald's responded to the online attention by simply stating that "without moisture, the food could not decompose." In most of the cases, none of the experiments were ever wet and most were kept in dry bags. The food was described to just be simply "drying out". Though it still leaves many questions for me, personally. Let me know your thoughts. Could it be preserved by the fact it stayed dry or preserved by corporate greed?