Film records effects of eating only McDonald's for a month

25.01.2004 12.00pm - By DAVID USBORNE
NEW YORK - Normally sane actors have been known to gain or lose huge amounts
of weight for their art. Think of Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones's Diary.
Directors, of course, never have to undergo such torture. Or so it used to
be, until Morgan Spurlock had a bright idea for a film project.

The first clue to his particular misery comes in the title of his
documentary, which has become the darling of this year's Sundance Film
Festival. It is called Super Size Me: A Film of Epic Portions and it is a
sometimes comic but serious look at America's addiction to fast food.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainm...ection=general

Jack Mac

The subject line got me, Jack. When I first read it I thought it was about
an -- umm -- enhancement patch.

Over to you, Sheldon.

Felice

"Jack Schidt®" > wrote in message
. ..
> Film records effects of eating only McDonald's for a month
>
> 25.01.2004 12.00pm - By DAVID USBORNE
> NEW YORK - Normally sane actors have been known to gain or lose huge
amounts
> of weight for their art. Think of Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones's
Diary.
> Directors, of course, never have to undergo such torture. Or so it used to
> be, until Morgan Spurlock had a bright idea for a film project.
>
> The first clue to his particular misery comes in the title of his
> documentary, which has become the darling of this year's Sundance Film
> Festival. It is called Super Size Me: A Film of Epic Portions and it is a
> sometimes comic but serious look at America's addiction to fast food.
>
>
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainm...ection=general
>
> Jack Mac
>
>

Interesting article..thanks for posting. The very thought of eating McD's
every day for a month makes my stomach turn...I can't even eat it for a day,
much less 30! Still, I'd love to see all the medical info mentioned, and see
the changes he went through.

kimberly

"Jack Schidt®" > wrote in message
. ..
> Film records effects of eating only McDonald's for a month
>
> 25.01.2004 12.00pm - By DAVID USBORNE
> NEW YORK - Normally sane actors have been known to gain or lose huge
amounts
> of weight for their art. Think of Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones's
Diary.
> Directors, of course, never have to undergo such torture. Or so it used to
> be, until Morgan Spurlock had a bright idea for a film project.
>
> The first clue to his particular misery comes in the title of his
> documentary, which has become the darling of this year's Sundance Film
> Festival. It is called Super Size Me: A Film of Epic Portions and it is a
> sometimes comic but serious look at America's addiction to fast food.
>
>
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainm...lay.cfm?storyI
D=3545438&thesection=entertainment&thesubsection=f ilm&thesecondsubsection=ge
neral
>
> Jack Mac
>

Wow, great article, Jack. Now if someone could be brave enough to try let's
say, Jack In The Box, for 30 days, then try McDonald's for 30 days (after
cleaning out the system), then try KFC for 30 days, we could figure out
which fast food restaurant was worse. Not that anyone would do it, nor am I
endorsing the idea, I'm just thinking one step further than Mr. Spurlock.
Could anyone survive that?

kilikini

Jack Schidt® wrote:

> Film records effects of eating only McDonald's for a month
>
> 25.01.2004 12.00pm - By DAVID USBORNE
> NEW YORK - Normally sane actors have been known to gain or lose huge amounts
> of weight for their art. Think of Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones's Diary.
> Directors, of course, never have to undergo such torture. Or so it used to
> be, until Morgan Spurlock had a bright idea for a film project.
>
> The first clue to his particular misery comes in the title of his
> documentary, which has become the darling of this year's Sundance Film
> Festival. It is called Super Size Me: A Film of Epic Portions and it is a
> sometimes comic but serious look at America's addiction to fast food.
>
> http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainm...ection=general
>
> Jack Mac
>
>

