Super Size This
Apparently "Supersize Me" got it wrong, a McDonalds only diet will help you lose weight. A woman from North Carolina ate only McDonalds for 90 days and lost almost 40 pounds! This is great news for anyone feeling guilty about ordering a double quarter pounder with extra meat and cheese. Go ahead and watch the pounds melt away. I know what I'm having for lunch tomorrow.
posted by mochi at 9:23 PM
23 Comments:
Now maybe McDonalds will be able to dodge that class action lawsuit!
-Jack
Mochi,
Have a small request. Do you think a link could be added to Shea and Smorg's blog?
I saw a TV news clip on this, but I was only half paying attention. The thing that struck me was that they showed the local McDonald's where this woman went and it had a salad bar. How many McDonald's have salad bars? Not many. Any dipshit can lose weight by eating nothing but salad, regardless of where it came from.
McDonald's has really tried to change their image and I think they're doing an okay job. All this BS about it being the best or the worst company on Earth is idiotic. To most people it's all about personal responsibility. If you don't want to be unhealthy and fat, don't eat burgers and deep fried crap. If you want to be healthy, eat healthy.
But here's the real point: don't sue a company or a person because you're too fat, lazy and stupid to realize 10 burgers a day is bad for you. (I think I'm going to rent a U-Haul, drive it over my dog and then sue U-Haul. No where in their disclaimer does it say they can be deadly to dogs.)
I saw the MSNBC interview with this woman and she mentioned "Supersize Me" to be "unfair, bunk science" inspiring her to make her own film. She claims to have no motive in making this movie stating that she hasn't even received "One free hamburger" from MacDonalds. She said that she only made "Smart eating choices" and paid attention to serving size. I guess that's half a hamburger, three fries and two sips of water.
Smorg,
I witnessed a head on collision this morning on the way to work. I think the drivers should sue GM and Ford. My brother-iin-law coughs a lung up every morning. I think that he should sue the tobacco company. I allowed a claimant for cirrhosis of the liver, I think he should sue Budweiser and Jack Daniels. Someone got shot here in town yesterday, I think Smith and Wesson should be sued. There was a stabbing last week, I think Chicago Cutlery should be sued. We could go on all day sounding this absurd, but the sad thing about it is, that common sense has fled this nation, and we will see such silly notions advanced and WIN. This is the problem when almost 90% of our elected officials are lawyers.
So much for personal responsibility...
-Jack
Mochi,
If you add Shea and Smorg, could you add my crappy blog as well?
What's with all the "personal responsibility" references... I'm not against personal responsibility, but isn't that the Republican catch phrase used to alleviate their guilt when they screw over the poor?
Heres a link to a good POV on the subject I found googling "Catch Phrase", "Personal Responsibility", "Meaningless" and "Republicans":
http://actuary.ca/actuarial_discussion_forum/showthread.php?t=24577&goto=nextnewest
As for "Super Size Me" I found the movie highly enjoyable. The Series 30 Days is also pretty cool.
Foods with a high fat content taste good, but are unhealthy for you. Why should McDonald's object to someone pointing out the obvious? Because that is where they make their money (high fat/high calorie content menu items). Low Fat/Healthy Choice Menu items are just PR.
Of course McDonald's isn't evil, they are a business trying to turn a profit. I just think it is BS for them to object to someone pointing out their food is obviously unhealthy.
Curf!
I didn't know you had one!
I'll be looking into it!
DK,
No, it should have been something your parents taught you before you left home.
-Jack
WTF, I knew Shea had a blog now all of you do? I'm going to be put out of business. Jack I'll put one to yours just to be nice...
I enjoyed that article, dkfz. It was overly long, of course, but still good.
Our comments on this particular post aren't "cheap labor conservative" rhetoric though. I truly think there is a growing lack of "personal accountability" in this country. Maybe it's because the wealthy elite that run our nation force the average person to think only of "get rich quick" ideas (such as suing people) by fostering a sense of empathy, despair, and hopelessness? I dunno, either way I won't be suing Starbucks because their coffee makes me crap my pants any time soon.
Please note beautiful new links section.
Oooo, link to Sean's too! He can go under the Fascists header to keep Jack company!
The problem I have with "Super Size Me" is that its premise is to point out that eating lots of fattening food is bad for you. As others have pointed, that's like having a documentary on the sky being blue. Duh.
The big complaint I hear from those trying to sue McDonald's is that they market to the poor. The argument goes something like: McDonald's locates its restaurants in poor neighborhoods (don't know if that's actually true); Since McDonald's is inexpensive, poor people eat there a lot; Therefore, poor people are disproportionately affected. I tend to disagree with that argument. IF poor people eat there a lot because its cheap, why don't they go to their supermarket and buy food that's even cheaper, then go home and cook something healthy?
