I never ate a french fry for nutritional value but shouldn't it rot?

I decide to clean my car the other day and I was being a lot more thorough then usual and actually ventured under the seats. Yikes! Who knows how long some of that stuff has been under there. As I continued to dig out the sometimes sticky articles from the scary depths I ran into two finger length objects. They felt hard but were not cylindrical so I was pretty sure they weren’t a pair of my daughter’s crayons. When I pulled them out I was amazed. Two french fries in perfect petrified condition.

I honestly couldn’t remember when I had been to a McDonalds. We only go there when we are “on trips” and since my husband’s purchase, 11 months ago, of a F150 we haven’t been using my car for anything beyond local driving. Those french fries could easily be six months old and except for the stiffness looked as if they just came out of the bag.

A few days after my disturbing discovery I had my yahoo scroll open and a headline about a 180 Day Happy Meal Art Project caught my eye. Turns out some artist in New York had been taking pictures every week of the same Happy Meal. And she was not alone. A little googling on the topic pointed me to several folks conducting their own versions of McDonald’s food rot experiments.

There is Joann Bruso who kept a happy meal for over a year. In the film Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock conducted his experiment with a Big Mac, Filet O’Fish and french fries. As, I probably could have told him, the fries resited rot the longest. Karen Hanrahan teaches a workshop titled “Healthy Choices for Children” in which she showcases a burger she has kept for more then 10 years. She wrote a post in her Best of Mother Earth blog that went viral back in 2008 in which she showcased the McDonald’s food rot experiment. In this case, perhaps better called the No-rot experiment.

The Super Size Me experiment conceded rotting possibilities as did Mark Vaughn in his blog Start/Finish in which he conducted an experiment with three different burgers. One from McDonalds, one from burger king and one home made with organic ingredients. The home made burger succumbed first but all three were pretty scary looking and, in my opinion, conclusively answers the question “Does Fast Food Rot?”

How could so many people conducting McDonalds food rot experiments have a different outcome? In almost every case the experiments are not done with any sound scientific methods. Leaving a burger on a plate doesn’t necessarily expose the burger to the right rotting environment. A very dry atmosphere, common in heated NYC apartments is not an optimal breeding ground for mold. Additionally the high fat and salt content, are very good preservatives. If you left beef jerky or cured bacon out on your counter you would very rarely, if ever, come across a mold issue. Fat and salt food preservation techniques have been around since the dawn of man, which means the fat and salt rich fast foods in the McDonalds food rotting challenge are inherently good at warding off mold.

The mostly dark, very hot and very dry car my two french fries landed in was actually a perfect environment for preservation. The high salt and fat content of the fries, disastrous for nutritional value, actually allowed for the near perfect upkeep. So, in answer to my original question, no it isn’t supposed to rot and sadly that is why they taste so good!