The Devastating McDonald's Diet

[Aeternitas]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4078903/

[Menydh]

Not only the "meat" in the burgers is disgusting, but everything else including the "bread". Same for the commercial "bread" for sandwiches.

I've thrown crumbles of baker's bread to the sea, and the fish would eat them in no time. The pieces of sandwich bread, however, they wouldn't eat them.

Anyway, if anyone still believes that American fast-food is proper food, check these images:

[Menydh]

Check also this article reviewing the book Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World.

[Milesian]

If you ever wondered why McDonald's 100% pure beef hamburgers are so rubbery, then something which happened during the height of the BSE crisis might give a hint.

McDonald's had banned British beef from their products at the time, and so started importing from Ireland instead.
Angry British farmers attacked one vehicle coming in from the ports and found it full of ........cow udders bound for McD's

[ÅnÐReS]

Some thoughts about the American film "Super Size me":

• Dr. Ruth Kava, Director of Nutrition at the American Council on Science and Health (ASCH) says:

"As a professional nutritionist, I think this movie does a disservice to the American people. Obesity is a serious issue in this country and the movie is not a serious attempt to answer it. It misleads people into thinking that eating a particular type of food or at a particular restaurant is the cause for a weight problem. That certainly is not the case."

• Carolyn O’Neil, journalist and author of The Dish: On Eating Healthy and Being Fabulous! says:

"I thought that Morgan Spurlock’s movie was disgusting. It was very difficult for me as a registered dietician to watch someone force feed themselves and feel so bad. He was overeating and he wasn’t getting the exercise that he needed. And that can happen no matter where you eat, even in your own home kitchen."

• Georgia Kostas, Cooper Clinic Founder and former Director of Nutrition says:

"I felt the movie was about extremes. In all my years of diet counseling I’ve never met anyone who could double their calories, double their fat, double their cholesterol and not expect to have some pretty extreme outcomes. Fortunately we don’t eat that way and healthy eating and healthy maintenance of weight is possible eating out at any restaurant, it’s just a matter of choices."

And more...

According to the National Eating Disorders Association, "In the United States, conservative estimates indicate that, after puberty, 5 to 10 million girls and women and 1 million boys and men are struggling with eating disorders, including anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, or borderline conditions." Research has shown that approximately 40 percent of fourth graders have been on a "diet" once in a while. Eating disorders primarily affect people in their teens and twenties, but studies report disorders in children as young as 6 and individuals as old as 76.

Source



I've watched the film about 5 months ago and it quite shocked me - even if that is the intention of the film itself. I mean, the guy goes on a straight fast food diet for a whole month and you see his phyisical evolution getting worse and worse... Sickening...

I wonder to what extent that whole picture truly represents American's eating habits?

[Aeternitas]

US slowly wakes up to obesity crisis

By Matthew Davis
BBC News, Washington

The United States may be the land of the free, but it is also the land of the fat.

In the spiritual home of the super-sized meal, more than 119 million adults - or 64.5% of the adult population - are either overweight or obese.
Obesity in the US is linked to 300,000 deaths a year and said to add billions to the country's medical bills.
And the problem is growing.

By the time of the next Olympics, doctors predict that three out of four people in the country will have a body mass index of more than 25, the benchmark of corpulence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4501646.stm

Also:

US people getting fatter, fast

Inside the fattest state in the US

[Dr. Solar Wolff]

As a result of this movie, McDonalds has stopped "supersizing" altogether. This film maker stopped in a McDonalds near where I was living at the time and it was actually featured in the movie. If you add up the total number of calories in a McDonalds meal, you will see why people get fat eating there. Besides calories, McDonalds pioneered the use of high fructose corn syrup in everything. This high fructose corn syrup is to sugar what cocaine is to caffeine. The liver can't handle it, and to make a long story short, turns everything in the blood stream to fat at once.

