Burger King's New Ads Find Beauty In A Moldy Whopper

McDonald's is infamous for quite a number of things, like its constantly broken ice cream machines, and the fact that its burgers—even if they're decades old—will not rot. An 11-year-old cheeseburger is a tourist attraction in Iceland. A 25-year-old Quarter Pounder is a minor celebrity in Australia. McDonald's has explained the scientific reason behind this phenomenon ad nauseum, and announced in 2018 that it was removing all preservatives from its burgers. Yet still, the myth of a burger so laden with chemicals that it becomes immortal is etched into humankind's popular memory, and in what can only be interpreted as a Defcon-1 level of shade, Burger King has decided to burn yet another hamburger image into our collective brains so that we shall always remember which fast food chain does not serve burgers that will continue to exist long after the burger-flipping robots have risen up and murdered us all.

Burger King's newest ad as seen above, shows a Whopper that is covered in mold. Why is it forcing us to look at this gruesome image? Because the company has removed all artificial preservatives from the Whopper sandwich and has removed colors and flavors from artificial sources from all its most popular sandwiches and sides. There is a caveat: this only applies to European Whoppers—in America, the chemical-free Whopper is only available in select markets. Restaurant News Resource reports that currently the new and improved Whopper can currently be found in more than 400 restaurants, and by the end of 2020, Burger King anticipates that it will be available at all of its U.S. locations. While the burgers will no longer contain preservatives and other unpronounceable things, they will still contain a bajillionty calories.