That's where personal responsibility comes in.
I prefer "Right Wing Overlord", but I suppose fascist will do. :)
Mochi!
You are too kind...
-Jack
On the discrimination tip, I can tell you this - there definitely are more McDonald's in poorer areas than affluent. In fact, most affluent areas don't have any. I can also say, from experience, that most poor people cannot afford healthy food. The cheapest food is almost entirely carbohydrate based, and the stuff that isn't carbs is extraordinarily fatty. That's one of the reasons obesity is much higher among the poor than the wealthy.
So reasons exist to hate McDonald's, I suppose, as there are many reasons to hate most corporations. I think the class action suits actually have some merit, whereas the one where some dolt tried to sue because he spilled hot coffee on himself, for example, are completely asinine...
I thought that main argument for these lawsuits was that fast food is an addiction the same as smoking, and seeing as there have been lawsuits against big tobacco, a lawsuit against fast food industry is justified. The main reason as to why the fast food industry could be viewed as guilty is that they formulate their recipes without any regard to how unhealthy the end product is. The only important thing is that it TASTES good. These recipes appeal to the fast food junkie who keeps coming back for his high fat "fix". They don't care about the health of their customers, just the money they make from them. That is why they have items like the "Monster Thickburger" (1420 calories and 107 grams of fat) on their menu.
In "Super Size Me" I recall that Spurlock's main physician did not think that eating fast food for a month would have that big of an effect. At the end the doctor was strongly advising him to quit because he was doing possibly permanent damage. The attitude that fast food isn't that bad if eaten in moderation was also challenged. The movie raised some really good points -- and made you think. So I would NOT say that the movie's message was equivalent to pointing out that the sky is blue.
OK Sean too. I'm expecting reciprocal links and some porn videos in return for these.
I never saw "Super Size Me", so I don't actually know the message. I thought it was just "fast food bad". Which I thought everyone knew.
I occasionally do the shopping in my family, so I know that you can buy healthier food than McDonald's at your local supermarket. You can even spend less on a week's worth of healthier meals at the supermarket than you can at McDonald's. Unless you do what one girl I know used to do. Stock up on those $.39 cent hamburgers. When they used to have $.39 Tuesdays she would go in, buy enough for the week(!) and eat them until the next $.39 Tuesday. Cripes.
And yet, she's still tiny. (I didn't know her then, so she may have ballooned up and lost the weight afterwards.)
Thank you for the link. Reciprocity achieved (although my link headings are witty in any way shape of form.)
Mochi,
I'm sorry that we turned your super awesome Fast Food Post into a pity party for our own projects. I would like to thank you very much for adding everyone's blog and for being awesome at rocking the free world in general. You were my first and only blog I linked to (until today), not that anyone ever read mine or anything.
Jack,
Thanks for the visit. I'm honored. I'll love on your own blog one day soon.
Everyone else,
I added all of your blogs to my own crappy blog as well. Now I can pretend I know more than two people.
-Curfew
Haha fascist and socialist blogs! Brilliant! I need to get one going already and it will be titled "Im an angry lazy asshole and everything pisses me off." It may come out soon, but bear in mind, I am lazy (as stated above). And back to the posts, the disappearance of individual responsibility and blaming others for everything that goes wrong for us seems to be what defines us nowadays. Suing a fast food chain because some of their food is unhealthy? Ridonkulous. You can sue a company for anything based on that. Like this morning, I ate a whole tube of Elmer's Glue, and it really gave me gas and made me vomit, havent felt well since and there are no clearly visible instructions telling me not to eat this. And cigarettes, the little notices they put on the packs now. I dont even smoke, but it doesnt take a surgeon general's warning to know its prob not good for you. Like Denis Leary said, you can make cigarette packs black, put a skull and crossbones on them and call them 'Tumors' and people will still buy them. If you are going to make a decision, you know the potential repercussion of those decisions, then who is to blame other than that individual? Im going down the street to McDonald's, and I am going to have a twenty piece chicken nugget. Look for my scrawny frame-turned fat ass in the newspapers with my attorney and big time lawsuit tomorrow!
Have you seen this article refuting Spurlock? It basically calls him a fraud.
--Spurlock writes in his book that McDonalds uses beef that has been fed the ground-up remains of other cows. But the FDA has banned this practice of feeding ruminant (search) remnants to other ruminants since 1997. Spurlock essentially accuses McDonalds of breaking federal law for the past eight years, and provides no sources for his accusation.
--Spurlock writes that "a friend" told him McDonalds no longer calls its shakes "milkshakes" because they're all chemicals, and no milk. This is an urban legend. The primary ingredient in a McDonalds shake is "whole milk."
Sorry for the long post, just wanted to give you a flavor of the article. I had read about the "30 Days" controversy a short while back.
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