History Main / IndestructibleEdible

* When looking for food in ''WesternAnimation/TheDragonPrince'', in a winter lodge during spring, General Amaya finds some loaves of bread that are so stale that she can beat one over the countertop without any damage done to it. Reyla mistakes the bread for clubs.

* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': Lembas (which is not bread).[[note]]The movies incorrectly refer to it as "Lembas Bread" but in the books, lembas is often referred to as "cakes" or "wafers." Both lembas and cram are described in a way that indicates they are canonically a biscuit.[[/note]] As long as it's in the original leaf wrapping, it can stay fresh for a long time, and even if you unwrap it, it seems to last quite a while. (Sam kept an emergency ration stashed away somewhere for several months to no ill effects.) ''Cram'' or waybread, made by humans, is a more realistically tasteless long-lasting ration. Lembas, being elven, is still delicious months later. Then again, it ''is'' made by elves. All products of elven craftsmanship are at least somewhat magical and are by default ten times better than the equivalent human product. It's how Middle-Earth elves roll. Lembas, however, are not actually an elven creation. The special corn used to make them was a gift from the Vala Yavanna, and the original recipe was a gift from the Maia Melian. Lembas are literally divine.

* In ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'', the world of ''[[UltraSuperHappyCuteBabyFestFarmer3000 Sugar Rush]]'' has jawbreakers that, according to Vanellope, are [[MadeOfIndestructium unbreakable]].

** World War II American D Rations were bars of specially formulated chocolate that were effectively just bricks of nutrients. Eating them took a bit of work since biting straight into a bar might just break your teeth. They were so hardy that they could be fired from artillery cannons to soldiers who were trapped behind enemy lines. The military commissioned Hershey to make the bars so unappealing to soldiers that they wouldn't eat them unless they absolutely had to. (The commission literally specified that the bars should taste "slightly better than a boiled potato.")

** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal_ready_to_eat Meal, Ready to Eat]]. Shelf life is nominally three and a half years at 27 degrees Celsius (81 degrees Fahrenheit) so long as it is kept sealed. In long-term storage, it is kept at -18 degrees Celsius (0 degrees Fahrenheit) and can last longer without affecting the quality (which in the earlier ones was [[MasochistsMeal certainly dubious]], leading to nicknames like [[FunWithAcronyms "Meal, Rarely Edible"]]).[[note]]Also [[ToiletHumor Meals Ready to Excrete, Meals Refusing to Exit]] (referring to their ability to cause constipation), [[EveryoneHasStandards Meals Rejected by the Enemy, Meals Rejected by Everyone]], and even [[BlackComedy Meals Rejected by Ethiopians]].[[/note]] Modern examples are more palatable, but servicemen will still damn their taste in the same breath used to recognize their durability:

** The aforementioned WebVideo/Steve1989MREInfo, an enthusiast of military rations around the world, discusses that [=MREs=] from the late eighties and early nineties tend to hold up and taste better than newer [=MREs=] still within their recommended three-year shelf life because, he says, of the trans fat content in those older ones.

* Several of [[WebVideo/TheSpoonyExperiment Noah "The Spoony One" Antwiler's]] old [[WebVideo/CounterMonkey gaming stories]] mention a pizza joint called Peter Piper Pizza, which served some of the most godawful, greasy pizza known to man. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dsui0TVYk_Q One story in particular]] involves him finding a month-old Peter Piper's pizza in the bathroom of the gaming store that he worked at. Instead of rotting, growing mold, or decaying in any way, the pizza had become glazed over with a barrier of hardened grease, leaving it ''looking'' more or less normal save for a weird plastic-y sheen.

* ''Videogame/FallenLondon:'' Incorruptible Biscuits. The description tells they never go off, though one could argue they were never ''on''. Just a few bites will get you through a long day, but they're gonna be difficult bites; the {{street urchin}}s call them Dentist Biscuits for a reason. It's rumored crates of them were made for the Napoleonic Wars nearly a century before the game's start and came down as London did, uneaten even through the famine of 1862. Their taste is not remarked on, though Londoner palates can probably use something more normal than their usual shroomy, ratty and even [[AlienLunch rubbery]] meals. Chemist and Mayoral Candidate F. F. Gebrandt attempted some experiments to make them even more durable, and [[GoneHorriblyRight succeeded a little excessively]] by ending up with outright crystalline biscuits that feel (and treat your palate) like chewing a mouthful of shrapnel.

