Super Size Me!

[Disgruntled70sHab]

Just saw it on PPV. It's worth a look guys.

A guy agrees to conduct an experiment on what would happen to him if he were to eat nothing but McDonald's three times a day for thirty days.

The agreement was he had to accept the super sized meals if offered to him. He also couldn't eat anything else during the timeframe if it wasn't sold by McDonald's. Here's some of the results after the experiment was over.

• He gained 25.5 lbs
  
  
• His liver was slowly turning to fat.
  
  
• Extremely low energy levels. The guy couldn't make it up two flights of stairs without gasping for air.
  
  
• At one point when he had no energy, he charged himself by eating a McDonald's meal. He felt low before the meal and great after it.
  
  
• His sex life was considerably hindered.
  
  
• He experienced heart palpitations on some nights.
  
  
• He had consumed the equivalent of 30 lbs of sugar and 12 lbs of lard.

Anyway, it's worth a look, especially when he discovered that one of McDonald's new salads (dressing included) ended up having more callories than a Big Mac.

Cheers.

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

I saw it over the holidays. It helped me maintain the exact same weight from the beginning of the festive season to its end, and subsequently enter into a pact with a friend in which we both plaedge to lose 20lbs by the end of March.

Revelatory, funny and disturbing. Makes me glad that I prefer to cook my own meals and enjoy occasional fine dining outside of home. I rate it as a must see.

The official Web site: www.supersizeme.com/

[Habs_fan_in_LA]

Makes me glad I only eat at McDees twice a day!

[MC Habber]

I saw the opposite of Super Size Me on CBC in the summer, and I highly recommend it, though it's not particularly humourous. Basically, a guy from London spends a month in Ethiopia, living and eating as the people there do. At the end of it he has lost about a quarter of his body weight.

---

Ethiopia: Surviving Hunger
Reporter: Sorious Samura
February 3, 2004

What is the everyday experience of living through starvation really like? How do people survive, what do they find to eat, where do they discover the strength to go on? Award-winning documentary-maker Sorious Samura lived for a month in a village 400 kilometres north of Addis Ababa, in the remote north of Ethiopia. It's a region where half a million people are destitute and 2.5 million more face starvation and death if the crops fail.

Samura was born into a poor family in Sierra Leone. He freely admits that ten years of life in London made him soft. He became "a total stranger to hunger".

On his arrival, he moves in with the village elder and his family. The morning of day two is spent, with the rest of the village, in church. This is a devout, Christian community. But the locals are alarmed by what they see as his colossal size as compared with their wiry, malnourished physiques. "I've heard with my own ears that Samura eats people," says one. Samura decides to state his case in front of the whole village, and reveals he is there to tell the story of their struggle to the world. He is accepted, but the people are still more wary than friendly.

When the camera crew leaves for the town that night, all Samura has eaten is a piece of bread at the church. "It's really looking tough. I knew it was going to be difficult, but I wasn't expecting it's going to be this tough. But I have no doubt that this story is really worth it. It's reality." Day three dawns with a breakfast of homemade bread and bean sauce. Then it's a day of working in the fields. On such a meagre diet, Samura is exhausted after four hours, to the amusement of the others. Dinner that night is the same meal as breakfast, but at least there's a meal. On many other days, there is not.

- more

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

Food Porn Alert!

Heinz paid £15k for Jamie's beans on toast

John Plunkett
Thursday January 13, 2005

An unlikely war of words has broken out between Jamie Oliver and Heinz after the TV chef revealed the food giant paid £15,000 to have beans on toast included on the menu of his east London restaurant.

Oliver generated acres of publicity - much of it negative - when he introduced the unlikely dish on the menu at Fifteen, priced £7. Best Baked Bean Bruschetta was described as a "signature dish" of one of Oliver's trainees and was served with olive oil, cherry tomatoes, red chillies and parmesan on ciabatta.

