I'll Make You A Hamburger Better Than McDonald's

Some of my earliest memories are of my favorite food when I entered the heavenly restaurant adorned with golden arches painted on their windows and sweet smells from behind the counter I was too small to look over - a cheeseburger. I consumed these with no abandon, and always washed it down with a medium french fry, adorned ever so elegantly with fancy ketchup and a Sprite. As I got older, my tastes refined and were upgraded to a quarter-pounder - no cheese, this time - a super-size fry, and a large Hi-C orange. After I entered college, I realized I was killing myself slowly Big Pun style, and scaled back to the manageable hamburger, large fry, and medium Sprite. After a few years in college, I kicked the habit, realizing I was no better than the crackheads in downtown Atlanta still looking for their next hit. I swore I was done with that devilishly decadent food. What I didn't know was that my body might not have been done with those burgers I consumed two decades ago - the 1990's - and definitely not the burgers I had eaten as recently as two years ago:

Wellness educator and nutrition consultant Karen Hanrahan has kept a McDonald's hamburger since 1996 to illustrate its nonexistent ability to decay. Aside from drying out and bit and having "the oddest smell," it apparently hasn't changed much in the past 12 years.

I haven't had McDonald's in a few months now, and this little piece of information hasn't whetted my appetite for it in the least. If you've ever seen Super Size Me, made by Morgan Spurlock, you'd know the damage this food can do to your weight, your energy levels, and even your libido (Once, I've even eaten McDonald's while watching Super Size Me, just for the hell of it). But a significantly shorter video he's posted on YouTube details the decomposition (or not) of several Mickey D's items, including their world famous french fries. I'll let you figure out how this movie ends.

Which burger in the picture looks more edible to you? Take a guess and see which one is from 1996 and which one is from 2008. At this point, I'd even take my mama's hamburgers over those.

Or I could just go to Burger King.