* In ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'', the world of ''[[UltraSuperHappyCuteBabyFestFarmer3000 Sugar Rush]'' has jawbreakers that, according to Vanellope, are [[MadeOfIndestructium unbreakable]].

* In the ''Ernest'' franchise film ''Ernest in the Army'', Ernest joins the Army and is deployed overseas. While cooking breakfast for the troops in the middle of the movie, he accidentally adds "Powdered Tank Patch" to a batch of pancakes, making them (much to the chagrin of his diners) an Indestructible Edible. Unfortunately, they're so indestructible that they can't even be eaten. Cut to the end of the movie, and he [[spoiler: defeats the film's arch-villain, a deranged Middle-Eastern dictator, by chucking one of the impossibly hard pancakes at him.]]

* The sailors and Marines of ''Literature/TheLostFleet'' (by Creator/JohnHemry, writing as Jack Campbell) frequently have to subsist on ration bars left behind on mothballed enemy facilities in [[DyingTown worlds bypassed by the]] [[PortalNetwork hyperspace gate network]]. The best that can be said about them is that they make fewer sailors complain about short rations. They're still edible despite being WayPastTheExpirationDate--by ''decades'' in many cases--is justified by their usually being stored in hard vacuum. A possible example also exists in the utterly revolting Danaka Yoruk bars, which nobody on either side will eat if they have an alternative (They apparently taste better than stale Syndic rations, but that's their only known virtue). Geary is amazed that they're still making the things, given that they were reviled back when he was put into cryo a century previous, and Desjani counters that they stopped making them a century ago, but the Alliance is still trying to get rid of the ones they already made.

** Kylara's aunt sends her some utterly impervious fruitcakes at the beginning of the series. Ky bemoans their inedibility and stores them away, forgetting about them until after the first novel's climax. [[spoiler: Finally cutting one open, she finds it ''full of diamonds'' -- the fruitcakes are so dense that they block security scans, making them perfect for smuggling, and so unpalatable no-one will cut one up unless the situation is truly dire.]]

* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'', there are three foods that will never go rotten (other food makes Snake prone to randomly throwing up at the worst possible time if it goes rotten): [=CalorieMates=]™, which are delicious, Instant Noodles, which are delicious ''and'' a delicacy, having not really made it out of Japan in 1964, and Russian Army Rations, which are absolutely disgusting, though if you feed him enough of them, he'll develop a taste for them. It's also fairly realistic when you consider the prologue takes place over the course of just one day, and the main mission takes place over the course of four days. Their indestructibility is more in a meta sense - you can go a decade before resuming a saved game, and these items will still be fine while waiting just one week before resuming a saved game will cause your wild-caught foods to spoil.

* In ''VideoGame/SpaceQuestIVRogerWilcoAndTheTimeRippers'' there is the Monolith Burger fast-food chain. The Permabuns used in the Monoliths are '''299 years old'''. Whether the burgers are actually edible is never mentioned. They are technically edible - Roger ''did'' eat one in ''VideoGame/{{Space Quest III|ThePiratesOfPestulon}}'', though it wasn't very good.

* While not entirely indestructible, Chocolate can last long after the best before date says it can and still taste good, if stored in proper conditions. On occasion, chocolate can bloom, in which fats and sugars come out of solution and crystallise on the surface, but melting the chocolate down, pouring it into a mould and setting it usually fixes this minor issue.

* Turbatrix aceti, the "vinegar eel", is a type of nematode that feeds off of the microbial culture that ferments sugars and cellulose and is thus often found in "mother of vinegar" (a jelly-like stage between cider and vinegar, with LOTS of active bacteria). If the resulting vinegar is not filtered, one can find ugly (but harmless) little critters swimming in it. They don't affect the vinegar, though.

* While liquor is famous for getting better with age, provided it is stored properly, the people who salvaged the Vasa took it to extremes. The Vasa was a galleon, which sank in Stockholm at the start of its maiden voyage in 1628. When it was salvaged in 1961, the excavation crew found a keg of vodka. The contents were not only perfectly palatable, they were served as a pre-dinner cocktail at the Vasa Museum inauguration dinner.

* A box of [[Series/FamilyMatters Urkel-O's]] breakfast cereal, thanks to being left sealed, was found to still be good [[http://www.thesneeze.com/2004/steve-dont-eat-it----1991-urkel-os.php 14 years after its manufacture]] and 12 years after its official expiration date.

