A story has been making its way around the Web the past couple of weeks regarding a nondecomposing McDonald’s Happy Meal.
Sally Davies, a New York-based photographer, and artist, bought a Happy Meal back in April 2010 and left it out on a plate in her kitchen ever since to see what would happen.
The upshot of this homegrown experiment?  Other than an acrylic sheen, plastic-like texture and becoming hard as a rock, no other discernible changes have occurred!
Davies’ science project has been photographed weekly and the results posted on Flickr for all to see and wonder about.   Should children really be given food that doesn’t decompose?
If bugs, mold, and bacteria don’t want this stuff, how could this be counted as any sort of nourishment for children other than just empty calories and toxic chemicals?
What may be even more surprising, however, is that the lack of decomposition of McDonald’s fast food is not unique in the processed foods industry.
Oh no, not by a long shot. Hold onto your hats, everyone!
How about adding supermarket cupcakes (and other baked goods) to the list of foods that neither bugs nor bacteria want anything to do with!
You know what I’m talking about – the supermarket birthday cake that is served at just about every kids’ birthday party you’ve ever attended.   How about that cake you ate at your cousin’s wedding last summer?   Yes, even those delightfully decorated Halloween cupcakes you saw the other day in the supermarket bakery that seemed just perfect for the Trick or Treat get together this coming weekend!
Yes, all of it.
This stuff doesn’t decompose either!  It doesn’t even get moldy!
Best of all, I’ve got pictures!!
You see, many years back when I first began eating real food, I met Dennis Stoltzfoos, a local grass-based farmer who had a curious box of cupcakes sitting in his kitchen.
He explained that these cupcakes were from a party back in December 1995.
The box with the 3 remaining cupcakes never got thrown out, so it just kind of stayed in his kitchen for weeks, then months, now over TWENTY YEARS later.
After seeing this story about the nondecomposing Happy Meal, I emailed Dennis and his wife Alicia to see if they still had this box of supermarket cupcakes. Â Â They did, and Alicia snapped these photos taken only last week of the now 20+ YEAR OLD cupcakes that now practically have artifact status!
Check it out!Â
In this photo, you can still just make out the “1996” on the cupcake box label which indicated the expiration date for the cupcakes (it originally said “January 1996”). The cupcakes were purchased in December 1995.
Kash n’ Karry, the supermarket where these cupcakes were purchased, no longer exists. Kash n’ Karry supermarkets are now called Sweetbay Supermarkets. Update: Sweetbay is now gone too! They were bought by Winn Dixie.
Alicia Stoltzfoos told me that the sticky, sweet, artificial smell of the cupcakes was still very much evident when she opened the box to take this picture!
My hope is that parents who see this blog are motivated to never again buy supermarket bakery goods and to take the time to make a wholesome, homemade birthday cake/cupcakes with REAL ingredients for their children.
If it’s not good enough for bugs, mold, and bacteria, it’s most certainly not good enough for your children!
Source
Many thanks to Dennis and Alicia Stoltzfoos of Full Circle Farm for the pictures and story behind this blog.  Dennis, Alicia, and their four healthy, beautiful children own a leading-edge, grass-based dairy farm in Live Oak, FL.  To contact them to find out more about nutrient-dense, healing foods, email them at [email protected].
You know, I am rather enthused with natural food. I’ve been canning and baking naturally a great deal, and am now looking into making my own cheese. I think the idea is wonderful and that my homemade offerings are a hundreds times more flavorful than their store bought counterparts.
That said, having read all of these comments and several others besides, I feel the burning desire to point out that certain posters (being natural food purists, apparently) are snobs. Go ahead and call me names, a sheep, ignorant, WTFever you want, but you’re snobs. One person here says something about preservation being the point of chemicals in the store food, and you all jumped down her throat and belittled her instead of having a mature debate.
Luckily I don’t care if I come off as mature. I just want to call it like I see it. If you want more people to come to your raw food POV you probably should try honey versus vinegar, because saying people are stupid for not being natural food consumers is only going to piss them off and call you cultists or edible neo-natzi’s. You should probably be courting their opinion, since you guys are the ones all up in arms about S510 (see? I’m in the know) which isn’t exactly a well known bit of legislation.
So why don’t you brush off your manners and break out some of your natural, raw honey, and quit calling people who aren’t just like you idiots.
You have obviously never made a homemade cake from scratch Pelicano. When I make birthday cake or birthday cupcakes for my family, if I leave them out too long on the counter without refrigerating, they are covered in mold in just a few days. Can we say CLUELESS!