- media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1389876,00.html

[franko]

Disgruntled70sHab said:

The agreement was he had to accept the super sized meals if offered to him. He also couldn't eat anything else during the timeframe if it wasn't sold by McDonald's. Here's some of the results after the experiment was over.

He was only invited to "supersize" four times. MacDonald's must have gone nuts when they heard that -- money lost.

Thankfully, I am past the "Daddy, can we go to MacDonald's" stage (though I have always enjoyed their fries more than any other FF restaurant, even if they are sprinkled with beef). When asked I now say "go ahead; drive safely, and don't leave ketchup packets in the car".

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

What the researchers wanted to know:
What would a daily diet made up of proven heart-healthy foods look like? How much would it cost the average consumer, and how well might it work to prevent heart disease?

What they did:
Researchers scanned the medical literature for foods proven to cut heart disease risk or lower risk factors. They then applied the expected effects to life tables derived from the Framingham heart study, an experiment following 5,209 adults for 46 years.

What they found:
The Polymeal is readily available, and, researchers stress, potentially quite tasty. Eating 4 oz. of fish four times a week cuts the risk of cardiovascular disease by 14 percent, while 14 oz. of fruits and vegetables per day lowers risk another 21 percent. Add 2.4 oz. of almonds and 1/10 oz. fresh garlic for proven cholesterol lowering, and enjoy an average 5.1mm Hg drop in systolic blood pressure when you top it off with 100g of dark chocolate. Of course no Polymeal would be complete without a daily 5 oz. glass of wine (any variety), shown to cut overall cardiovascular disease risk by 32 percent. The combined effects of the Polymeal could cut heart disease risk by 76 percent in the average adult, which, according to the Framingham life tables, could extend average life expectancy 6.6 years for men and 4.8 years for women, the team said.

What the study means to you:
Eating the Polymeal each day could help reduce heart disease risk, all for an estimated $28.10 per week at the local supermarket in Rotterdam. That is, if you can stand to eat fish with garlic and almonds every day. We'll assume the wine and chocolate won't be a burden.

Caveats:
No one is sure if the benefits of each Polymeal food actually combine to an overall disease risk reduction of 76 percent, and real-world benefits could be less. Researchers caution against driving after your glass of wine, and warn that a garlic-laden Polymeal could also cut the chances of romantic success after dinner. On the plus side, widespread Polymeal consumption could lead hundreds of cardiologists to second careers as chefs, they say.

- www.usnews.com/usnews/health/briefs/nutrition/hb050104c.htm

[blaise]

I wouldn't expect the cardiovascular risk reductions to be additive. It never works out that way. Besides, it doesn't take interindividual variations into account. Moreover, the analysis doesn't consider unknown risk factors (e.g., gastrointestinal) that may be inherent in these ingredients.

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

January 18, 2005
Gun, With Occasional Pasta

[Ed. -- Awesome James Bond/pasta illustration has vanished into the ether. This will be restored later.]

If your image of James Bond is based wholly on his screen persona, you might be shocked to discover a slightly more well-rounded character in the original books upon which the film series is based.

This is not to say that you won't find the literary Bond consumed with the usual womanizing, extortion plots, spy gadgets, and corny puns. The secret agent is still a cliché, but on paper, he actually has an interior life. Well, almost. Take, for example his appetite. If you’ve seen only one James Bond movie, you know what the secret agent likes to drink (martinis "shaken, not stirred"), but what does he like to eat?

In Ian Fleming’s Thunderball (1961), Bond reveals a penchant for pasta that may be a surprise to those who are only familiar with his celluloid self.

As the book opens, the secret agent has been ordered to spend two weeks suffering a numbing 1960s “nature cure” of strict dieting, sitz baths, and spine stretching at a retreat in Brighton called Shrublands.