* ''Videogame/FallenLondon:'' Incorruptible Biscuits. The description tells they never go off, though one could argue they were never ''on''. Just a few bites will get you through a long day, but they're gonna be difficult bites; the {{street urchin}}s call them Dentist Biscuits for a reason. It's rumored crates of them were made for the Napoleonic Wars nearly a century before the game's start and came down as London did, uneaten even through the famine of 1862. Their taste is not remarked on, though Londoner palates can probably use something more normal than their usual shroomy, ratty and even [[AlienLunch rubbery]] meals.

%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1448268611067193900
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[[quoteright:350:[[Advertising/{{Chevy}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/chevyx.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:So indestructible, even the box looks brand new.]]

%% Caption selected per above IP thread. Please do not replace or remove without discussion here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1404492079030138900

* ''WesternAnimation/WallE'' feeds his pet cockroach a Twinkie that's hundreds of years old. Of course, it's not unlikely that a cockroach just wouldn't care.

* In ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'', the world of [[UltraSuperHappyCuteBabyFestFarmer3000 Sugar Rush]] has jawbreakers that acording to Vanellope, are [[MadeOfIndestructium unbreakable]].

* In the Ernest franchise film Ernest in the Army, Ernest joins the Army and is deployed overseas. While cooking breakfast for the troops in the middle of the movie, he accidentally adds "Powdered Tank Patch" to a batch of pancakes, making them (much to the chagrin of his diners) an Indestructible Edible. Unfortunately, they're so indestructible that they can't even be eaten. Cut to the end of the movie, and he [[spoiler: defeats the film's arch-villain, a deranged Middle-Eastern dictator, by chucking one of the impossibly hard pancakes at him.]]
* ''Film/{{Zombieland}}'' averts one of the most common targets: Tallahassee is devoted to his hunt for a Twinkie because, as he points out to Columbus, they ''do'' have expiration dates, and with the apocalypse, no more are being made.

--->'''Mad''': Why, if it wasn't for our dwarf bread we'd never--\\
'''Rincewind''': Have been able to club the sharks to death?\\

*** Alternately, if one considers the Jewish inspirations behind Discworld dwarves, then the jokes about dwarf bread can be understood as exaggerated versions of things Jews themselves will say about matzo--a category of humor born from millennia of having to endure Passover constipation from eating the stuff.

** In ''Literature/TheFifthElephant,'' the Scone of Stone that serves as the Dwarf King's throne cushion [[spoiler: isn't as indestructible as advertised, but as per the [[TheseusShipParadox Grandpa's Axe paradox]], it's still the same Scone the first one sat upon.]]
* In Creator/StephenieMeyer's ''Literature/TheHost2008'', the protagonist scavenges Twinkies from an abandoned house at one point.

* Played for horror in ''The Mummy Or Ramses The Damned'', where the title character tried to use his immortality elixir on plants and livestock to create a famine-proof supply of food. This resulted in cereals and livestock that killed the consumer as they couldn't be digested, and cows that [[AndIMustScream couldn't be slaughtered]].
* Creator/JohnHemry's Literature/PaulSinclair novel ''A Just Determination'' has a scene in which a New Year's celebration aboard a U.S. Navy spaceship includes firing a fruitcake into the depths of space "as a warning to all the universe of the awful culinary weapons available to the human race." It's also stated that billions of years in the future, the fruitcake will be just as edible and tasty as it is at that moment.
* The sailors and Marines of ''Literature/TheLostFleet'' (by the same author, writing as Jack Campbell) frequently have to subsist on ration bars left behind on mothballed enemy facilities in [[DyingTown worlds bypassed by the]] [[PortalNetwork hyperspace gate network]]. The best that can be said about them is that they make fewer sailors complain about short rations. They're still edible despite being WayPastTheExpirationDate--by ''decades'' in many cases--is justified by their usually being stored in hard vacuum. A possible example also exists in the utterly revolting Danaka Yoruk bars, which nobody on either side will eat if they have an alternative (They apparently taste better than stale Syndic rations, but that's their only known virtue). Geary is amazed that they're still making the things, given that they were reviled back when he was put into cryo a century previous, and Desjani counters that they stopped making them a century ago, but the Alliance is still trying to get rid of the ones they already made.