Try using www.tinyurl.com for these long links. The 150+ one is now:

http://tinyurl.com/33epb


jim

"Nexis" > wrote in message
news:12bRb.15$IF1.11@fed1read01...
:
: "Jack Schidt®" > wrote in message
: . ..
: > Film records effects of eating only McDonald's for a month
: >
: > 25.01.2004 12.00pm - By DAVID USBORNE
: > NEW YORK - Normally sane actors have been known to gain or
lose huge
: amounts
: > of weight for their art. Think of Renee Zellweger in Bridget
Jones's
: Diary.
: > Directors, of course, never have to undergo such torture. Or
so it used to
: > be, until Morgan Spurlock had a bright idea for a film
project.
: >
: > The first clue to his particular misery comes in the title of
his
: > documentary, which has become the darling of this year's
Sundance Film
: > Festival. It is called Super Size Me: A Film of Epic Portions
and it is a
: > sometimes comic but serious look at America's addiction to
fast food.
: >
: >
:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainm...ection=general
: >
: > Jack Mac
: >
: >
:
: Interesting article..thanks for posting. The very thought of
eating McD's
: every day for a month makes my stomach turn...I can't even eat
it for a day,
: much less 30! Still, I'd love to see all the medical info
mentioned, and see
: the changes he went through.
:
: kimberly
:
: =============

Do you remember when the teeny Beany Babies were in the Happy
Meals several years ago? DH Rick and I were team driving OTR
back then... for about 6 weeks we were eating at McD's 2 and 3
meals a day so that we could collect 6 each of all 10 of those
silly things. I was so grateful when some of the McD's finally
started letting me "buy" some of the critters without getting the
meals!

For somebody who loves Happy Meals... I couldn't eat at McDonalds
for about 2 months after that experience.

Cyndi

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 08:14:56 -0800, "Nexis" > wrote:
>
>Interesting article..thanks for posting. The very thought of eating McD's
>every day for a month makes my stomach turn...I can't even eat it for a day,
>much less 30! Still, I'd love to see all the medical info mentioned, and see
>the changes he went through.
>
>kimberly
>
i guess it's performance art. sounds as grisly to me as that yoyo who
gave himself successive 'circumcisions.'

your pal,
blake

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 16:44:18 GMT, "kilikini"
> wrote:

>Wow, great article, Jack. Now if someone could be brave enough to try let's
>say, Jack In The Box, for 30 days, then try McDonald's for 30 days (after
>cleaning out the system), then try KFC for 30 days, we could figure out
>which fast food restaurant was worse. Not that anyone would do it, nor am I
>endorsing the idea, I'm just thinking one step further than Mr. Spurlock.
>Could anyone survive that?
>
>kilikini
>
i see james woods in the role.

your pal,
blake

"kilikini" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Jack Schidt®" > wrote in message
> . ..
> > Film records effects of eating only McDonald's for a month
> >
> > 25.01.2004 12.00pm - By DAVID USBORNE
> > NEW YORK - Normally sane actors have been known to gain or lose huge
> amounts
> > of weight for their art. Think of Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones's
> Diary.
> > Directors, of course, never have to undergo such torture. Or so it used
to
> > be, until Morgan Spurlock had a bright idea for a film project.
> >
> > The first clue to his particular misery comes in the title of his
> > documentary, which has become the darling of this year's Sundance Film
> > Festival. It is called Super Size Me: A Film of Epic Portions and it is
a
> > sometimes comic but serious look at America's addiction to fast food.
> >
> >
>
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainm...lay.cfm?storyI
>
D=3545438&thesection=entertainment&thesubsection=f ilm&thesecondsubsection=ge
> neral
> >
> > Jack Mac
> >
>
> Wow, great article, Jack. Now if someone could be brave enough to try
let's
> say, Jack In The Box, for 30 days, then try McDonald's for 30 days (after
> cleaning out the system), then try KFC for 30 days, we could figure out
> which fast food restaurant was worse. Not that anyone would do it, nor am
I
> endorsing the idea, I'm just thinking one step further than Mr. Spurlock.
> Could anyone survive that?
>
> kilikini
>

