14-year-old McDonald's hamburger looks almost new

David Whipple says he bought a McDonald’s hamburger on July 7, 1999. (The Doctors)

A Utah man says he's hung on to a McDonald's hamburger for 14 years, but even stranger than that --the burger looks almost new.

David Whipple claims that he first bought it in July, 1999 as an experiment to show friends how enzymes work in preserving food, ABC News reported. Whipple kept the burger in the original paper bag from the fast food chain before forgetting about it in his coat’s pocket. Two years later his wife, Beverly, discovered there.

“We looked at it and said, ‘Oh, my gosh.  It’s two years old, it looks like it’s brand new,’” he told ABC.  “I said, ‘I wonder how long this thing is going to last?’”.

They didn't have much time to think about it.  The father of seven says he got caught up with life's other priorities and the burger was placed back in its wrapper and forgotten about again until closer to six years later, around 2006.  After moving house, they discovered it again.

“We were going to give the coats to Goodwill and we found the hamburger again,” he told ABC.  Amazingly, the burger still looked almost new and they decided it was worth keeping around.

The Whipples created a “Word’s Oldest Hamburger” blog devoted to it and was recently a guest on the the daytime talk show  “The Doctors “ to talk about it.

In a statement to ABC, McDonald's said:  “McDonald’s hamburger patties in the U.S. are made with 100% USDA-inspected beef. They are cooked and prepared with salt, pepper and nothing else – no preservatives – no fillers. Our hamburger buns are made from North American-grown wheat flour. These are the same foods that people buy every day in their local grocery stores."

The family says it plans to hold onto the hamburger, which they recently took along on their family trip to Disney World.