57 Comments

1. Robert Crawford:

The late Julia Child was a great admirer of those fries, as I recall.

That was when they had beef tallow in the oil for flavoring. They’re still OK, but they’re not quite what they used to be.

Apr 4, 2005 - 11:19 am 2. lplimac:

I will admit to the guilty pleasure of a Big Mac… Although lately it’s been a Double Double at In-in-Out Burger.

Apr 4, 2005 - 11:25 am 3. George Purcell:

I thought Spurlock’s work was an amusing bit of agitprop…and he is certainly a more likeable fellow than Moore.

But by the same token, it was also clear that Spurlock was being more than a bit unfair. He wasn’t just eating at McD’s every meal…he was eating a double quarter pounder with cheese and a bloody milk shake for every meal!

Apr 4, 2005 - 11:31 am 4. Old Dad:

Eleventy Zillion Served!

Truth be told:

Most of us like the food. Maybe it’s not good for us. See the connection?

The service is good and repeatable. Most of us like that. I had a delicious quarter pounder with cheese at the MD on the Piazza della Rotonda in Rome. It was just as good as back home, but I got to look at the Pantheon while eating it.

How’s that for culture?

Apr 4, 2005 - 11:38 am 5. lindenen:

I know they’re really bad for me but I love the hashbrowns they have for breakfast. Oddly enough, that’s the only thing of theirs I’ll eat. I generally prefer Wendys or (god) even Taco Bell.

Apr 4, 2005 - 11:55 am 6. Silicon valley Jim:

I don’t think the popularity of MacDonald’s is all about advertising or giveaway toys. I think people like it.

Absolutely. I grew up in what was then the country west of Chicago in the 1950s and 1960s, and my brothers and I thought that the MacDonald’s on Ogden Avenue in Downers Grove was the best possible place to eat. There were probably a total of ten MacDonald’s in the whole world the first time we went there, and I’d never seen an advertisement. No toys. The places weren’t ubiquitous. We just liked the taste. If cauliflower tasted as good as french, er, freedom fries, the world would be a better place.

Apr 4, 2005 - 12:13 pm 7. Kevin P:

Roger:

I am a In-and-Out fan myself but I do like the McDonalds fries and I do like their basic cheeseburger. Is it high food art? Hell no. It doesn’t pretend to be. It’s basic, there consistent and their clean. Do they market themselves well. Brilliantly. But how is that a crime. Is it healthy. Of course not. But those zombies that are supposedly sucked in by clever adds would probably go somewhere else just as bad if McDonalds faded away. I also find it so funny that the vaunted sophistication of the French seems to fail them when it comes to McDonalds. Apparently they are just as stupid as those shallow Americans and they need the French government to save them from their Big Mac addiction.If you eat 2 pints of Ben and Jerry’s every day you will get fat. Why are they not the targets of the food police? Should their product carry warnings? You can see how well the graphic warnings of cancer has stopped people from smoking.People either have self control or they don’t. To try to demonize McDonalds as if it had the addictive qualities of crack is absurd.

Apr 4, 2005 - 12:21 pm 8. MattJ:

I like McDonald’s.

Wendy’s has better burgers, McDonald’s has better fries.

I’m gonna marry a girl named Wendy McDonald and get as fat as I can.

Apr 4, 2005 - 12:23 pm 9. PeterArgus:

Here is an excellent critique of Spurlok’s "documentary" by James

Glassman.

Spurlok ate 5000 to 5500 calories per day at Mickey D’s ,"…stays sedentary

for 30 days…, …gains 24 pounds, …cholesterol rises 40 percent, he feels

lousy, and his sex life collapses." His caloric intake is twice

the recommended amount of food he should eat. In order to meet this marvelous

objective he had to eat PER DAY:

2 Egg McMuffin breakfasts

2 OJs

2 coffees

2 Big Macs

2 medium fries

2 cokes

2 hot caramel sundaes

20 chicken McNuggets

2 packages sweet n sour sauce

2 milks

2 fruit n yogurt parfaits

Unconfirmed reports say that in his next film "Crunch Time" he eats the same caloric equivalent of brown rice cakes for thirty days:

162 rice cakes, which exceeds his daily requirement of carbohydrates by 243%

and protein by 265%. Good news fat avoiders! There ain’t an ounce of fat in

rice cakes. H’wood grapevine says that he is still sitting on the john trying

to purge.

