Mom Kept Her Kid’s Happy Meal Untouched for Six Years – Guess What Happened?

If you discovered food that was left out for several years, but had not rotted or decomposed in any way, would you eat it? Would you even touch it? A better question: if this food didn’t decompose, what exactly is it made of?

That’s the question on a lot of people’s minds after a woman posted an image of a McDonald’s Happy Meal on her Facebook page that is allegedly six years old and doesn’t seem to have aged at all.

Jennifer Lovdahl posted two images to her Facebook page on February 3: one was of the box from a Happy Meal with a receipt stapled to the outside; the other image is of the Chicken McNuggets and french fries allegedly inside. The receipt from the order is dated “Jan. 08′ 10(FRI),” meaning January 8, 2010. The Happy Meal box even features the characters from the second Alvin and the Chipmunks film, The Squeakquel, which was released on December 23, 2009, coinciding with the takeout box. Along with the images, Lovdahl posted:

“It’s been 6 years since I bought this “Happy Meal” at McDonald’s. It’s been sitting at our office this whole time and has not rotted, molded, or decomposed at all!!! It smells only of cardboard. We did this experiment to show our patients how unhealthy this “food” is. Especially for our growing children!! There are so many chemicals in this food! Choose real food! Apples, bananas, carrots, celery….those are real fast food.”

The images have now been shared over 230,000 times on Facebook and drawing thousands of comments from some surprised users, and some who were not surprised at all.

The fast food chain has long been under pressure to provide healthier food options and has been the subject of numerous documentaries and critiques throughout the years, and recently has struggled with declining sales numbers as it has attempted to rebrand itself. Based on the reception of this image however, it’s certainly going to cause another PR nightmare for the company.

Perhaps having hundreds of thousands of people see firsthand that the food is loaded with preservatives and other chemicals will make them think twice before heading to their closest location for lunch a few times a week, or, as Lovdahl said, giving it to their children on a regular basis.