Super Size Me

[Brett_Tabke]

Remember this foo thread on McDonalds a few years ago?
[webmasterworld.com...]

Several though that "Super Size Me" was a pretty biased documentary on MickyD's. Turns out, we were right:

As Tom Naughton points out in his documentary, Fat Head, there's simply no way Spurlock could have been eating that much food if he was sticking to his own rules. A large Big Mac meal clocks in at "just" 1,450 calories, and it's by far one of the fattiest items on the menu. This means that even Supersizing lunch and dinner every day and adding dessert falls well short of the 5,000 calories a day Spurlock's nutritionist claims he was consuming. In an effort to find out just exactly what the hell, Naughton attempted to contact Spurlock to obtain his food log, but Spurlock (who makes a huge deal in his documentary about McDonald's never calling him back) never called him back.

Read more: [cracked.com...]

[cracked.com...]

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Yes, I remember it well Brett. ;)

... stands back waiting for it to kick off again ... ;)

(By the way my oldest grandson just completed his primary school education as dux. He start Secondary school on Wednesday.) :) :) :)

[DrDoc]

huh!

[jimbeetle]

Dux?

You're gonna' have to help us Colonials a bit on this one (though I think I have an idea as to what it is).

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Star pupil for the final year of primary. ;)

(Despite having eaten a few Macdonalds.)

[lucy24]

:: detour to site I didn't know you were allowed to name* ::

:: further detour to Spalding's Inuktitut dictionary ::

Ah. Yes indeed.



* Always thought it would have to be expressed as something like "Eleven Things You Never Thought of Making into a List dot com".

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

This blind defence of MacDonalds and their like always surprises me when we already know that the US food industry has knowingly created a massive health/obesity problem. We should not just shrug this off.
[bbc.co.uk...]

Britons are on average three stone heavier than we were fifty years ago. I watched a part of a documentary series last week called "The Men Who Made Us Fat". It was about the production of corn syrup/fructose and it was quite frightening.
[bbc.co.uk...]

[thecoalman]

BeeDeeDubbleU, diet plays a roll but too many parents don't cook even know how to cook.

When I was in elementary school there was a candy store right next to it and it was packed every day. We ate tastycakes, chips, candy and all kinds of other crap every day. We even had the dreaded McD's occasionally. Despite this only two people in my class were slightly overweight and one that was truly obese, he had a medical problem.

I think there is a couple reasons for this but the main one is the constant exercise, I walked to school 5 blocks up until HS and then it was 10 blocks until I got my license. That 10 block walk required two lunches and 4 pints of chocolate milk. :P After school everyday I must of rode my bike for miles and when I got to my destination is was to do some other physical activity. Even when I got my first computer my beloved Commodore 64 I had to get on my bike to exchange hacked copies of games with friends. It wasn't just me doing all this exercise but everyone.

I don't see many kids doing that these days, their lives are too structured and regimented. The free time they do have is spent in front of a game, facebook etc. That 2 hours of PE they get in school each week isn't going to cut it. Even organized sports is rarely a substitute because that is not day in and day out activity.

[Shaddows]

corn syrup

Maize and nitrates. These are the crutches that support the calorie and nutrition requirements of the human race, based on anything like current consumption patterns.

Sure, its made much of the West fat, but it stops much of the rest of the world from starving.

[Old_Honky]

I invariably find that these fast food outlets show pictures of mouthwatering freshly prepared food with plump burgers and crisp salad, then serve up a dried up version that looks and tastes like it has been kept warm for ages. The pathetic bit of lettuce in the bap looks like some form of dried seaweed and the burger is far thinner than shown in the picture. Forget the nutritional or not argument, these people are committing fraud. Why don't the advertising standards people compare the image with what is actually served up and start fining these criminals until they either show images that represent the rubbish they serve up or preferably start being slightly less "fast" and serve up something that actually looks like the image.

[martinibuster]

...we already know that the US food industry has knowingly created a massive health/obesity problem. We should not just shrug this off.