Well, the "safer" (using the term *very* lightly) way would be to have three
people in roughly the same physical shape do the different restaurants for
30 days. Monitor their health the entire time and see who's in the worse
shape in the end.
I think, also, there would have to be some tracking of their choices for the
most accurate results. After all, someone who goes to McD's every day and
eats salad for say, 2 of the three meals, would be alot different than
someone at Jack in The Box eating sourdough bacon burgers every day.
Still and all, I wouldn't do it on a bet.

kimberly

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 16:44:18 GMT, "kilikini"
> wrote:

>Wow, great article, Jack. Now if someone could be brave enough to try let's
>say, Jack In The Box, for 30 days, then try McDonald's for 30 days (after
>cleaning out the system), then try KFC for 30 days, we could figure out
>which fast food restaurant was worse. Not that anyone would do it, nor am I
>endorsing the idea, I'm just thinking one step further than Mr. Spurlock.
>Could anyone survive that?

http://tinyurl.com/33epb

To be fair, I expect many would have the same problems if they ate
pizza 3X a day for a month or a complete breakfast, lunch, & dinner at
Mom's diner or IHOP. McDonald's (eventually) replied that diners
*could* make healthy choices from their menus, while Mr. Spurlock said
he felt obliged to "supersize" whenever the option was offered.
"Performance Art" indeed. An illustration to back up the "McDonald's
made me fat" lawsuits, implying no choice at all.

Spurlock says one of his goals was to show that (school) diets
composed entirely of burgers and pizza aren't healthy, which I agree
with entirely. The 'nutrition' breakdown on many of these meals appear
to fall into a 'healthy' range, but anecdotal evidence suggests
children discard the (separate compartment) fruit & veg and fight for
the pizza and fries, supplemented with soft drinks.

It may be true it has to be pointed out that 3 meals a day at a fast
food joint isn't good for anyone. But that kind of eating isn't (one
hopes) normal. Even the most nutritionally-oblivious recognize that an
all-you-can-eat buffet for lunch implies a little restraint at dinner.

"Frogleg" > wrote in message
>
> To be fair, I expect many would have the same problems if they ate
> pizza 3X a day for a month

>.... he felt obliged to "supersize" whenever the option was offered.

I agree, the original article offered several clues as to how overblown the
process was -- I suspect in order to make the very point that they did make.
The article mentioned that Mr. Spurlock's girlfriend is a vegan chef. My
strong suspicion is that Mr. Spurlock's routine diet was very light on meat
of any kind. Eating one meal per day at McDonald's would probably have been
enough to make him sick. Also, his system was likely accustomed to a
substantially smaller daily quantity than is contained in three McDonald's
per day. Had he been required to simply double the quantity of vegan or
near vegan foods he was accustomed to, his body still would have likely
revolted, although probably not with quite the degree of deleterious
effects. Being required to accept "supersize" whenever offered is a
guaranteed loser -- McDonalds employees are *required* to offer supersize!

All in all, my take is that we're not talking about research here, we're
talking about a statement. I think he started the process wanting to make a
particular point, and figured out a way to do it, voluntarily and knowingly
making himself sick in the process.

All that having been said, nothing in my point alters the truth of what
eating a lot of McDonald's will do to you, even if you're not a vegan!

JG

A condemned person in China was put in a room and fed exclusively meat
and wine. The failure mechanism would probably have been scurvy. How about a
new method of execution? "DEATH BY McDONALDS". How about a TV series like
survivor except give it a different name. Various miscreants (Murderers,
Democrats etc.) are sent to some exotic location and fed exclusively
McDonalds items until they expire. The "survivor' gets to eat at Burger
King!!!