Finally, rumor has it he is trying to sell a story entitled "Tofu Tempest".

Here he spoons 2 gallons of Tofu a day for 30 days.

Apr 4, 2005 - 12:24 pm 10. PeterArgus:

Kevin P:

If you eat 2 pints of Ben and Jerry’s every day you will get fat.

Damn good guess. 1 quart of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream is the same as eating Spurlok’s McD diet. There is a lot packed in that more physically manageable meal: 526% daily allowance (DA) Fat, 1155% DA saturated fat, 189% DA carbs, and only 126% DA protein. I suspect this would explain the growing number of obese BoBos out there, especially given B and J’s marketing ploy of giving one percent of profits to socially-conscious groups.

Ok I am going stop calorie counting now. I promise.

Apr 4, 2005 - 12:35 pm 11. Lola:

I have to say that I just loooooove In-n-Out Burgers! Unfortunately, I have to go 3000 miles out of the way to get my fix, and then only once every two years or so. Sigh . . . they won’t open a location out here in the DC burb. Oh, well . . .

Apr 4, 2005 - 12:48 pm 12. Silicon valley Jim:

B and J’s marketing ploy of giving one percent of profits to socially-conscious groups.

Does Ben and Jerry’s still do that? They were bought by Unilever (manufacturer of, among other things, Wisk laundry detergent) some time ago.

Apr 4, 2005 - 12:54 pm 13. PeterArgus:

Jim:

Well I went to their website but could

find no mention of the 1% donation anywhere. However after reading about coats

for the homeless in Amsterdam, teaming up with the mighty environmentalists

in the Dave Matthews Band to STOP GLOBAL WARMING NOW! (apparently when the band’s

bus driver isn’t emptying the buses’ restroom waste into rivers there promoting

environmental awareness), and enumerating 50 WAYS TO SUPPORT PEACE NOW!, I couldn’t

take it anymore and had to our local McDonald’s to get supersized… So you’ll

have to check it further yourself. I have to clean the secret sauce off my keyboard

now.

Apr 4, 2005 - 1:14 pm 14. Silicon valley Jim:

Peter,

Your priorities are definitely in the right order.

Apr 4, 2005 - 1:24 pm 15. ahem:

Both are right: Roger, because most people actually like McD’s and Adesnik, because a certain type of unimaginative Lefty swallows the trite notion that McDonald’s is emblematic of bourgeois taste.

Me? I like ‘Hot Doug’s’ hot dog joint on the corner of Roscoe and California in Chicago. Last week I had his duck sausage with calvados and foi gras sauce ($8.95). On Fridays and Saturdays, he fries his potatoes in duck fat, like the French. 23 stars in Zagat for the food quality. Stand back, Wolfgang Puck!

Apr 4, 2005 - 1:26 pm 16. Old Dad:

As the ancient Romans would say on the way to the vomitorium:

“De gustibus non est disputandum, urp.”

Have you noticed that there are no brie burgers on MD’s menu? No quiche McMuffins? No escargot tots? No raspberry sorbet McFlurries?

When’s the last time you saw a Volvo at a drive up (Starbucks excluded)? And have you noticed that most SUV’s are built at perfect drive up height?

The market has spoken.

Apr 4, 2005 - 1:36 pm 17. Terrye:

I like McDonalds too, but I am on a diet now so I have to settle for a Whopper JR at Burger Kings. Is that denial or what?

Apr 4, 2005 - 1:53 pm 18. lindenen:

Goddam. A brie burger would be good.

Apr 4, 2005 - 1:55 pm 19. lindenen:

I hope you took the bun off. Those things would be a lot healthier if they gave you the option of a whole grain bun.

Apr 4, 2005 - 1:56 pm 20. WichitaBoy:

Sheesh. I don’t think they’re going to let you back on French television after that, Roger. Next thing I know, I’ll open up this blog to find a defense of Walmart. What’s the world coming to?

Apr 4, 2005 - 2:29 pm 21. A B:

OK, let’s get a few things straight:

1) Morgan Spurlock != Michael Moore.

Spurlock is completely honest and straightfoward in what he did. Disagree or not, his filmmaking is truthful as opposed to Moores. Best example– in Roger and Me, Moore staged this false battle to meet Roger Smith, including bursting into GM headquarters with a camera crew. In Supersize Me, Spurlock tries to talk to a senior person at McDonalds via standard channels– the telephone and politeness.

