Okay, I can’t let the whole McDonald’s horror story go. Partly because MAMMAKAZE Cathy sent me a link to an article that included a link to the following video.

See, that woman in New York wasn’t the first to experiment with the half-life of McDonald’s burgers. Seems a guy has been doing it FOR YEARS! Check out the video about the Hamburger Museum in his basement.

The following is an excerpt from a  wonderful article about the whole McDonald’s thing and WHY their burgers won’t decompose. It was written by MIKE ADAMS editor of NaturalNews.com:

“Why don’t McDonald’s hamburgers decompose?
So why don’t fast food burgers and fries decompose in the first place? The knee-jerk answer is often thought to be, “Well they must be made with so many chemicals that even mold won’t eat them.” While that’s part of the answer, it’s not the whole story.

The truth is many processed foods don’t decompose and won’t be eaten by molds, insects or even rodents. Try leaving a tub of margarine outside in your yard and see if anything bothers to eat it. You’ll find that the margarine stays seems immortal, too!

Potato chips can last for decades. Frozen pizzas are remarkably resistant to decomposition. And you know those processed Christmas sausages and meats sold around the holiday season? You can keep them for years and they’ll never rot.

With meats, the primary reason why they don’t decompose is their high sodium content. Salt is a great preservative, as early humans have known for thousands of years. McDonald’s meat patties are absolutely loaded with sodium — so much so that they qualify as “preserved” meat, not even counting the chemicals you might find in the meat.

To me, there’s not much mystery about the meat not decomposing. The real question in my mind is why don’t the buns mold? That’s the really scary part, since healthy bread begins to mold within days. What could possibly be in McDonald’s hamburger buns that would ward off microscopic life for more than two decades?

As it turns out, unless you’re a chemist you probably can’t even read the ingredients list out loud. Here’s what McDonald’s own website says you’ll find in their buns:

Enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid, enzymes), water, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, yeast, soybean oil and/or partially hydrogenated soybean oil, contains 2% or less of the following: salt, calcium sulfate, calcium carbonate, wheat gluten, ammonium sulfate, ammonium chloride, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, datem, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, mono- and diglycerides, ethoxylated monoglycerides, monocalcium phosphate, enzymes, guar gum, calcium peroxide, soy flour), calcium propionate and sodium propionate (preservatives), soy lecithin.

Great stuff, huh? You gotta especially love the HFCS (diabetes, anyone?), partially-hydrogenated soybean oil (anybody want heart disease?) and the long list of chemicals such as ammonium sulfate and sodium proprionate. Yum. I’m drooling just thinking about it.

Now here’s the truly shocking part about all this: In my estimation, the reason nothing will eat a McDonald’s hamburger bun (except a human) is because it’s not food!

No normal animal will perceive a McDonald’s hamburger bun as food, and as it turns out, neither will bacteria or fungi. To their senses, it’s just not edible stuff. That’s why these bionic burger buns just won’t decompose.

Which brings me to my final point about this whole laughable distraction: There is only one species on planet Earth that’s stupid enough to think a McDonald’s hamburger is food. This species is suffering from skyrocketing rates of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, dementia and obesity. This species claims to be the most intelligent species on the planet, and yet it behaves in such a moronic way that it feeds its own children poisonous chemicals and such atrocious non-foods that even fungi won’t eat it (and fungi will eat cow manure, just FYI).

Care to guess which species I’m talking about?

That’s the real story here. It’s not that McDonald’s hamburgers won’t decompose; it’s that people are stupid enough to eat them. But you won’t find CNN reporting that story any time soon.”

Thanks, Mike. Well said. 

Look, I know that  after a long day of work, it’s tempting for a mommy to hit the McDonald’s drive-thru. But there have to be better alternatives. In-N-Out for example. Or whatever fresh fast food equivalent exists in your neck of the woods. Make the effort. Your kids will thank you. Okay, maybe they won’t. But you’ll know in your heart, you’re doing the right mommy thing.

Food for thought.