Farmer John

"JimLane" > wrote in message
...
> Jack Schidt® wrote:
>
> > Film records effects of eating only McDonald's for a month
> >
> > 25.01.2004 12.00pm - By DAVID USBORNE
> > NEW YORK - Normally sane actors have been known to gain or lose huge
amounts
> > of weight for their art. Think of Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones's
Diary.
> > Directors, of course, never have to undergo such torture. Or so it used
to
> > be, until Morgan Spurlock had a bright idea for a film project.
> >
> > The first clue to his particular misery comes in the title of his
> > documentary, which has become the darling of this year's Sundance Film
> > Festival. It is called Super Size Me: A Film of Epic Portions and it is
a
> > sometimes comic but serious look at America's addiction to fast food.
> >
> >
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainm...ection=general
> >
> > Jack Mac
> >
> >
>
> Try using www.tinyurl.com for these long links. The 150+ one is now:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/33epb
>
>
> jim

In article >, "Fudge"
> wrote:

> A condemned person in China was put in a room and fed exclusively meat
> and wine. The failure mechanism would probably have been scurvy. How about a
> new method of execution? "DEATH BY McDONALDS". How about a TV series like
> survivor except give it a different name. Various miscreants (Murderers,


Your average person has a 90 day supply of vitamin C stored up in their
body. 170 grams of cooked pork (6 ounces) has 1.02 mg of vitamin C.

--
Dan Abel
Sonoma State University
AIS

O.K., what would be the failure mechanism of someone fed only meat and
wine? How long would it take to die? Any volunteers? Only the best of flesh
and fine French wines.

Farmer John

This guy, and this "study" is ridiculous. Look, McDonalds sells
salads, parfaits (which is yogurt and granola), and even has the
mclean "lowfat" burger. Why didn't he eat that? That's "McDonalds
food" too.

By his logic, no restaurant is healthy. I could choose to eat steak
everyday from pretty much any major chain. Normally I love bashing
giant evil corporations, but this is just a slam scam. I don't eat at
mcd's but I feel sorry for them, they're the victim here.

On 28 Jan 2004 00:49:40 -0800, (mrbog) wrote:

>This guy, and this "study" is ridiculous. Look, McDonalds sells
>salads, parfaits (which is yogurt and granola), and even has the
>mclean "lowfat" burger. Why didn't he eat that? That's "McDonalds
>food" too.

It wasn't a "study," but a film project. A premise carried to extremes
to make a (personal) point.

"Frogleg" > wrote in message
...
> On 28 Jan 2004 00:49:40 -0800, (mrbog) wrote:
>
> >This guy, and this "study" is ridiculous. Look, McDonalds sells
> >salads, parfaits (which is yogurt and granola), and even has the
> >mclean "lowfat" burger. Why didn't he eat that? That's "McDonalds
> >food" too.
>
> It wasn't a "study," but a film project. A premise carried to extremes
> to make a (personal) point.


"It's only a movie."

Jack DeMille

mrbog wrote:
>
> This guy, and this "study" is ridiculous. Look, McDonalds sells
> salads, parfaits (which is yogurt and granola), and even has the
> mclean "lowfat" burger. Why didn't he eat that? That's "McDonalds
> food" too.

If you read his web site about the movie, you see this point:


3) No excuses: he had to eat every item on the menu at least once


So he did eat the items you mention, if they were available where he
was. The point wasn't, "can you generate a healty meal there?" You
probably can, but what are vast vast vast majority of people at
McDonalds ordering? The same kind of stuff that wrecked him. Go stand in
line, report back how many people were getting salads and yogurt vs. Big
Macs and fries.