2) Just because the movie shows you how bad McDonalds is doesn’t make Morgan Spurlock a crazed Leftist.

The fact is, McDonald’s actually does do everything Spurlock claims they do. And the effects of different foods on health and mood are real. The people Spurlock interviewed and showed on film are real, from the guy who drank 64 oz. of cola a day to the guy who eats a half-dozen Big Macs a day with no ill effects.

Spurlock is honest. If he’s fitting into your ‘leftists unfairly denigrate our wonderful big businesses’ framework, then maybe it’s your framework that needs work.

Apr 4, 2005 - 2:42 pm 22. Joe Schmoe:

It seemed as if Spurlock was fairly straightforward with the facts (but see above), though I wondered whether the doctors were hamming it up by the end. It’s hard to argue with the basic premise of the movie, namely that if you eat lots of fast food and get no exercise you’ll get fat.

And his movie did have some ideological balance. His portrayal of the plaintiffs’ lawyers who sued McDonalds was certainly less than flattering. Remember how the media portrayed John Edwards? Spurlock could have done the same thing, but he had the grace to refrain.

Where his movie was biased condescending was on the cultural level. Oxblog nailed it, totally.

It wasn’t totally outrageous; Spurlock seemed somewhat whimsical and good natured and didn’t lay the condescention on as thick as he might have. But that’s what the subtext of the movie was really all about.

You could just see how stupid he thought those bovine rubes were for eating at McDonalds. How their kitsch was in such poor taste. Remeber when Spurlock poked fun at the teenage girl working at the McDonald’s in Texas? He was discussing a sandwhich — the Longhorn burder or something like that — and was speaking about it as if it were a mushroom ragout or some other equally sophisticated cuisine. The “humor” was in the fact that while everyone in the audience saw the sarcasm, the stupid porcine minimum-wage earning Texan was oblivious.

Now Spurlock’s Vegan girlfriend, on the other hand — she was the very picture of sophistication and enlightenment. Ditto the gay interist, the Indian osteopath with the chic plastic glasses, etc.

But these people can be ridiculed just as easily with a minimum of effort. Anyone want to imagine what a conversation re: foreign policy with Spurlock’s girlfriend would be like? Think of a movie which featured clips of things like that. How about the fact that Spurlock’s internist, the one who lectured him so passionately about how terrible his diet was, needed to lose 50 pounds himself? And the cardiologist? Too stupid to get into a regular medical school so she had to go the osteopath route, huh?

Also — and this idea is somewhat more controversial but I think there is some truth to it — who is the real backbone of this country’s strength, success, and prosperity? The pudgy gay internist from the West, or the Texan who starts a small construction company and eats lunch at McDonald’s daily? If I had to pick a group of 50 people to be stranded on a desert island with, I suspect I’d pick the latter.

The thing that bothered me most about Spurlock’s movie is that he is obviously from middle America himself. He’s contemptuous of his own brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends.

A lot of elitist liberals actually hail from humble origins; liberalism is more of a lifestyle choice than a birthright. And a lot of people, me included, thought that the lives they were born into were somewhat limiting and tried to get ourselves to a better place. Though as I get older I begin to appreciate the value of the place I came from more and more.

But thinking that you want to get an education and that some of your childhood friends make bad choices that you yourself wish to avoid does not equate to thinking that your childhood friends are stupid, bovnie rubes who are gorging themselves into oblivion, while your vegan live-in girlfriend has got it all figured out.

That is what was upsetting about Spurlock’s movie. He was much too hard on Middle America. That said, he seems like a basically decent guy, and hopefully he will outgrow his youthful flirtation with condescending elitism.

Apr 4, 2005 - 3:16 pm 23. Katherine:

I have a confession to make: I am one of those weirdoes who do not particularly like burgers. (It gets worse: I donít like ice cream either.)

However, I would never presume to assume that my personal choices have any bearing on other peopleís tastes, neither I would assume that their choices are in any way inferior/superior to mine.

I applaud the worldwide success of McDonald’s: they provide quality, relatively cheap food and if I find myself traveling in totally out of the world places that feature McDo I may just chose to eat there, just to stay ahead of typhoid and HepatitisA.

I did not watch Spurlock movie for the same reason I did not watch F911: I have viscerally negative reaction to propaganda. Of course many of my friends did and they were nothing but delighted with the ìMcDonaldís badî message. However, all of them were startled when I pointed out that eating 3 times a day in any restaurant whatsoever would result in significant weight gain. They acknowledged that I was most likely right; it just never occurred to them. Such is sad result of a groupthink.

