Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Would you like fries with that?

Vegans everywhere REJOICE! Finally, a movie that tries to show us carnivores not that meat is murder, but suicide. In response to recent court rulings stating that you can't sue McDonald's for making you fat, "Super Size Me" documentarist Morgan Spurlock becomes a human experient to see exactly what fast food does to a person. Rules of the experiment:

1) No options: he could only eat what was available over the counter (water included!)
2) No supersizing unless offered
3) No excuses: he had to eat every item on the menu at least once.

Spurlock follows these rules, eating three meals a day for 30 days exclusively at McDonalds. The result: he went from weighing 185 lbs to 210. His cholesterol went through the roof and his liver turned to one big piece of fat.

Traci and I watched as morning, noon and night Spurlock shoved McDonald's into his face. The highlight of the documentary was on day two, after eating 3/4th of his meal, Spurlock leans out of his car window and throws up everywhere. Fortunately, the movie was not always this graphic, but I did to cover my eyes during the shots of the gastric bypass surgery.

The moral of the story is not just that Americans are fat and that they eat too much fast food. It also gives insight into the fast food-ization of America’s youth. If you eat start eating at the Taco Bell or Pizza Hut (conveniently located inside of the school), of course you are not going to go off to college, or get married and want to sit down and cook something healthy for dinner. The problem is just going to get worse.

By the end of the movie, I think each of us had made a silent promise to never eat fast food again.

The next day I called my sister. She said she and my other sister were taking their kids to McDonald’s for lunch and that we could meet them if we wanted. Well, of course we wanted to come hang out with the kids.

We walked into McDonald’s less than 12 hours after seeing “Super Size Me.” How would this documentary affect us as we were standing there, face to face with Ronald McDonald himself? The moment of truth had come. Dunn, dunn, dunnnnn.....

Traci ordered a McFlurry and I had a hamburger and some fries.

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