2 year-old donut

My 2 year old donut. All is well.  May 31, 2016

Hi! Meet my two-year-old donut. This lives in my office drawer on a paper towel exactly like you can see in the pictures. I do not know when this donut was born. However, I do remember the moment I met it. I got it on April 30th, 2014, Thursday at 9 am in my lab- meeting. The fact that I barely keep donuts to eat later unless I have couple of them, makes it possible that I had one during the meeting and I got this one as my second and I stored it in my drawer for my afternoon snack. The purpose of keeping it inside the drawer was to hide it from myself until I really want it. I was successful! Surprisingly! I forgot about it for 4 days.

On the following Monday, I suddenly remembered and looked at it all around, up and down to have a good look at it before I trash it. Amazingly, nothing had happened to it besides that it was little harder. Then it was the moment when I decided to pursue this experiment to keep it until it gets mold or until it crumbles into pieces after it desiccates and to record how many days will it take to happen so. Since then, I give it a good look every week. It’s been quite steady; no molds and no cracks. It has gotten stronger though. I can knock on it and it sounds like I am knocking on a hard surface like on a desk or on a door.

I have shown it to people in my office, lab-members and even to some visitors. Different people have different opinion about the idea to keep it for so long. Most people get detest for donuts when they see a real edible donut turning into a toy-donut. They become skeptical if it is a real food. I am sure that detest is only for few days. This old, veteran, survivor donut gets forgotten when they see fresh and soft new donut. Some people think it is creepy to keep donut as if it is your pet. Hmm.. not a bad idea. I started calling it my pet donut. Now people around me know what I am talking about when I say my 'pet donut'. I have not found a good name for it though. Mold or any organism apparently cannot survive on this donut. It is pretty much desiccated by now. My pet donut has to go long way until it starts to break into pieces. This is the most likely way it may die.

This was totally serendipity but people have done real and intentional project on how long do fast food last. You have probably heard about McDonald's fries or Taco-bell meal not getting rotten for couple years (http://www.businessinsider.com/fast-food-doesnt-rot-after-2-years-2015-1). Visually they are pretty bad but for my donut, you cannot tell from the picture if it is just bought from the donut shop or been in my drawer for 2 years. Well, it is different category of food. I am not saying I am proud of it or I have worked hard on it. I have no contribution for this amusement besides giving it a space. Whatever has happened, it is all due to the ingredients of the food and the way it is made. Donut is fried bread and sugar coated on the top. Frying food is done at 350-375 degree F. During this process, food absorbs fat in which it is fried and gets dehydrated. Water is essential for any life to survive. All pores are filled with fat, which leaves no space for re-absorbtion of water. The icing is made up of confectionary sugar and some fats. It is also just shrinking, loosing moisture and is not absorbing any moisture. So I have not observed any mold on it as well. It is a desert not a dessert right now for life. However, I may be able to grow some fungi and bacteria if you take swab from this donut and grow them in Yeast media-plates or LB agar plates.

I will keep updating on this in the future.