Apr 4, 2005 - 3:50 pm 24. syn:

From my personal experience, no matter where you are in the world where there is a MacDonalds there will be terrific bathrooms. When I lived in Moscow Russia (1990-91) their MacDonalds (used rubles, not hard currency) employed hundreds of people at a time just to run that one restaurant. Even employed people just to specifically mop floors and the bathrooms were something to see! Bulgaria was the same way, Italy too, the list goes on.

I recall in my twenties being against MacDonalds cause it was the hip and cool thing to do and I felt it important to be apart of the cool peoples crowd… bring down the evil giant corporation, hurts third world countries, American hegemony…then I lived in those countries and discover how utterly wrong I was in following the ‘cool’ crowd.

Today, I eat at MacDonald’s (particularly on road trips) just to spite the uber cultural cool who believes that everything in America, except for Hollywood and New York, comes from lesser than sophisticated idiots who need help in reaching a state of divine coolness through yoga and organic eating. We will have to add the Kabbala cause Madonna does it.

I live in uber cultural cool NYC, yet long for the earthy, good-hearted nature found in Middle America.

Apr 4, 2005 - 4:13 pm 25. syn:

Sorry, the correct word is McDonalds

Apr 4, 2005 - 4:15 pm 26. utron:

True confession here: I’ve never eaten at McDonald’s. I realized this while talking with friends back when I was about twenty-five, and I figured if I’d gone that long without passing under the golden arches I might as well see how long I could stick it out. I’m sure part of this is colossal snobbery, but mostly I just like being unique.

That being said, I’m with Katherine on this. McDonald’s hasn’t tried to coerce me into eating their food, and I’ve got nothing against those who do. Spurlock seems to be trashing a corporation that offers a decent, popular product, on no better grounds than an unfocused dislike for capitalism and a sense that anything the masses like must ipso facto be crap. It would be interesting to hear Spurlock describe his idea of a positive diet, or a positive lifestyle, but I doubt he’s thought things through that far. Basically, Supersize Me was just more tiresome adolescent rebellion with a camera.

Apr 4, 2005 - 4:56 pm 27. Syl:

McD’s represents capitalism at its finest to me, though I just came to that realization lately. They make good profits. Check. Reinvest profits in expansion. Check. Great marketing. Check. Good product. Check. Give customers what they want. Check. Compete fairly. Check. Create jobs. Check.

And, like the ‘Poor’, most of whom are poor only temporarily, McD’s fanatical customers move on to something else as their lives or jobs change. And the Big Mac and Fries that played so prominent a role in their lives every day for a few months is now relegated to the occasional nostalgia trip. But along come other people who depend on McD’s daily to take their place.

I really admire companies that have enthusiastic and loyal customers. They’ve got to be doing something right for sure. The last couple of weeks I’ve hung out at an online store for products for my 3D-art habit (not the cesspool place, another one, here no politics allowed though some of the same people show up). I’ve been involved in a thread that reached close to 3000 messages. All praising the company!

This company had a sale. They’re marketing geniuses, I swear. Not just any old sale but a special ‘madness’ sale where they released a new product every day and sold it for .67 for 24 hours only.

Well, people hung out waiting for the announcement of a new product each day. And when they went to spend their .67 they just had to clear out a couple of items from their wish lists and pay for them too. Or, as long as they were buying, they’d find something else they wanted as well. After all they were saving so much money by spending only .67 on the new thing, they could indulge in an old thing too!

I saw messages that blew my mind. People listing the stuff they purchased and THANKING the company for letting them do so.

Unbelievable.

Life is great. But if I knew at 20 what I know at 61 about capitalism I’d be in a better place today. You see, you can be ‘artistic’ and STILL be a capitalist and successful without selling your soul! LOL

So I sing the praises of McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and DAZ3d!

Apr 4, 2005 - 5:17 pm 28. Katherine:

Syl,

Amen! LOL!

Apr 4, 2005 - 5:39 pm 29. Patrick Tyson:

I took a pass on Super Size Me because I don’t care that the food and drink you buy at MikeyDee’s isn’t good for you. That’s part of it’s charm. Any moron can eat junk for 30 days, impair his health, film the whole thing, and get people to pay to spend 100 minutes watching him do it. Is this a great country, or what?

