TIL that in 2020, Burger King ran an advertising campaign featuring a picture of a moldy Whopper, to prove that their burgers are made without preservatives. This unconventional advertising method worked, increasing sales by 14% (according to multiple sources.)
There was a book by Morgan Spurlock that told how a man put an extra cheeseburger in his winter coat, only to forget it, and found it in the same condition the following year. My stepkids didn’t believe me, so I put one on the mantel where it sat for months… unchanged. No smell. After about six months they believed me and begged me to throw it out. They refused to eat McDonalds after that.
I used to work next to small commercial bakery, and they would give us stuff from time to time if it was near the sell-by date and they hadn’t scheduled a shipment.
One day they gave us some of those tiny vending packs of muffins, the ones with two little colorful things in plastic. They were awful. So bad we bet that even the ants wouldn’t touch them if we left it out.
It’s been three years now and that muffin is still there, identical to the day we set it down (not counting the dust).
Ew. 🤮
I did this in my car by accident multiple times way back in the day (like 2004). Stop for food after work, eat the fries and forget about the burger, which gets buried under stuff (I keep my car generally cleaner these days; I was a teen). It dries out completely with no actual change in appearance, smell, nothing but turning rock hard. Gross.
Needless to say, I haven’t eaten there in almost 20 years, other than an occasional fries on a road trip when that’s all there is.