Tale of Two Burgers: Day 5

March 27, 2010   4 Comments

What does a 5 day old hamburger look like? What does it smell and feel like after sitting on a shelf at room temperature? Wouldn't it rot?

After 4 days in a ziplock bag, the McDonalds cheeseburger looks, feels and smells just the same as on Day 1. It is still squishy and doesn't smell at all. There is no sign of mold on the bread.

On the other hand, our homemade burger is definitely turning nasty. There are several small patches of blue-green mold on the bread. The bottom of the burger is sticky, quite like natto, a bit like a really ripe soft cheese. It does not smell strongly but when I sniffed I got the definite odor of rotting meat. The meat and cheese do not look appetising any more; I couldn't wait to wash my hands after putting the burger back in it's ziplock bag.

Read more about our hamburger shelf life experiments:

• The Tale of Two Burgers: The Beginning, the first post in this series
• Cheeseburger watch, a list of all posts, including the earlier McDonalds Cheeseburger experiment