In-N-Out has the best burgers. McDonald’s has the best fries. BK has the best chicken sandwiches. I buy my coffee at Starbuck’s. They’re so easy to find.

Yesterday I saw The Upside of Anger with my wife (who saw Super Size Me because she does care) and thought it had its moments (though I couldn’t make any sense of Evan Rachel Ward’s narration) and later this week I’m going to see Sin City because, well, David Edelstein of Slate made the case:

As a film critic, I have often bemoaned the amorality and opportunism of the vigilante genre, as well as the sadism and righteous torture on display in movies and television in the wake of Sept. 11. From time to time, I have also lamented the explosion of the comic-book superhero genre. With the recent exceptions of Spider-Man 2 and The Incredibles, these cookie-cutter action thrillers have been crafted for a generation weaned on Game Boys. Meanwhile, computerized effects have taken cinema farther and farther from the world that human beings actually inhabit. And now comes cinema’s latest devolutionary milestone, Sin City (Miramax), a graphic novel come to life, its sets copied from the page and regenerated in three dimensions inside a computer, and boasting the most relentless display of torture and sadism I’ve encountered in a mainstream movie.

My reaction to Sin City is easily stated. I loved it. Or, to put it another way, I loved it, I loved it, I loved it. I loved every gorgeous sick disgusting ravishing overbaked blood-spurting artificial frame of it. A tad hypocritical? Yes. But sometimes you think, “Well, I’ll just go to hell.”

I know that thought.

Apr 4, 2005 - 5:41 pm 30. PJ:

My favorite is the Fish Sandwich. Yum. With fries and an iced tea!

My cousin who works for USAID says McD’s is popular in many countries such as Russia because it guarantees the safety of its food, as opposed to indigenous food vendors. Good, and good for you, too!

Here’s the story of a local guy who made an anti-anti-McDonald’s film and found, lo and behold, that the diatribe against it is a bit overdone.

Apr 4, 2005 - 5:45 pm 31. PJ:

Oops.

http://www.techcentralstation.com/090804G.html

Apr 4, 2005 - 5:45 pm 32. Caroline:

I’m with Lindenen – better (whole grain) buns would help.

I’m also with Syn – no matter where you are in the whole wide world you know you can stop in for a clean bathroom and not even have to buy a cup of coffee. Any traveler should appreciate that (and the same goes for all of the fast food (i.e.road food) franchises that McDonald’s has spawned. It’s time McD’s got some credit from the grateful bladders of America.

Regarding the fat content of the food, however, I recall some years ago when 60 minutes did a segment on what I believe was dubbed the “French conundrum” – which was the fact that the French have one of the highest fat diets in the world but one of the lowest heart disease rates. The apparent answer to the conundrum was the fact that they ate slowly and drank red wine with meals. So – there is the solution mes amis, ne’st pas? – to salvage (hey – that’s a French word isn’t it?) la reputation (hey – that’s French to?) de McD’s?

La vin rouge a la table? Even cheap Chianti will do, je suis certain! Bring it on!

Apr 4, 2005 - 5:47 pm 33. Kevin P:

AB:

No one on this thread has tried to claim that eating McDonalds everyday is good for you. No one is trying to claim that the film was filled with lies. It was the basic conceit of the movie. Evil McDonalds making the poor victamized rubes into fat cows.And even worse they are capitalists! The poor rubes need the enlightened inteligensia to save them from the powerfull company. Fast food, when eaten in moderation, is harmless. If you eat it every day then you will grow fat and have health problems.Duh.Booze, ice cream, pastries,smoking,fried foods,, basically any high fat, high calorie food product that is eaten in excess and combined with lack of excersise will produce a fat person. I f McDonalds was eliminated from the earth someone else would fill in the void. Americans eat too much and don’t excersise enough. That is a problem of the individual. As good as their marketing is nobody has been forced to go to McDonalds. Since they have begun to post the calorie statistics in each location has their buisness gone down. No. The theme of the movie is that mankind are helpless victims of an evil corporation. That they have no will of their own and that someone(the government) must stop the abuse of these victims. Johnny Depp smokes non stop everyday. Is he a helpless victim? Even though he is a man of the left does he need the filmaker to point out to him that he is a hapless victim of a French corporation Or has he made a choice on how to live his life and what he enjoys. If he had done a film on the poor eating habits of Americans then I would have no problem. If he made a film on the unhealthy reliance on fast food in America that would be fine too. But the silly evil corporation vs. poor stupid victims is a leftist cliche.