Inevitably, libido and intrigue -- in the form of of Patricia Fearing, a hot osteopath, and Count Lippe, a scheming adversary -- interrupt the forced respite. As Bond plans his next move, Fleming divulges 007's desire for sex, revenge, and, well, spaghetti:

James Bond would have been more worried, as day by day the H-cure drew his teeth, if it had not been for three obsessions which belonged to his former life and which would not leave him—a passionate longing for a large dish of Spaghetti Bolognese containing plenty of chopped garlic and accompanied by a whole bottle of the cheapest, rawest Chianti (bulk for his empty stomach and sharp tastes for his starved palate), an overwhelming desire for the strong, smooth body of Patricia Fearing, and a deadly concentration on ways and means to wring the guts out of Count Lippe. [emphasis mine]

Bolognese and Chianti. Who knew? And here I thought the man existed solely on cocktails!

- www.thefoodsection.com/foodsection/2005/01/gun_with_occasi_1.html

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

Super size this!

*

A dainty 100lb woman has become the first person ever to finish Denny's Beer Barrel Pub's monster 6lb burger. Kate Stelnick, 19, of Princeton, N.J., made the five-hour drive with two friends from The College of New Jersey, after they saw pictures of the monster burger, dubbed the Ye Old 96er, on the Internet and on TV's Food Network.

She ate the burger in 2 hours 54 mins, 6 minutes under the 3 hours allowed. Not even competitive eater Eric "Badlands" Booker was able to eat it when he tried last June. It took him 7 1/2 hours.

The burger takes 45 minutes to cook, and those who try to meet the three-hour limit must use no utensils and eat all of these fixins: one large onion, two whole tomatoes, one half head of lettuce, 1 1/4 pounds of cheese, top and bottom buns, and a cup each of mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, relish, banana peppers and some pickles.

- xo.typepad.com/blog/2005/01/100lb_woman_eat.html

*

NOTABLE & QUOTABLE: "You look at the state of professional sports now, it's owners vs. players, salary demands, ticket prices going up--a mess. What's more pure than knowing that if you can afford lunch, you can begin training as a professional eater?"
("Crazy Legs" Conti, November 2004. Personal interview with Jessica Cogan of New York Cool Online.)

My dear fans and visitors: Thanks for visiting my Web, and thanks for all your support and the interest you expressed in 2004. I'll have to constantly give my best performance in 2005 if I am to maintain my momentum. With eating legends Eric "Badlands" Booker, Rich "The Locust" LeFevre, and Ed "Cookie" Jarvis on my heels, that will be a most formidable task indeed. Additionally, proven talents like Oleg "The Great Z" Zhornitskiy and upstart Tim "Eater X" Janus can never be overlooked.

Don't forget to periodically visit my two pages of photos, which I update from time to time, and my World Records page, which I hope to add to this year. I also keep my Publicity page current by noting media events that I think you might be interested in. Lastly, don't forget to check out my FAQ section, at the lower half of my Home page. I'll update it as necessary.

May you enjoy your visit!

Deliciously yours,
Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas

- www.sonyatheblackwidow.com/

[blaise]

At what point in the consumption of a 6-lb burger is gustatory pleasure superseded by an obsessive but hardly hedonic compulsion to finish? Is it an exaggeration to say that once that threshold is reached, the glutton begins to enter a state that more and more resembles self-torture? I shudder to think of the distended stomach that is cleared at an agonizingly slow rate by an overburdened pylorus.

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

Morgan Spurlock

SUPER SIZE ME

Morgan Spurlock is native of West Virginia. He grew up in a family that was very supportive of the arts, being one of three ballet dancing brothers in a state where dancing was viewed as a "not so manly" thing to do. He was rejected from USC's film school five times before transferring and graduating from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in 1993. SUPER SIZE ME is his first feature film.

- www.sundancechannel.com/festival/profiles/index.php?ixContent=5611

[Habs_fan_in_LA]

Blaise said:

At what point in the consumption of a 6-lb burger is gustatory pleasure superseded by an obsessive but hardly hedonic compulsion to finish? Is it an exaggeration to say that once that threshold is reached, the glutton begins to enter a state that more and more resembles self-torture? I shudder to think of the distended stomach that is cleared at an agonizingly slow rate by an overburdened pylorus.

