Horrifying 12-day Cool Whip experiment
by Jonathan Fields | 02/25/08
It all started as a simple way to demonstrate to my daughter the difference between real-food and fake food. But, man-oh-man, did this thing go horribly wrong!
As the son of a mad-baker, I had a lot off whipped-cream growing up. But, not the kind you get from a can or a plastic tub. Mom used to whip it up fresh from heavy cream, vanilla and sugar. Okay, so we know that’s not the best thing for your body these day…but wait’ll you see this!
The Great 12-day Cool Whip experiment…documented in photos!
I decided to do a little experiment to see just how fake some food was and show my daughter, because pictures speak so much louder than words. So, I picked up a small tub of Cool Whip Lite whipped “topping,” and I also made up a quick batch of fresh whipped-cream. I dropped a big scoop of each into two little bowls and set them on the table.
Not surprising, within minutes, the real stuff began to melt away to nothing. An hour later, it was just a puddle of cream. But, what unfolded next not only shocked, but horrified us…
The Cool Whip appeared unchanged…for 12 straight days!
Don’t believe me? See for yourself.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
After Day 12, I finally got the guts to touch it and found that it had begun to harden into a plastic-like substance…
So, I decided to run two final tests on it…
The sideways gravitational-pull study…
and, the drawing-a-smiley-face-on-it study…
Sufficed to say…my little girl won’t be eating Cool Whip anytime soon!
So, can I get a nice, juicy, collective YYYUUUCCCKKKK in the comments?
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39 comments
POSTED IN: Health & fitness |
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February 25th, 2008 | 12:13 pm
Yuck is right. But… uh… you may have just taught your daughter that Cool-Whip is better. See how long it lasts?
February 25th, 2008 | 12:44 pm
Wow!! That is sooooo….. YUCKY!!!! (Aren’t I hip… I can talk like my 6 year old)
It is so amazing the amount of chemicals most foods have in them. That is the only way food would remain unchanged for that long…. chemicals!! Isn’t it the Twinkie that could remain unchanged for 30 years? UGH!!
February 25th, 2008 | 12:49 pm
get a couple of cans and make a snowman….it’ll last forever.
February 25th, 2008 | 1:05 pm
@ James - funny, I thought of that, so I was trying to tell her it would stay like that inside her…forever! Okay, a little overdramatic, but, hey, just trying to make a point.
@ Shana - Yeah, this really freaked me out!
@ Sharon - Brilliant, experiement number 2 in the works, gotta figure out what to use for the face, though. Suggestions? (gotta be fake)
February 25th, 2008 | 1:43 pm
As the mad baker and hands-on science experiment person in my family, there is not much I will not cook, eat or try. This, I never thought of.
I must thank you for an inspiring Monday… er… expose. Yes, that’s it. Expose. An expose that showed me that though Cool Whip is made of complex forever pharma chemo stuff, smiling is simple and almost anything can inspire a good smile.
Now I am having a craving for roasted sweet onions on a bed of steamed organic kale.
February 25th, 2008 | 2:43 pm
Aww man Jonathan! You’ve just ruined my favorite whipped topping! Actually, you used the “lite” version, so I would definitely have to say YUCK! Full calorie cool whip all the way for me!
February 25th, 2008 | 2:44 pm
[...] to add insult to injury, I have recently learned that Cool Whip is not food either. Well, that is not exactly what it says, but really, take a look at the pictures and tell me that [...]
February 25th, 2008 | 2:51 pm
I am close to devistated by this… it was bad enough when I found out McDonald’s french fries weren’t made out of food.
February 25th, 2008 | 3:36 pm
It reminds of the movie Super Size Me where the guy eats McDonald’s food for 3 meals a day, for 30 days. (If you haven’t seen it,talk about yucky!) In any event at the end they put various fast foods in separate jars to see what happens. Many of them, like your cool-whip, never changed.
As nasty as it is to see mold grow on foods kept too long, it does make me feel a little bit better about what I’m eating.
February 25th, 2008 | 3:44 pm
You have a big great “yuck” from the South East of England. That’s as bad as the tooth dissolving in coke I saw on TV when I was a kiddie.
February 25th, 2008 | 4:43 pm
Speaking of Coke, did you know that it makes an excellent toilet bowl cleaner?
February 25th, 2008 | 6:29 pm
Hmm, I”m seeing art potential. You could paint with this stuff! Could be huge!
February 25th, 2008 | 6:58 pm
LOL. Yuck! This brought back the fun my kids and I had with our “scientific” experiments. Congratulations on making such happy memories with your daughter.
February 25th, 2008 | 7:38 pm
Reminds me of this story of a shopkeeper back in 1967 who did a similar experiment with margarine:
“I put a cube of margarine … on a saucer and placed the saucer on the window sill in the back room of my store. I reasoned that if I made it readily available and if it was real food, insects and microorganisms would invite themselves to the feast. Flies and ants would be all over it just as if it were butter … That cube of margarine became infamous. I left it sitting on the window sill for about two years. Nobody ever saw an insect of any description go near it. Not one speck of mold ever grew on it. All that ever happened was that it kind of half-puddled down from the heat of the sun beating through the windowpane, and it got dusty - very dusty.”
(Fred Rohe, PPNF Health Journal)
All I can say is, no thanks!
February 25th, 2008 | 7:52 pm
Just think if you put enough together you could go tubing in mid July Florida weather.
By the way Jonathon when I’m ready I’ll tell ya my story, I may even ask for some help.
Thanks for the expose
Pat
February 25th, 2008 | 7:54 pm
Here’s is one even better, if you mix with Coke could you clean your Engine.
February 25th, 2008 | 8:23 pm
20 year old twinkies anyone?
http://www.rogernichols.com/EQ/EQ_97-01.html
February 25th, 2008 | 9:15 pm
@ Everyone - Oh man, I just clicked on Lisa’s link to the 20 year old twinkie story…that is NASTY!