Apr 4, 2005 - 6:00 pm 34. PC14:

I sort of felt guilty by the fact that I got hungry watching “Supersize Me.” I know seem to crave MacDonals more than before seeing the movie. I have never been overweight in all my 61 years and watch my diet pretty carefully. But there’s just something TASTY about a Quarterponder with cheese.

Apr 4, 2005 - 6:21 pm 35. Caroline:

Kevin P: “But the silly evil corporation vs. poor stupid victims is a leftist cliche.”

I would go farther and say that it’s a very dangerous cliche. It is quite possible to live one’s entire life in an extremely modest fashion – no cell phone, no computer, no TV, no radio in one’s car, just one car in the garage, shop at the Goodwill, check out books from the public library, cut your own hair, live on beans and rice and peanut butter (I’ve done all of these things as have many many people when they were hard up and on a tight budget). Nobody is making anyone live up to the f**king Jones’s. It’s all a personal choice. But a whole lot of leftists would seemingly bring down the whole system because they are apparently galled on a personal level that other people choose to indulge themselves in all sorts of ways, while all along ignoring the salient fact that the capitalist system provides the widest possible choice for everyone, including their own right to live an incredibly simple lifestyle. Maybe they are personally consumed with envy?

Apr 4, 2005 - 6:55 pm 36. Caroline:

Wait – let me go on! No cigarettes, no summer vacations, no Christmas presents (a fruitcake will do!), no dinners out, no CD’s (there is a radio – remember that?). Well – one could go on and on.

I recall an article several years ago that said that the average American could work just half the time they do today and still live like the average person did just in the 1940’s. 1/2 the time! the 1940’s! Any American is completely free to do that today.

That is an individual choice. We do not need elitists making those choices for us. And no one is forcing anyone to eat at McDonald’s. In fact maybe it is people who are unable to control their own appetites and their own envy who feel the strongest need to reign in everybody else. Maybe that’s what happened to all those jihadis’who lived in the west and now want to blow us all to smithereens? Maybe they couldn’t control their OWN desires and envies when confronted with the west’s temptations and so they seek to impose a final solution to their OWN desires on everyone else. Maybe they actually have that in common with the far left. Envy, inability to control their own appetites and so on. And so the solution is to control their own appetites and envy by imposing control on everyone else’s desires.

Apr 4, 2005 - 7:10 pm 37. richard mcenroe:

Ya hadda bring this up just when I’m trying to decide on dinner… *grumble* Back later… I hear a Number 2 meal calling,,,

Apr 4, 2005 - 7:51 pm 38. Kevin P:

Caroline:

I think it is more about control then envy. As much as they would like to create the myth that it is a liberal poor underclass against the rich conservetive corporate masters the truth is that the left is filled with wealthy people. The entertainment community, the last millionaire democratic candidate, the Kennedy inherited wealth clan, even Ward Churchill making 90 to a hundred grand a year. It is just the wrong type of people who are rich.

McDonalds is the classic example. Ray Krock bought out a hamburger stand , worked his ass off, created a marketing and franchise system that brought him millions of dollars. Every penny earned by the sweat of his brow. But cheap hamburgers, really how gauche! There is no style or artistic value in McDonalds. How can simpletons like Krock have wealth and power when the PHD class have none.

So to stop this insult to humanity they must create a system where they have the whip hand. And they will do that with government control where the credentialed wiseman will control who will succeed and get rid of the market system that allows the wrong type of people to rise to the top.

Hang around the freezer section of any supermarket and you will see overweight people buying pints of Ben and Jerry’s. Trust me, they will never document a film exposing the evils of two ice cream guys contributing to the heart attack rate of the country. Because they are cool, they have the proper political stance, and they support more power to the government, especially since they have already used the glorious free market system to make their fortune.This attitude is behind the Bush is stupid meme, red staters are bunch of NASCAR inbreds, and thus they are the wrong type of people to be in power when there are so many “brilliant” liberals who deserve to be given their rightfull place in power.

Apr 4, 2005 - 8:20 pm 39. Vexorg:

It seems endemic to the political left (and especially the nanny-staters in places like the Center for Science in the Public Interest) that they feel that not only should you not eat at places like McDonalds, but that at a minimum anything they deem unhealthy should come with an excise tax, and that such foods should just be outlawed entirely. It boils down to another case of bringing civilization and enlightenment to the red-state savages.