Okay. I know this happened a month ago, so I’m a little behind on posting. But there is no expiration date on bad parenting OR on my ability to make snarky comments about it. So here goes.

Apparently a mom who was upset about her kid’s volleyball team losing, pulled a gun on the opposing players.

Yep. That’s right. Talk about a bad sport, huh? This is from kbtx.com:

SAN ANTONIO (AP) – Police say a woman believed to be a suburban San Antonio middle school parent pulled a gun on members of an opposing volleyball team after her school lost a match.

Judson school district spokesman James Keith said school police were reviewing videotape of the Thursday night incident to try to identify the woman. Keith says witnesses reported that she threatened to shoot several girls. He says several witnesses knew the woman.

 Keith tells the San Antonio Express-News that Metzger Middle School had just lost to visiting Kirby when the woman approached the Kirby players while they celebrated in a parking lot.

And there you have it. Bad mommy! Baaad!

Not since the Texas Cheerleader Murdering Mom tale or whatever the hell that real-life story was that they made into some TV movie with Holly Hunter for which she won an Emmy (either for her convincing portrayal or her spot-on accent) has such an example of bad mommy behavior at a sporting event come up.  

I won’t start by pointing out that both incidents happened in Texas. Okay I just did. BUT that doesn’t mean people in Texas are more apt to pull guns. It just means that more people in Texas HAVE guns so they are more apt to PULL them when provoked.

Although I personally wouldn’t call getting a good old-fashioned ass whoopin’ on the volleyball court “provocation”.  That doesn’t mean that the courts in Texas wouldn’t consider it such. After all, the Texas Cheerleader Murdering Mom who solicited someone to murder the mother of her daughter’s main competition for the cheerleading team so that her own daughter would have a better chance of getting on said team, got off with a 6 month jail stint and 1000 hours of community service.

Are you kidding me? There are people who have gotten stiffer sentences for throwing an empty Sprite can out their car window while driving on the highway!

Clearly the lawmakers in Texas take a different view of what is considered criminal than do I. But what do you expect from a place where shotgun racks are considered optional upgrades in new vehicles along with GPS, tinted windows and leather seats? (Okay. Maybe that’s an exaggeration. A joke even. But I feel I can make that joke having lived there for many years and having relatives who still live there.)

I do not know what is going on in these crazy mommies’ minds. But frankly,  I feel fortunate to live in an area where the biggest danger associated with childhood sporting events is the concern that a child might actually know his her or score and thus whether or not they won. See, where I live competition has gone the way of  TB. It has been all but eradicated from childhood. You know, for fear that some poor child might GASP! feel bad about losing! Because where I come from, all kids are supposed to feel good about themselves whether they have abilities or not.   

I’ll never forget the day when I was at a friend’s house and his wife got home with their 5 year-old son from soccer and I dared to ask the boy “Who won?”. Well, the daddy (my friend) quickly SHUSHED ME and explained that they “don’t keep score”. They play for strictly for fun, not to win.

Okaaaaaaay. Not the way things went down when I was a kid. You won. YIPPEE! You lost. BOO-HOO! Suck it up. Practice more. Try harder next time.  ‘Nuf said.

Naturally the danger of all this is that kids grow up with an over-inflated sense of their ablities or lack thereof. And also no sense of competition which, if you ask me, might cause some problems later in life when they have to COMPETE  for things like, I don’t know,  jobs! Or world power status!

But the important thing is that they don’t feel bad about losing and therefore about themselves. And if kids don’t feel bad about losing, then parents don’t feel bad about their kids losing. Then parents won’t feel the need to pull guns or hire hit men to take out their kid’s competition because their kids won’t have any!

So I guess the answer in Texas isn’t to have stiffer gun laws, but less competition! Because if everyone wins, nobody dies.

Gosh, I’m glad I cleared up.

Seriously, though. A little healthy competition never hurt anyone. But you know what does hurt? Guns. And stupid moms brandishing guns… they hurt the most of all. Because what are you teaching your kids? Or maybe these moms don’t care. Yeah. That’s probably it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Not everyone should be a parent. Sigh.