And, for anyone who’s favorite snack food I’ve unintentionally killed, um, sorry. If you’d like to avoid the need for embalming when you pass, though, just keep eating a spoonful a day! hehehe!
February 26th, 2008 | 12:57 am
That’s some pretty freaky stuff! It’s weird, when I saw your happy face drawing my immediate association was with the Kool-Aid character. But a quick google proved my brain wrong, they don’t look much alike.
Good on ya for doing this experiment for your daughter, and sharing it with us.
February 26th, 2008 | 4:49 am
Oh, that is scary! I always make fresh whipped cream too. Not the best for you, but at least it’s natural, right?
My grandpa has had a twinkie a day habit for many years. We would joke that we could make a bomb shelter and just stack it with his twinkies and survive a few years in there.
February 26th, 2008 | 11:36 am
speaking of margarine, I heard somewhere that if you changed one molecule in margarine, it would be plastic. eww. why does anyone even eat that stuff?
February 27th, 2008 | 4:50 pm
..and what is the point of all this????
February 28th, 2008 | 6:45 pm
Yo Jonathon whats up? I loved this expirement, i have a question when u drew on the face did it move at all or did it stay the same and you had to draw around the peaks of the wipped cream and stuff???
Luv ya
bye!!!
February 29th, 2008 | 10:54 am
haha that’s nuts. i should give that a try and show it to my brotherinlaw.
March 1st, 2008 | 9:20 pm
My Dad was a chef,.. he never let us eat anything pre-packaged. I wish I was as strict, but YUUUUKKK no cool whip for us!
March 2nd, 2008 | 4:42 pm
Everyone should read “Deconstructing the Twinkie” by Steve Ettlinger, it is literally an adventure in processed food manufacturing. I found it a bit bland and scientific, but a browse of each chapter is enough to make you want to avoid all boxed goods outside of Whole Foods.
Did you know that Corn dextrin, a Twinkie ingredient, is also the glue on postage stamps and envelopes?
Something tells me if I had a living Great-Grandmother she wouldn’t be that into Cool Whip either.
March 2nd, 2008 | 4:43 pm
My mistake the correct title is “Twinkie, Deconstructed”!
March 3rd, 2008 | 8:22 am
[...] That’ll make you think twice about putting that stuff on your pumpkin pie. Horrifying 12-day Cool Whip experiment [...]
March 6th, 2008 | 7:39 am
[...] The Cool Whip Experiment (HT: Whole-Life) [...]
March 6th, 2008 | 11:29 pm
I’ve always preferred whipped cream to Cool Whip as the latter has always tasted like plastic to me. But, the thing that bothers me here is that so many people seem to think that whipped cream is bad for you. Granted most of the cream sold in most grocery stores is probably bad for you. But, if you can get access to cream from a pasture-fed cow, it is loaded with vitamin A and D. And, if you can get it raw, so much the better. Check out the website of the Weston A. Price Foundation. It’s a real eye opener.
http://westonaprice.org/
March 7th, 2008 | 2:20 pm
OMG!! Yikes. Imagine what it’s doing to the insides of people who are eating this fake stuff on a regular basis. Horrifying is right! @.@
Thank you for the insight. I am not a fan of non-home made whipped cream, but this will certainly deter me from ever being remotely tempted to buy or eat the pre-made variety ever again. I can’t believe you where able to draw on it!
Long time no see. I hope all is well with you and the family :). Take care.
April 10th, 2008 | 9:46 am
[...] This experiment answers that age old question; “What happens to Cool Whip if I leave it out on the counter for 12 days?” [...]
May 15th, 2008 | 11:24 am
That is YUCK ! CW stinks !! But there is still hope for us whipped topping junkies becoz there are other products like Reddi-wip in the market that are made with REAL CREAM !!!! Not fake like CW. I did my own experiment and a dollop of reddi-wip in a few minutes does melt away. Ofcourse, its the REAL THING !!! And the cherry on top is that its only 15 calories !!!
Jonathan - Maybe your daughter should try RW !
June 20th, 2008 | 4:56 pm
[...] 1. An experiment that illustrated what happens to Cool Whip (as opposed to natural whipped cream) when it is left out at room temperature for 12 days. To see that experiment CLICK HERE [...]
July 6th, 2008 | 1:36 pm
I like cream on my waffle .I hate the cool whip, which cream can be substituted for cool whip. I have grown up with just beating up whipping heavy cream.
Thank you.
Amina
November 13th, 2008 | 12:27 am
Wow, I wonder how many other processed foods behave like that. No wonder we are so sick.
November 24th, 2008 | 9:46 pm
would you please do the same experiment leaving the natural whipped cream uncovered in the bowl for 12 days and show us what it looks like???
i am not advocating the use of cool whip,, i just think without the 12 day old whipping cream to compare it against,, it is literally impossible to decide which is more or less appetizing at the 12 day mark…..
April 30th, 2009 | 4:12 pm
As a Cherokee, my dad, opposed embalming and “cast iron” caskets. We weren’t able to get permission for a wooden casket when he died, but we didn’t have to embalm him. Mortician told me that we didn’t need to embalm because he would have eaten enough preservatives in foods to preserve him. That was in 1984. Imagine now, when even produce is bio-engineered.
May 1st, 2009 | 1:17 pm
The only thing I use Cool Whip for is on pumpkin pie. I’m going to have to find something else. All natural vanilla ice cream?
I eat really healthy, and sometimes I think a little “bad” food will be O.K., but I don’t think I’ll be touching Cool Whip again.
Cool Whip is probably hating you and your experiment right now. Bad for their business. Good for our bodies.
Thanks for the post!