I tend not to eat at McDonald’s often, because you can get better burgers and a better overall selection elsewhere (around here it would be Wendy’s, which also has a drive-thru that’s so much faster than anyone else’s it’s ridiculous, or Burgermaster, a local drive-in place that’s been around basically unchanged for over 50 years) but find on occasion, I’m hungry specifically for McDonald’s cheeseburgers. More often than not, I’ll opt for Taco Bell for fast food anyway.

Apr 4, 2005 - 8:31 pm 40. richard mcenroe:

Well, that’s it… you’n Spurlock forced me to eat two cheeseburgers, a medium fries and a NON diet coke. You’ll hear from my lawyers…

Apr 4, 2005 - 8:43 pm 41. Les Nessman:

“if you eat lots of fast food and get no exercise you’ll get fat.”

Well, no shit, Spurlock!

Apr 4, 2005 - 8:47 pm 42. Right Brain:

The premise of Super Size Me is that numerous lawsuits have been filed against McDonald’s and similar claiming that the food had made them sick and obese, or perhaps the other way around. The defense has relied that there is no proof of this because the plaintiffs had always eaten other food as well. Enter the perfect physical specimen Morgan Spurlock who ate nothing but food from the McDonald’s menu for thirty days to see if it would turn him into an organ donor; when he finished there was very little of his organs that could be donated, the three MD’s who monitored his health concurred that he had become a mess. Hence the immediate panic among the fast food industry; pointedly McDonald’s dropped the super-sized portions even before the film went national. There was no opinion given in the film about taste or lifestyle, it routinely included jabs at his vegan girlfriend, rather simple scientific method with a sampling of one: a guy who briefly ruined his health with a brief stunt to reveal what is being done to ours.

Apr 4, 2005 - 8:52 pm 43. rml:

Julia Child took the proper view. When being interviewed by a host (a member of the food police) agast at her insistance on Red Meat – Julia happily replied to the effect – “Oh yes, I insist on Red Meat – - – Red Meat and Gin!”

Apr 4, 2005 - 11:34 pm 44. Katherine:

Julia was a wonderful lady. Steak and gin were her ìcomfort foodsî. I also recall that she horrified an interviewer once when asked an opinion about food irradiation. She said that given that irradiation gives you safe food now vs. some hypothetical danger 20 years later, she would go with the immediate safety. The questioner did not dare to probe deeper than thatÖ.

Apr 4, 2005 - 11:52 pm 45. CoventryKid:

Old Dad asks:

“When’s the last time you saw a Volvo at a drive up…?”

Well, last Saturday 11am at McDonalds, Moons Moat Drive, Redditch, Worcestershire (UK) you could have seen a Volvo V50.

Big Tasty with cheese, and fries.

Yum.

Apr 5, 2005 - 2:51 am 46. HA:

Roger,

You’ve grasped to the third rail here! Schiavo? Pope? Kofi? Iraq? Yawn! Nutritional and culinary qualities of McDonalds? Shocking!

Anybody who denies their love of McDonalds food is a liar. Even the snobbiest of food snobs loves McDonalds despite feeble attempts at denial.

Our bodies are hard-wired to CRAVE the kind of food McDonalds serves. Their food is chock-full of the nutritional goodies our bodies need. Protein, carbs, fat, salt. Everything our caveman ancestors needed to survive! Do you think they survived on bean sprouts? Our bodies crave it because it is so nutritious.

The problem with McDonalds food is NOT that it isn’t nutritious and delicious. It is that it is TOO nutritious and delicious – and also cheap and plentiful and consumed by couch-potatoes.

Here’s a thought experiment. Suppose Tom Hanks was stranded on a desert island and only had one food source. Which food source would allow him to survive longer? Big Mac meals or spinach?

Apr 5, 2005 - 3:22 am 47. ed:

you can get better burgers and a better overall selection elsewhere (around here it would be Wendy’s, which also has a drive-thru that’s so much faster than anyone else’s it’s ridiculous, or Burgermaster, a local drive-in place that’s been around basically unchanged for over 50 years)

Exactly. Nothing against McDonalds, but especially when traveling, 9 times out of 10 there’s usually a better local burger joint that deserves my money. And I can always get my fries at McDonalds. It’s pretty elitist to avoid the local burger shop and stick with what you know, no?