[Jrpkg]

[Marulus]

I remember, in the beginning of the 90ies, one of the first signs of coming of the new "wonderful" Western democracy and liberalism to the Eastern Europe was opening of numerous McDonalds restaurants in cities like Budapest, Prague, Bucharest, Warsaw etc.

When the first McDonalds opened in Zagreb in 1996, I remember one idiotic journalist and writer said it was sign of the coming of new age when it won't be possible any more to consume old-fashioned proper food, because everyone will be so busy as not to be able to cook a lunch.

[Errigal]

I think one of the reasons for obesity in the US is their preference for fast foods which mix sugars and fats in the same meal.

[Aptrgangr]

Originally Posted by Plethon

I remember, in the beginning of the 90ies, one of the first signs of coming of the new "wonderful" Western democracy and liberalism to the Eastern Europe was opening of numerous McDonalds restaurants in cities like Budapest, Prague, Bucharest, Warsaw etc.

When the first McDonalds opened in Zagreb in 1996, I remember one idiotic journalist and writer said it was sign of the coming of new age when it won't be possible any more to consume old-fashioned proper food, because everyone will be so busy as not to be able to cook a lunch.

The belessings of the wonderful Western Democracy will be over sooner than this journalist would imagine in his dreams.

[bombadillo]

Originally Posted by Dr. Solar Wolff

Besides calories, McDonalds pioneered the use of high fructose corn syrup in everything. This high fructose corn syrup is to sugar what cocaine is to caffeine. The liver can't handle it, and to make a long story short, turns everything in the blood stream to fat at once.

Good point. It's not just McDonald's, of course; it's US agribusiness specifically and the corporate complex generally. US agribusiness unloads high-fructose corn syrup on ignorant US consumers. Ditto for bread, meat, and processed foods generally. Besides diet, American cities aren't designed for exercise (thanks to US construction and auto companies). The whole American way of life -- as developed by the US corporate complex over the last century -- is acutely detrimental to health. And since the US corporate complex is effectively the US government, one can expect only cosmetic measures (at best). So expect obesity in the US to keep increasing.

[Menydh]

I didn't know about high-fructose corn syrup until I've read it in your post. Interesting. I wondered in which other food products it is used apart from soft drinks and ketchup (I don't have any of those anyway), and found a list here: Accidental Hedonist - Foods and Products Containing High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)

Surely there are many more. The safest is not to buy any food product that has an American company behind it.

This study is interesting too: Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity -- Bray et al. 79 (4): 537 -- American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

[Erik Puke]

Fat Goons blog has quotes from fat americans.

Four double cheeseburgers from McDonalds, along with

20 piece McNugget
Super Sized Fry (damn you Morgan Spurlock!)
Super Sized Coke

or

a large pizza + 3/4's of another large pizza from Domino's, along with two boxes of those fucking amazing cheesy dot things they had for that one summer.

I am a fatty

[bombadillo]

Originally Posted by Erik Puke

Fat Goons blog has quotes from fat americans.

I don't know how authentic these quotes are: most of these people seem to have a death wish by way of their gluttony. I do know, however, that each time I leave the US for a vacation, my weight plummets about fifteen pounds within a fortnight or so, without any conscious effort on my part. American food is denutrified -- grown on depleted soil, and hence lacking in essential nutrients. Plastic food in a plastic culture.

[Marulus]

Originally Posted by bombadillo

I don't know how authentic these quotes are: most of these people seem to have a death wish by way of their gluttony. I do know, however, that each time I leave the US for a vacation, my weight plummets about fifteen pounds within a fortnight or so, without any conscious effort on my part. American food is denutrified -- grown on depleted soil, and hence lacking in essential nutrients. Plastic food in a plastic culture.

I remember when once my cousins came from America, they never sat in a restaurant, never ate any decent meal, except in cases when invited by others, but fed themselves on some dehydrated little balls from small plastic sachets. It was something very saturting, but completely tasteless. I don't recall the chemical composition of that, but inquiring more closely what was written on sachets, I read that those were some products that were obtained for free in the frame of some publicity campaign.