* In ''Literature/ShardsOfHonor'', Aral claims that his Barrayaran emergency military rations can go for years without spoiling... and probably have already.
* One of Robert Sheckley's stories had alien astronauts sustain themselves on some super-nutrient nut... that, going on a human technology, takes a hydraulic press to crack.
* Exaggerated with ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'''s Everlasting Gobstoppers, which never grow any smaller no matter how long one sucks on them. Willy Wonka's developed them for "children with very little pocket money". Notably becomes a major plot point in the 1971 film adaptation.
* In the ''Literature/CodexAlera'' series, ship's tack is treated as borderline inedible -- hard, tasteless bits of bread that are valued for their longevity, not their taste. At one point, a Canim wolf-man is offered some, takes a bite, chews, and then reflects that the humans he's traveling with are tougher than he thought if ''this'' is what they eat.
* In ''Literature/{{Nation}}'', the stores on the wrecked ship include tins of Dr Poundbury's Patent Ever-Lasting Milk, which claims to be as fresh after a year as the day it was canned and very probably is.
* ''Literature/{{Holes}}'': {{Downplayed|Trope}} with Kate Barlow's spiced peach preserves, a cache of which survives for over 100 years in the ruins of her lover's boat. They sustain Zero for days when he's lost in the desert, but overconsuming the fermented peaches gives him an incapacitating stomach ache.
* ''Literature/TheMachineriesOfEmpire'': Some varieties of Kel field rations are rated to last over two centuries, though there's a joke that consuming ration bars voluntarily is a sign of mental health problems.
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': During Tyrion's voyage aboard the ''Selaesori Qhoran'', supper consists of buttered beets, cold fish stew and biscuits hard enough to hammer nails into wood.

-->'''Tutuola''': Okay, always wanted to know this.\\
'''Munch''': What?\\
'''Tutuola''': Do Twinkies last forever? Give you twenty bucks, take a bite.

'''Hurley:''' Stacks of TV dinners from [[TheFifties the 50's]], or something. And [=TVs=] with cable, some cell phones, clean socks, soap, Twinkies -- you know, for dessert, after the TV dinners. Twinkies keep for, like, 8000 years, man.
* Alton cleared up the prejudice towards fruitcake (and provided another form of an above joke) in one episode of ''Series/GoodEats''.
* Dog's milk, the backup emergency milk aboard the ''Series/RedDwarf'' -- it tastes just the same three million years later. Though according to Holly, the main reason why it lasts longer than any other kind of milk is that "no bugger'll drink it."
** The books go further into this -- all the food onboard is "irradiated and vacuum-sealed to last an eternity". The Cat race gained an evolutionary level and ended a famine when they learned how to operate a tin-opener.

* In ''Series/KitchenNightmares'' at the Dovecote Bistro for the "Great British Nightmare" special, Gordon Ramsay is shocked when the owner's daughter informs him that the lamb shank he has just been served has a lifespan of ONE YEAR, and doesn't even need to be refrigerated due to being vacuum sealed. Gordon is so revolted he outright refuses to taste the dish (something he had never done before up to that point in either KN series). He then looks over the ingredients of the lamb shank and is shocked by how many chemicals are in it, upon which he remarks "thank fuck I didn't taste it!"

--> It was harder than the head of Uncle Bucky,
--> Heavy as a sermon from Preacher Lucky,
--> One's enough to give the whole state of Kentucky a great big belly ache!
--> It was denser than a drove of barnyard turkeys;
--> Tougher than a truckload of all beef jerkey;
--> Drier than a drought in Albuquerque;
--> Grandma's Killer Fruitcake!
"I'll Be Hanged (If They're Gonna Hang Me)":
So I wrote out to my sweetheart on the prairie,
I asked her if she'd help me make a break,
She sent a cake and [[JailBake put inside a hammer]],
She forgot to send an axe to break the cake.

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* A RunningGag in ''ComicStrip/OverTheHedge'' is the junk food RJ and the other forest animals steal having expiration dates a century (or more) off.
[[/folder]]

* In ''VideoGame/SpaceQuestIVRogerWilcoAndTheTimeRippers'' there is the Monolith Burger fast-food chain. The Permabuns used in the Monoliths are '''299 years old'''. Whether the burgers are actually edible is never mentioned.
** They are technically edible - Roger ''did'' eat one in ''VideoGame/{{Space Quest III|ThePiratesOfPestulon}}'', though it wasn't very good.
* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'', there are three foods that will never go rotten (other food makes Snake prone to randomly throwing up at the worst possible time if it goes rotten): [=CalorieMates=]™, which are delicious, Instant Noodles, which are delicious ''and'' a delicacy, having not really made it out of Japan in 1964, and Russian Army Rations, which are absolutely disgusting, though if you feed him enough of them, he'll develop a taste for them. It's also fairly realistic when you consider the prologue takes place over the course of just one day, and the main mission takes place over the course of four days. Their indestructibility is more in a meta sense - you can go a decade before resuming a saved game, and these items will still be fine while waiting just one week before resuming a saved game will cause your wild-caught foods to spoil.

** ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'': the canned goods and other manufactured sweets have survived [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt complete nuclear armageddon]], which by the time of this game happened exactly 200 years ago, and are still edible -- though some cause radiation poisoning.

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' has cooking recipes including Egg Nog, Spice Bread, Hot Lion Chops, Hot Wolf Ribs, Hot Apple Cider, and Hot Buttered Trout and purchasable item Ice Cold Milk. The Egg Nog never gets funky, nobody has ever eaten "Stale, Moldy Spice Bread," the milk never turns into "Lukewarm, Curdled Milk," and the other recipes never turn into, e.g. "Room-temperature Wolf Ribs." Not to mention all the other cooked meals that you would expect to go off after a short time or just be totally disgusting if not freshly cooked.
** This was mocked in a webcomic that claimed that improperly stored fish had recently caused a rash of food poisoning among various guilds.
** [[http://www.wowhead.com/item=21215 Graccu's Mince Meat Fruitcake]] lampoons the common joke about fruitcakes being nigh-indestructible. "Preserved with Graccu's special spices! It'll be a very long time before these turn bad..."

* In ''VideoGame/{{Cataclysm}}'', you can loot military rations from military surplus stores. As any jarhead or private will tell you, they're not very good -- eating them temporarily lowers your morale.

* ''VideoGame/DontStarve'' gives us the [[JokeItem Powdercake]]. This meal made of a piece of corn, one honey (which already lasts long), and one twig. It lasts ''[[RagnarokProofing 18750 days]]'' before turning into rot. Although it will last only half that being as edible as before, it is still a ridiculous amount of time. It adds no hunger and takes 3 health upon consumption. Nevertheless, it can be used as [[LethalJokeItem everlasting]] [[NotTheIntendedUse bait for]] [[GameBreaker traps]].
* ''Videogame/FallenLondon:'' Incorruptible Biscuits. The description tells they never go off, though one could argue they were never ''on''. Just a few bites will get you through a long day, but they're gonna be difficult bites; the {{street urchin}}s call them Dentist Biscuits for a reason. It's rumored crates of them were made for the Napoleonic Wars nearly a century before the game's start and came down as London did, uneaten even through the famine of 1862. Their taste is not remarked on, though Londoner palates can probably use something more normal than their usual shroomy, ratty and even [[AlienLunch rubbery]] meals.
* In ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'' and ''VideoGame/BatenKaitosOrigins'', most food magnuses usable only in battle will rot away/age into other items in a determinate amount of time but some won't, like honey, chestnuts and deluxe green teas. Camp only food like Shish Kebabs and most pastries won't age either.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* One character in ''Webcomic/{{Nodwick}}'' [[http://web.archive.org/web/20070630210350im_/http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/gamespyarchive/strips/2007-04-11.jpg drank]] "five hundred years old coffee". It's ''[[KlatchianCoffee amazing]]'' stuff. It's implied he actually used that coffee to ''melt'' the walls.
* [[https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2008-03-09 Parodied]] - and taken a step further - in ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', where [=MREs=] from hundreds of years ago have somehow aged into delicacies. They apparently follow a parabolic path, first declining in quality and then (around the 70-year mark) rising again until they end up surpassing their original levels.
* The residents of ''Webcomic/{{Endtown}}'' mostly live on canned beans scavenged from the surface, since D-bombs destroyed most of the plant life. In [[http://www.gocomics.com/endtown/2009/09/21 this]] comic they come across a grocery store where low levels of Amesworth radiation disintegrated the beans in their cans, but not the Twinkies.
* [[EveryoneHatesFruitCakes Fruit cake]] receives this treatment in ''Webcomic/ManlyGuysDoingManlyThings''. The Commander uses it for wilderness survival kits, as it's calorie-dense and lasts forever. One of his fruitcake stashes [[http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/comic/okay-i-booked-it-for-christmas lasted for hundreds of years]] and [[ExactWords didn't taste any worse than when it was made.]]