Brian Rodenborn

Default User wrote:
> mrbog wrote:
>
>>This guy, and this "study" is ridiculous. Look, McDonalds sells
>>salads, parfaits (which is yogurt and granola), and even has the
>>mclean "lowfat" burger. Why didn't he eat that? That's "McDonalds
>>food" too.
>
>
> If you read his web site about the movie, you see this point:
>
>
> 3) No excuses: he had to eat every item on the menu at least once
>
>
> So he did eat the items you mention, if they were available where he
> was. The point wasn't, "can you generate a healty meal there?" You
> probably can, but what are vast vast vast majority of people at
> McDonalds ordering? The same kind of stuff that wrecked him. Go stand in
> line, report back how many people were getting salads and yogurt vs. Big
> Macs and fries.
>
>
> Brian Rodenborn


How many people eat there more than once a day? (BTW, I suspect his
girlfriend was disgusted with him before all this)

Bob

zxcvbob wrote:
>
> Default User wrote:
> > mrbog wrote:
> >
> >>This guy, and this "study" is ridiculous. Look, McDonalds sells
> >>salads, parfaits (which is yogurt and granola), and even has the
> >>mclean "lowfat" burger. Why didn't he eat that? That's "McDonalds
> >>food" too.
> >
> >
> > If you read his web site about the movie, you see this point:
> >
> >
> > 3) No excuses: he had to eat every item on the menu at least once
> >
> >
> > So he did eat the items you mention, if they were available where he
> > was. The point wasn't, "can you generate a healty meal there?" You
> > probably can, but what are vast vast vast majority of people at
> > McDonalds ordering? The same kind of stuff that wrecked him. Go stand in
> > line, report back how many people were getting salads and yogurt vs. Big
> > Macs and fries.
> >
> >
> > Brian Rodenborn
>
> How many people eat there more than once a day? (BTW, I suspect his
> girlfriend was disgusted with him before all this)


Very few, but that doesn't really matter. Once a day is pretty bad.

The goal of the docu-editorial was to make a point about the fast food
industry. And that is that the increasing (and believe it, it
increasing) reliance of Americans on fast food as a major portion of
their diet is unhealthy, and just exactly how unhealthy it is.

As pointed out above, you can get a pretty healthy meal there, but few
people do.

Was the test outside the norm? Sure. Does that invalidate what he says?
No.




Brian Rodenborn

Default User > wrote in message >...
> > How many people eat there more than once a day? (BTW, I suspect his
> > girlfriend was disgusted with him before all this)
>
> Very few, but that doesn't really matter. Once a day is pretty bad.
>
> The goal of the docu-editorial was to make a point about the fast food
> industry. And that is that the increasing (and believe it, it
> increasing) reliance of Americans on fast food as a major portion of
> their diet is unhealthy, and just exactly how unhealthy it is.
>
> As pointed out above, you can get a pretty healthy meal there, but few
> people do.
>
> Was the test outside the norm? Sure. Does that invalidate what he says?
> No.

No, but other things about this do invalidate what he says. This is
not "a point about the fast food industry". This is a statement about
McDonalds. He titled it "supersize me". He only at at Mcdonalds. A
statement about the fast food inustry would include other major
chains.

I'm told it makes reference to the Jared Subway diet. That's unfair,
plain and simple. The "vast vast vast majority" of people who eat at
subway are not ordering what Jared ate on the Subway diet, either. A
much more targeted statement about the fast food industry would've
been to do a "Fast Food Diet" where you go to different chains and
"always order the same thing as the guy in front of you." Something
like that.

Instead, this is an (unfair) attack on a specific corporation. As a
third party you call it an attack on "the fast food industry", and
that's a myopic vantage point. If McDonald's stock drops one point
because of this, that's just unfair.

And no I don't work for even eat at mcdonalds or any other food
services corp.

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 19:12:50 GMT, Default User
> wrote:

>Was the test outside the norm? Sure. Does that invalidate what he says?
>No.

Well, strictly speaking, yes, it does. As a scientific experiment, at
least. "I ate at McDonald's 3X a day and chose what I clearly knew was
unhealthy and got sick" is interesting as perfomance art but is not a
controlled test or unbiased study of fast-food marketplace. It's a lot
more *fun* (to observe) than an investigative report, but it validates
nothing except that to stuff your face with high-fat, high-calorie
food isn't good for you. The same thing Health Professionals and
Nutritionists have been telling everyone for years.