Today I watched a fascinating documentary entitled Super Size Me. Now, I know the power these documentaries have to skew the truth in favor of something biased. But, much of the "facts" of this documentary rang true to me. If you've ever read a book called Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, then this doc isn't such a stretch.
The basic premise is, this guy eats NOTHING but fast food for 30 solid days. 3 meals per day, every day. As he does so, he documents the physical changes in his body. And, he interviews many doctors and nutritionists along the way.
It will be a long, long time before I can bring myself to eat fast food again. Even foods containing partially hydrogenated fats, and monohydro-whatever fats, are so bad for your body.
In California, I ate fast food frequently. I mean, I love a good burger as much as the next guy. But, I was hooked on the NoHo diner. Fast food just ain't my bag, baby.
I would encourage anyone to check out this documentary. Not only is it informative, but entertaining. I really got emotionally involved with the "main character" of this documentary. By the end, I was really begging him to stop eating junk food! I was in his corner. And, I found myself checking every label of everything I ate today.
The documentary also had some things to say about the way we feed kids in public schools. Now, public school beauracracy is already an issue that interests me. Especially with all the "intelligent design" nonsense that's happening. Well, politics doesn't end in the classroom. It gets carried over into the cafeteria as well. They showed these middle school girls eating french fries and cola for lunch. And, that was it. Some kids had potato chips (filled with fat), Gatorade, and candy bars. And, that's all they ate. The teachers seemed to be conveniently ignorant about what the kids were eating. Everyone seemed to pass the buck to someone else. They also addressed the condition of physical education classes. Which, if it's anything like it was when I was in school, is just appauling.
I'm not saying I'll never eat another fast food burger ever again, but I'll sure think twice. And, it's going to be a while.
Check out the Super Size Me web site here.
Play the official Super Size Me game (free!!!) here.
5 comments:
That documentary changed my life, really. I actually own that one. It should've won Oscar, haha.
Hope you're doing (and eating) well.
Morgan Spurlock (the guy from Super Size Me) did a TV series that comes on FX called "30 Days" where he puts himself into scenarios for 30 days straight, kind of like he did in Super Size Me. Each Episode is an hour long. Me and Jessie watched the Minimum Wage episode, where him and his wife had to live for 30 days on nothing but what they made working minimum wage jobs. It was amazing! We never realized how lucky we were. They were living in a low rent apartment, he worked two jobs and she worked one, and they still couldn't keep up.
It made me really want to check out "Super Size Me".
Here's a link to the FX show website:
http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/30days/main.html
Hi Evan!
Unfortunately, in our fast paced world, fast food is always a convenient option, especially when all the members of a household work full-time. I am guessing that frozen breaded chicken patties aren't much better. We should all pay more attention to what we put into our bodies. And I'm definitely packing my kids' lunches for them in the future!
School food makes the teachers fat too...hence why I started boycotting all of it in March. I just watched SuperSize Me last night and gosh--sickening, isn't it.
I really liked the school they showed for the at-risk kids and how eating organically could correlate to positive behavior changes. Plus, they pointed out how it doesn't cost school districts any more to serve whole foods and actually have cooks in the cafeterias who cook, not just de-frost.
evan~ that movie rocked! did you see the "dvd extras" where they put the burgers and fries in the bell jars! EWWW!
anyway, been about a month since i last had fast food... no joke... feeling great!
Post a Comment