* In ''WebAnimation/IfTheEmperorHadATextToSpeechDevice'', Rogal Dorn cooks waffles that can withstand ''industrial drills.''
* ''Literature/{{Plonqmas}}'': Almost invariably applies to Plonq’s holiday meal, which is usually a variant on “Christmas Dinner-in-a-Bag.” Inverted at the end of “A Plonqmas Tale -- 2019,” when he enjoys a standard sushi meal at a nearby restaurant.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Fillmore}}'', Vallejo worries about cookie dough O'Farrell is eating, from the 1940s. After Ingrid reads off some ingredients, she comments it'll "outlast the ''Sphinx''."
* In one of the old ''WesternAnimation/PacMan'' cartoons, Pac-Man finds Power Pellets in a ''mummy's tomb''. "A little stale, but still good!" he quips.
* After the titular [[WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfSamAndMaxFreelancePolice Sam and Max]] get dropped into the Jungle[[note]]Actually just a ''very'' overgrown and uncharted part of Central Park[[/note]] in [[https://youtu.be/HJLMjN4LMq8?t=135 "We Drop At Dawn"]]. [[BigEater Sam]] happens upon an overgrown hotdog cart and helps himself to a sausage, which according to him "the overabundance of chemical preservatives, has kept this long forgotten frank, farm fresh!", the same could not be said for the sauerkraut nor the mustard. Hilariously even when disposing of the cart he stuffs a few more franks on his pockets.

** And in the supermarket, all fruit has gone moldy... except for a single batch of apples, which Dave says are irradiated.

* In WebAnimation/IfTheEmperorHadATextToSpeechDevice, Rogal Dorn cooks waffles that can withstand ''industrial drills.''

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' involves an auction for a tin of thousand-year-old anchovies. Although everyone else finds Fry's anchovy pizza utterly disgusting when they try it, Fry and Zoidberg don't seem to have any problems eating it, implying they are still at least fresh enough for an anchovy lover to eat. In fact, part of the auction guaranteed their freshness.

* From the ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' episode "Sink or Swim":

** {{Averted}} in ''VideoGame/Fallout1'' and ''VideoGame/Fallout2'', where the only pre-war food items you can find are TV dinners, dried pasta, and cheese puffs, [[VendorTrash none of which you can eat]]. Both the Vault Dweller and the Chosen One wonder if the TV dinners were even edible in the first place.

** World War II American D Rations were bars of specially formulated chocolate that were effectively just bricks of nutrients. Eating them took a bit of work since biting straight into a bar might just break your teeth. They were so hardy that they could be fired from artillery cannons to soldiers who were trapped behind enemy lines. The military commissioned Hershey to make the bars so unappealing to soldiers that they wouldn't eat them unless they absolutely had to.

* In Creator/StephenieMeyer's ''Literature/TheHost'', the protagonist scavenges Twinkies from an abandoned house at one point.

* Series/StuckInTheMiddle: The fruitcake given to the Diaz family every year by their abuela. Usually discarded unwrapped and uneaten as soon as it arrives. Harley notes that consuming it will result in significant digestive complications.
* Series/TheTwoRonnies: One of Ronnie Barker's monologues is as a representative of British Rail. Among the rumours that he inadvertently confirms is that the sandwiches sold in refreshment rooms are so stale that a knife won't cut them ([[https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35027/35027-h/35027-h.htm#Page_41 a joke as old as the railways]]). When he demonstrates with a knife and a sandwich, it's the knife that disintegrates and the sandwich that remains intact.

** An extra feature in the DVD for ''Film/SuperSizeMe'' has Morgan Spurlock keep various UsefulNotes/McDonalds burgers and fries in jars to see how long it takes for them to go bad, with a local independent burger joint providing a control. The indie burger and fries went bad within the first week. The [=McBurgers=] lasted a few weeks longer. The [=McFries=] went for ''ten weeks'' without looking any different, at which point the intern accidentally threw the fries away. One could infer that the fries could last even longer. This was intended to imply how artificial they are, [[ArtisticLicenseBiology but anyone who knows basic biology will know that mold requires moisture to grow]], and the [=McDonalds=] burger and fries were much too thin to hold water for long, which combined with their high sodium content meant that they were an environment that was simply too dry for anything visible to grow.