Actually, I think this whole article does nothing but highlight the ignorance of modern home-makers more than anything else. Why? Because no frosted cake- even those made entirely from scratch- would decompose under these conditions. Frosting has a high amount of sugar which, in proper ratio to moisture, can preserve food. Cake has very-little moisture, contains enough sugar to sterilize what little moisture there is, and increasingly-so as the cake dries. Sugar is a hygroscopic substance- like salt- which draws water out of living cells by osmotic action. Without water, single-celled, micro-organisms cannot thrive and multiply, thereby halting any chance of a culture.
This is the premise behind old-fashioned jams, jellies and marmalades, which, at one time, were constructed to be kept without a vacuum-seal at room temperature. Modern preserves- analogous to these- contain somewhat-less sugar and must be kept in a vacuum-seal and then, upon opening, under refrigeration.
I think any food scientist would see through the pseudo-science put forth by this “experiment” and that of the viral McDonald’s one. Bread dries. Meat dries. French fries dry. ketchup is preserved by sugar and vinegar.
And no, I do not work for any of these corporations. I research traditional methods of preserving food, and post recipes on my blog.
What’s really funny/odd about Anonymous is that they actually trust a minimum wage bakery employee at a grocery store to have better hygiene practices than a mom who is feeding her kid. Wake up! It’s processed food that is making everyone sick, not homemade cupcakes!
Sarah-
I LOVE this post! Lately my 13 year old has been pestering me to buy her some cupcakes at the store and I told her no, telling her that they’re not real food and full of chemicals. Now I have pictures to back me up! I posted it on my facebook page for everyone else to see too.
I also really appreciate the banter with “Anon” who thinks that, a. processed food is safer (ha!), and b. that life expectancy is going up (double ha ha!). I’m a nurse practitioner and I see mostly elderly folks. My last position was with the VA. The oldest vets who only take maybe an aspirin and a vitamin everyday (like my 95 year old grandma) and who grew up on farms, eating real food and making “do” are the ones who are the healthiest and obvioulsy living the longest. Those who are younger, who smoke, who dd drugs when they were younger, who have the doughnuts on the counter when I visit (I do home care), the boxes of cereal and packaged mixes, who eat at the Olive Garden weekly (or worse, Denny’s, etc.), do the buffets, etc. are overweight, have diabetes, heart problems, heart attacks and strokes, chronic skin infections, and all kinds of other maladies that make them homebound long before they should be and incapacitated such that at 65, they die of pneumonia or lung disease or cancer or stroke. There is a stark contrast between those who have lived a relatively “clean” life and those who haven’t. I see it everyday. I take their histories, I see how they live. What you are talking about here is not “fluff” science. It’s the truth that I see on a daily basis. And if someone doesn’t believe it, it’s probably because they don’t go visit grandma often enough or they don’t listen to what she’s telling them. Listen to your elders-it just might save your life!
That is beyond disgusting. But it's also sad because so many parents feel like they don't have time to make healthy, wholesome and DELICIOUS baked goods for their children. Too many times, I volunteer at a school party only to see them serving this kind of junk. In fact, many kids in my son's class won't even eat things that don't come out of a package…
It led me to offer to write 'nutrion guidelines' (complete with a 'tester' recipe) for my daughters' pre-school program. I hope it will help at least one parent.
It is very basic stuff (seemingly) but I will post the brochure and handout this week at soulfude.com in case anyone wants to use it…
Peace.
That is disgusting! I try not to buy that stuff, but it does make me wonder about processed food in general- crackers, oreos, lunch meat etc…
That is FOUL! and a very powerful picture. I think I'm officially cured of any desire to eat conventional, store-bought baked goods.
Oh my gosh, so gross. We no longer eat McD's even on occasion…now I will no longer be eating cupcakes that have not come from my kitchen! Ilove motivation like this, keep us from getting any bit lazy. Thanks!
I have photos of where some grocery store bakery frosting got on my grass when I was washing out the free buckets. Not only did it kill the grass… It turned the spots BLACK. Over a month later the spots are still black with not a blade of grass growing back. The grass fire area that was charred nearby is growing back and healthy; but the spots in my yard that got frosting on it that we feed our children in this country is still dead. Scroll down here if you want to see a picture. Scary!
http://eclecticlvng.blogspot.com/2010/10/montessori-chemistry-works-part-2-ive.html
Bamboo and Sarah, thank you for the powerful stories and pics, which will remind me to keep me away from these noxious “foods”.