(insert sound of needle scratching LP vinyl)...

Wait a sec- BDW, aren't you from Scotland, home of the deep fried hamburger?

:P

[Brett_Tabke]

I invariably find that these fast food outlets show pictures of mouthwatering freshly prepared food with plump burgers and crisp salad, then serve up a dried up version that looks and tastes like it has been kept warm for ages.

Here is how they do a photo shot.
[youtube.com...]

[jmccormac]

@Martinibuster Scotland is famous for the deep fried Mars bar. :) (It is a chocolate/nougat/caramel bar, coated in batter and deep fried. Then again, I suppose it is different to Haggis.)

Regards...jmcc

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Wait a sec- BDW, aren't you from Scotland, home of the deep fried hamburger?

Yes I am and our traditional fast food outlets (Fish and Chip shops) do serve hamburgers dipped in batter and fried. They are not very nice and I certainly would not eat them. ;)

The reason they do it like this is that our "Chip Shops" always tended to have just the one means of cooking things and that was in their large deep fat fryers. They even used to fry pizzas in the fryers ... yeeeuch!

Many of our fish and chip shops are now doing it better but there is still no shortage of the old ones around and they do generally serve excellent fried fish with hand-cut chips. None of the skinny little McDonald's style processed French fries for we Scots (or Brits actually). It is also worth noting that our fish and chip shops almost exclusively cook the food in the front shop where customers can watch it being prepared so there are no surprises.

The deep fried Mars Bar thing is a publicity gimmick. You can find them on occasion but if you visit 100 fish and chip shops in Scotland you will be lucky to find one of these serving them and anyway, is it that much different from Baked Alaska? ;)

(I prefer a curry actually.)

[johnhh]

is it that much different from Baked Alaska

Sorry to tell you - much different - try the Baked Alaska at the Ivy in London, to bake it they set it on fire in front of you ( only available for two people )

Having visited Scotland this year with clients I am happy to say I didn't see a single Mars bar being fried, however the queues for my flight back to civilisation as we know it ( England ) at Edinburgh Airport where unbelievable.

Generally Scottish people are no fatter than others, but my friend in Hong Kong says, why are the English so fat these days. I won't mention the TV programme 'the man who .. himself to death' as that is too... opps I did !

[Old_Honky]

I invariably find that these fast food outlets show pictures of mouthwatering freshly prepared food with plump burgers and crisp salad, then serve up a dried up version that looks and tastes like it has been kept warm for ages.

Here is how they do a photo shot.
[youtube.com...]

I note the sanitised way they made the question "Why do they look different?" instead of saying "Why aren't the goods as good looking as the picture?"

It is a con pure and simple.

[mack]

The one thing I remember standing out in that documentary was the guy he got to know who ate nothing but MacDonalds. His cholesterol was fine and he was thin rather than obese.

Clearly, its not exactly a healthy way to eat, but the program was very one sided and didn’t concentrate on facts. It had an agenda.

Mack.

[Brett_Tabke]

Teacher Eats Nothing But McDonald's for 90 Days, Gets Super Surprise
At the end of the three-month challenge, Cisna discovered something super surprising: He was healthier than before.

Not only had he lost 37 pounds, but his cholesterol took a significant dive, from 249 to 170.

Cisna's secret was that, rather than gorge himself with whichever menu item caught his eye, he made careful selections, and never surpassed 2,000 calories per day.

[gawker.com...]

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I'll borrow a comment from the page to which you linked Brett.

So, he started to exercise where he hadn't before, and put himself on a strict 2000-calorie/day diet.

Yeah, the McDonald's food is clearly the reason why he's healthier.

;)

[graeme_p]

I just read the rest of the article Brett linked to in the original post (the cracked.com one) and it gets even better as you go on: lots of misrepresentation, and some complete fakes.

There is one line I loved:

if you think something is bull#*$!, the answer is not more bull#*$!.

The number of heated arguments I could apply that to!

[engine]

Oh, yes, the exercise will help. I'd like to know how bad was the food they were eating previously?