You’ve probably all already seen it. It’s all over the internet. But in case you haven’t, the following video is just one more reason why you should avoid McDonald’s at all cost. You know, besides the whole deforestation issue, the methane issue and the fact that the consumption of grains by cows is one of the reasons we don’t have enough food to feed the world.

Oh and don’t forget the play areas. You know, those bacteria traps filled with pee, snot, vomit and flu germs  that you KNOW no McDonald’s employee has ever entered to clean. EVER! And is the reason your child came down with that creepy hoof and mouth disease thing!

Apparently  some woman named SALLY DAVIES  put a Happy Meal on her coffee table uncovered and proceeded to take a picture of it daily for six months. And guess what happened to it? NOTHING! Absolutely nothing. It didn’t rot or get moldy or stinky or anything. It looked the same on DAY 1 as it did on DAY 180.

Yeah. Gross. Watch.

Okay, if that doesn’t make you a vegetarian or at the very least a permanent convert to the In-N-Out Burger, nothing will.

Actually I wasn’t completely shocked. As anyone who has ever vaccuumed under the back seat floor mat of their car and discovered an old french fry will tell you, fast food can last forever!

I don’t know what exactly makes it last forever. Preservatives. Maybe. Although McDonald’s denies it.  SALT! Probably! I mean have you seen the sodium content of restuarant food?

In any case. It’s disgusting. And no, I take no comfort in the fact that when the world ends only cockroaches and McDonald’s food will survive.  It does not make me feel better knowing that long after the Eiffel Tower and Washington Monument have crumbled to dust, all that will remain is bad fast food. I mean, what kind of legacy is that to leave behind for alien life forms to discover? What will they think of us? You know, besides  that we destroyed our environment and consumed our planet like locusts. Yeah, they’re gonna think we had bad diets. And they’d be right.

Anyway, I know this won’t stop people from eating McDonald’s. Know why? It’s cheap. Cheaper than fruits and vegetables and whole grains and lean meats that aren’t injected with hormones.

Experts think people eat poorly because they’re not educated on nutrition. Wrong. We’re inundated with nutritional information. There isn’t a person in the U.S. who hasn’t heard about the rising obesity rate, even among children, and the importance of good nutrition.

But the truth is, people buy crap because it’s what they can afford. And what is convenient in a world where two parents are forced to work in order to barely scrape by. Until things change. People will keep eating cheap McDonald’s food packed with so much sodium it has a half-life.

 A sad, sad statement about the world we live in.

NOTE: I would like to add proudly that I have long ago convinced Julia that McDonald’s is disgusting. She refuses to eat it. And I’m okay with that.  I only hope I can be as persuasive when she’s seventeen and wants to get that tat of her boyfriend’s junk on her upper thigh.

I have been sooooo bad about posting lately. Was a time I’d compulsively post everyday, whether I had anything relevant to say or not – which of course I ALWAYS did.

But it’s hard now what with a PAYING WRITING JOB that I am obligated to complete on a timely basis. Oh, and did I mention I have also been working on a tween novel with my writing partner? Don’t be too impressed. It hasn’t been published yet.

Bottom line, I’m feel GUILT! Duh, what a surprise since it’s the second most common emotion I feel  after PASSION – you know, for those tortilla chips sitting in the pantry calling my name.

So as a fun filler, until I can complete the epic post I’m working on about bullies, thieves and cliques in grade school – here’s a little something something.

It’s ALICE COOPER on SESAME STREET! Yep, it’s him singing WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE from his first solo album back in the day.

It seemed an appropriate choice given that Halloween is coming and what with the whole Katy Perry/Sesame Street  scandal from last week. 

Only, know what?  No one complained about this! In spite of the fact that it was the introductory song on a album full of songs about prostitution, spousal abuse, necrophilia, serial killing and even a little thing called rape.

Ah, times how they have changed. Enjoy. There are actually two performances by Alice on here, if you’re in the mood.

Alice Cooper singing Welcome to My Nightmare on Sesame Street!

Shout out to MAMMAKAZE Babette for bringing this clip to my attention.