Apr 5, 2005 - 6:40 am 48. Matt Evans:

When my metabo slowed down in my mid 20’s, McDonalds was the first thing I had to give up. Now, I have a burger from there maybe once a year- Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese- drooool. I wish they’d find some way to make their burgers healthier (the aforementioned double quarter pounder w/ cheese contains more than daily recommended allowance of fat) but I guess the problem is, it tastes good because its not particularly healthy.

I don’t know about the rest of you but as a 30ish person now, having to watch everything I eat is one of the most depression parts of growing older.

Apr 5, 2005 - 8:10 am 49. CoventryKid:

Matt:

40-something, and I can still more or less eat what I want. Wouldn’t want a burger every day, though. Once a week will do.

Apr 5, 2005 - 8:37 am 50. Foobarista:

That was the thing that annoyed me about “Supersize Me”: the fact that you could go into any restaurant on the planet and eat stuff that will make you sick if you eat it exclusively for 30 days. If you try hard enough, you could do the same thing at your local vegan tofu hangout.

Apr 5, 2005 - 9:10 am 51. Mikey:

Well, as a wiseman once said* “If you’re gonna eat a farmer’s breakfast every morning, you better be prepared to work like a farmer.” Eating double the amount of calories a day that you burn in that day will have one result.

*No, I don’t remember his name.

Apr 5, 2005 - 10:21 am 52. lrhaughton:

For me, McDonalds was like Mister Rogers Neighborhood. Both were banal and WASPy, so typically middle American. I hated it. I ridiculed those who liked it. Phooey.

Then I had kids. I began to see McDonalds (and Mister Rogers) through their eyes. And before I knew it, I was buying happy meals and singing “It’s You I Like.”

Damn McDonalds for the all cognative dissonance they’ve caused my g… g… g.. generation.

Apr 5, 2005 - 11:49 am 53. Kevin P:

Right Brain:

He did not reveal what is being done to us. He revealed, sort of, what we are doing to ourselves. I would have had no problem with a responsible film done on the poor eating and health habits of Americans. I think we do need to get a handle on our eating habits. What I hate about the movie is that it portrays the customers as victims of the Evil McDonalds Corporation. By making McDonalds the bogeyman it makes the customers into infants who have no control and must have big brother look after them.

Apr 5, 2005 - 11:55 am 54. Kyda Sylvester:

One day while in Paris, we stopped by the rue Mouffetard open air market where we put together a quintessential French meal of roasted chicken, cheeses, fresh berries and, of course, a still warm from the oven baguette. We carried our bounty to Luxembourg Gardens where we were surrounded by Parisiens on their lunch hours eating from McDonald’s bags. Culture shock in reverse.

Apr 5, 2005 - 12:32 pm 55. Kyda Sylvester:

PS. Mickey D’s still serves the best fries in town.

Apr 5, 2005 - 12:34 pm 56. Kyda Sylvester:

PPS. How many of you remember when the sign said “Over 1,000,000 sold”?

Apr 5, 2005 - 12:35 pm 57. Jamie:

A new McD’s just opened up around here, with a feature I haven’t seen elsewhere that’s Pure Ruddy Genius: a cash register in the Playplace area. You can take your kids (well, I can take my kids) in, let them start playing, order and pay for your food, they give you a table number, they bring your food to your table – and not for a second are you listening to your kids whine in line about how they want to go PLAAAAYYY, OR breaking the rules about letting them play unsupervised.

McD’s cheeseburger: 7 points on Weight Watchers. Chicken McGrill: leave off the mayo and it’s 7 points too. 6-piece McNuggets: 5.5 points (if you count halves, which I do). California Cobb Salad without dressing: 3.5 points, with dressings starting at half a point for salsa, 1 for Newman’s Own Light Vinaigrette. Fries: a little tougher to get the size of fries one ought to have (remember when they’d sell you the size you can only get in the Happy Meal now?) but my husband and I sometimes split a Dollar Menu-sized one, which gets the portion size to where it should be.

It’s perfectly possible to eat at McD’s and stay within a reasonable calorie range, while making kids very happy (because of the playing, not just the food) and not having to keep hissing, “Sit down! Where’s your napkin?”

But moderation in all things… The kids do have to learn where the napkin goes, after all.

Apr 6, 2005 - 9:16 am

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