About Junk.

Fast food, frighteningly slow decay: Mother keeps McDonald's Happy Meal for a whole year... and it STILL hasn't gone off

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 1:54 AM on 24th March 2010

Glancing at the two McDonald's Happy Meals pictured here, (visit the link below to see the picture) you may feel they look pretty much identical.

Astonishingly, however, this is the same meal, photographed 12 months apart.

Where any other food might be a mouldy, decomposing mess after a year, the McDonald's meal shows few signs of going off apart from the beef patty shrivelling and the stale burger bun cracking.

Proof, says the American nutritionist who took these photographs, that it contains so many preservatives that it is bad for the children it is aimed at.

Joann Bruso said: 'Food is supposed to decompose, go bad and smell foul eventually. The fact that it has not decomposed shows you how unhealthy it is for children.'

Mrs Bruso left the Happy Meal uncovered on a shelf at her home near Denver, Colorado, to see what would happen. She has revealed the results on her blog, in which she gives healthy eating advice to parents.

The 62-year-old, who has eight grandchildren, admitted that the arid temperature of her home near the Rocky Mountains meant there was little moisture in the air with which to speed decomposition.

But she added that during the year-long experiment, no flies or other insects were attracted to the food.

She said: 'I had the windows open many times, but flies and other insects just ignored the Happy Meal. What does that tell you, if they can't be bothered with it?

'Food is broken down into its essential nutrients in our bodies and turned into fuel. Our children grow strong bodies when they eat real food.

'If flies ignore a Happy Meal and microbes don't decompose it, then your child's body can't properly metabolise it either.

'Now you know why it's called junk food.'

McDonald's has made great efforts to show that its food is healthy amid growing concerns about childhood obesity. All its restaurants list the calories in each item as well as the individual ingredients.

Recent research showed that each product has an average of seven E numbers. The bun has several preservatives such as calcium and sodium propionate, while the pickle slice has the preservative sodium benzoate.

The fries, which Mrs Bruso said were still golden brown after a year, contain preservatives such as citric acid and sodium acid pyrophosphate, which maintains their colour.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1258913/Happy-1st-birthday-Mother-keeps-McDonalds-Happy-Meal-year--gone-off.html#ixzz0mveuLBso

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You don't need to be ON a diet to WATCH your diet. Most of the time, you don't realize just how much what you put into your body can affect you.

The quickest and easiest evidence is food poisoning. One little slab of raw/poorly cooked beef and the results can be instantaneous.

Another example is if you drink too much milk all at once, getting very well-acquainted with the toilet as a result.

Or how eating chocolate triggers the release of endorphins within 20 seconds, giving you the feeling of being in love.

In fact, even if you don't notice it, everything you put into your mouth has near- immediate effects. It's only a matter of whether you notice it or not.

If you're still skeptical, here's an experiment to try if you have enough willpower - For breakfast, eat nothing with fat in it. For lunch, eat only complex carbs like pasta and whole wheat bread, for dinner, don't eat carbs at all if you eat after 7pm. If you can maintain this for one single week, the results will easily speak for themselves.

Of course, expecting you guys to immediately switch to the diet of a bodybuilder is as insane as it is ridiculous. The main message is to show you that these 'rules' such as no KFC, no Macdonalds, watch your calories etc are in place for a reason. Breaking a rule without knowing the reason why it is in place is one of the silliest things criminals do.

Imagine jumping into a lake on purpose just because it is prohibited. Without knowing that the reason why swimming is not allowed is because there is a crocodile in the lake.

Yeah, something like that. Same principle.

Now that you're sportsmen, its time to take charge of your own diets. Its your own personal responsibility, since we neither have the time, resources, or stupidity to watch every single one of you.

This public service announcement was brought to you by Mediacorp Radio - One of their computers, anyway. (Its my break - I spend it how I like.) Running on windows XP, and speed equivalent to a 56kb/s modem.

And it also serves as a reminder to some seniors, who, i've noticed, seem to love eating junk food/oily food because they feel like there's nothing wrong with it. Watch yourselves. >_>