Adventures in the Word

People are demanding an update on the fries!
Here’s the latest:
age: 157 days old – that is, approximately 5.2 months; I bought them on June 22, 2007.

general appearance: color is still good, maybe somewhat darkened, but they appear to be ever so slightly shrunken. Perhaps all of the food content is now completely gone, or maybe there was none there to begin with. What we’re left with is still a mystery.

smell: no offensive odor, but in sniffing them more closely, I know I’ve smelled that fragrance before. Hmmm . . . déjà vu. It seems to register somewhere in my brain, maybe among the unclassified smells that I’ve encountered as I’ve walked through a newly constructed house . . . it seems to have an odd adhesive quality . . . I hope that I haven’t allowed any alien compounds into the olfactory regions of my brain where it can start boring a network of worm-holes.

Shiver. Uuugggh!

PS – Eureka! While photographing the fries I think I’ve identified the smell more precisely:
Play-doh®! or is it Silly Putty®?
Hmmm. This may explain a lot.

Just a minute ago, as I was photographing this, I almost reached in and grabbed one to eat —— really!

These things may make it through to the millennium.

Mmmm.
Still going . . .

Here’s a close-up shot of the fries that I took just this afternoon. I bought these fries one week ago today on Friday June 22, 2007. See the post with that date below.

Earlier this week I put them in a glass jar/vase without a top. I don’t know if it matters if the fries are covered or not, but just in case you know that I’m not going to give them any special treatment, I got a jar/vase with no cover. Any germ or bacteria out there will have no problem getting to these things.

Ingredients in McDonalds french fries

Potatoes (thank God)
vegetable oil [(partially hydrogenated soybean oil, natural beef flavor (wheat and milk derivatives)]
citric acid (preservative)
dextrose
sodium acid pyrophosphate (maintain color)
dimethylpolysiloxane (antifoaming agent) See below.
salt

Prepared in vegetable oil; [which] may contain one of the following:
Canola oil
corn oil
soybean oil
hydrogenated soybean oil
partially hydrogenated soybean oil
partially hydrogenated corn oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness)

CONTAINS: WHEAT AND MILK (Natural beef flavor contains hydrolyzed wheat and hydrolyzed milk as starting ingredients.)

I didn’t know that french fries spanned so many of the six food groups. With a little more work, McDonald’s may be able to mold it into the perfect food!

But on the other hand, according to Wikipedia dimethylpolysiloxane (see above) is also used in such diverse products as:

knuckle replacements
silicone caulk
breast implants
silly putty

Just thought you’d like to know.

About two years ago, Jane and I saw the movie Supersize me! by Morgan Spurlock. It’s a documentary about Spurlock’s experimental 30-day, McDonald’s-only diet. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, for 30 days! It’s quite eye-opening and funny at the same time. Spurlock’s doctors tell him half way through to stop the diet or he may die!

Here are the fries I bought today:

But in one of the special features on the DVD, Spurlock collects various McConald’s food items: Big Mac, Filet-O-fish, french fries, etc. And he puts each one of them in a jar. Then over time he records what happens to them. They all eventually mold and get quite groady, all EXCEPT, that is, THE FRENCH FRIES! They refuse to give up the ghost. After about 8 weeks they still look fresh! (Unlike another plate of fries from a normal restaurant – those fries blackened in about a week.)

I actually tried this experiment myself about two years ago with similar results. I bought a small bag of french fries from the Golden Arches and put them in a plastic bottle. After about nine months, they looked exactly the same! I finally threw them out, concluding that they would be that way forever.

As Morgan Spurlock said, there’s something weird going on with these french fries. They simply do not degrade. Why?

You may ask why I’m doing this. Let’s just say I have my reasons and I’ll fill you in as time goes on. Aauuggh! Don’t you hate it when someone baits you like that?!

So this is a chronicle of the McFrench Fries. I’ll keep you posted on their progress.