telophase | (no subject)

I opened up Facebook for a specific reason and can't remember what it was, as I got sidetracked by someone posting about the McDonald's burger that won't rot, and had to step in and point out that it's not due to preservatives, it's due to being stored in open air and having little moisture in the food.

While I won't argue that fast-food diets are healthy, what this shows us is that McDonald's food acts like any other food when it is cooked in a way that drives water out and kept in a dry, airy environment: it dries up and stales, instead of rotting.

Notice that the burger, fries, and chicken above are relatively thin, with a great amount of their surface exposed to air. Note also that they're fried with high heat, which is a cooking process that removes a lot of moisture from the food, and that they're high in fat, which also means less moisture in the food. Third, note that they're kept in the open air wrapped in paper and not in a plastic bag or other airless environment.

Rot and molds need moisture to work. Give them a thicker burger, chunky fries, and a whole grilled chicken breast and they'll go to town on it. Give them a dried-out piece of meat, skinny fries, and small deep-fried chunks of chicken and they will have little action, if any (although storing them in a Ziplock bag with no air circulation will let them work).

Short version: it's not processing or artifical preservatives keeping these foods from rotting, they're just drying out due to lack of moisture. Avoid these foods because of the high fat and salt content, not because of misleading shock tactics resulting from a misunderstanding of natural processes.

Scientists explaining the results: http://www.salon.com/2010/09/01/burger_that_wont_rot/

Someone replicating the experiment, controlling for various variables, and comparing to home-cooked burgers: http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/11/the-burger-lab-revisiting-the-myth-of-the-12-year-old-burger-testing-results.html

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This so reminds me of a woman with whom I got into a mild argument at the grocery: I was trying to explain that keeping certain things in an airtight container will help preserve them. She was convinced that this was because there are terrible chemicals in the air. I was trying to explain that actually, the most terrible chemical of all from this point of view was oxygen. I didn't get very far: oxygen = good and other chemicals = bad (pollutants), and never the twain shall meet. Oxydation was not in her vocabulary.

People are perfectly willing to believe total strangers who give them scare stories, but not total strangers who talk sense. I will never comprehend that.

I once got a look-over and ostentatious ignore from someone whose check wasn't running through the little machine at the grocery store that reads the numbers. She kept repeating over and over that she had money in her account and it wasn't her fault. I politely interrupted to say that the ink used on checks was magnetic, and it must have gotten de-magnetized, which is why the machine couldn't read it. It didn't have anything to do with the amount of money in the account, and the clerk was going to have to type the number in manually. Apparently she decided I didn't know what I was talking about, and she went back to repeating that she had money in her account until the clerk gave up running it through the machine and typed the number in by hand.

People are perfectly willing to believe total strangers who give them scare stories, but not total strangers who talk sense. I will never comprehend that.

We are not, by nature, a rational species. We're a species that has to *learn* to use reason to overcome our more basic responses. And sometimes even that doesn't get us past our instinctive reactions. Remember the pendulum scene from _Contact_ (the book - the movie didn't have that scene)?

Edited 2012-01-27 02:42 (UTC)

Go, you!

:) Although there's been a reply in that thread and I am too chicken to open the email and find out if it's someone who posted without reading comments, someone who agrees with me, or someone who wants to argue.