Why climb Mt. Everest, when you can climb Mt. Royal35 times instead?
Why run a marathon when running 3 miles is superior for the human physique?
Why ski double black diamon.............. you get the idea.

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

Rolling Stone magazine (USA), Issue 794, September 3rd 1998

Fast-Food Nation: The True Cost Of America's Diet

By National Magazine Award winner Eric Schlosser


After four decades, our obsession with fast, cheap food has transformed our towns and flooded the labor market with low-paying, dead-end jobs. Is this a healthy menu?

Cheyenne mountain sits on the eastern slope of Colorado's front range, rising steeply from the prairie and overlooking the city of Colorado Springs. From a distance, the mountain looks beautiful and serene, dotted with rocky outcroppings, scrub oak and ponderosa pine. And yet Cheyenne Mountain is hardly pristine. One of the nation's most important military installations is located deep within it, housing operational units of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, the United States Space Command and the Air Force Space Command. In the mid-1950s, high-level officials at the Pentagon worried that America's air defenses were vulnerable to sabotage and attack. Cheyenne Mountain was chosen as the site for a top-secret underground combat-operations center. The mountain was hollowed out, and about 700,000 tons of rock were removed. Fifteen buildings, most of them three stories high, were erected amid a maze of tunnels and passageways extending for miles. The four-and-a-half-acre underground complex was designed to survive a direct hit by a ten-kiloton atomic bomb. Now officially called the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center, the facility is entered through massive steel blast doors that are three feet thick and weigh twenty tons each. Pressurized air within the complex prevents contamination by radioactive fallout or biological weapons. A heavily armed quick-response team guards against intruders. The place feels like the set of an early James Bond movie, with men in jumpsuits driving little electric vans from one brightly lighted cavern to another.

- www.mcspotlight.org/media/press/rollingstone1.html

[MC Habber]

M. said:

Rolling Stone magazine (USA), Issue 794, September 3rd 1998

Fast-Food Nation: The True Cost Of America's Diet

By National Magazine Award winner Eric Schlosser

- www.mcspotlight.org/media/press/rollingstone1.html

Fascinating article. So many statistics that astounded me; one that particularly stands out: an estimated one of every eight Americans has worked at McDonald's.

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

Hamburger America

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

Obesity Wars Flambeing

America's obsession over being obsessed with weight is sparking more headlines. Earlier this week, a federal appeals court overturned a lower court's decision to throw out a lawsuit filed by two New York state teenagers who claimed McDonald's used deceptive advertising to hook them on their burgers and fries. The teenagers ate at MickeyD's three to five times a week and shockingly suffered from obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, and heart disease.

Not to be out done, leading food companies General Mills, Kraft and Kellogg Co. banded together with the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the Association of National Advertisers and the Grocery Manufacturers of America to launch the Alliance for American Advertising. The advocacy group will defend the industry's First Amendment rights to advertise to children and to promote its willingness to police itself.

Amongst this growing controversy, the federal government's efforts to revamp the national food pyramid are being pushed backed a couple months because, as Eric Hentges of the USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion claims, "We have one chance to do this, and we really want to get it right." Among the suggestions to replace the pyramid are food plates, trees, hourglasses, and rainbows.

Finally, Thick Burgers are driving sales at your local Hardee's, who are reporting 19 consecutive months of same-store sales growth, with some stores reporting 20% increases in burger sales. These 1,418 calore monsters have helped Hardee's once lowly stock price of $3.69 to climb to $14.11.


Filed under News at January 27, 2005 09:16 PM

- www.bourrezvisage.com/arch/000584.php

[Habs_fan_in_LA]

It seems that nobody is responsible for their own actions.

"I'm fat because McDonalds tricked me into eating too much and not exercising."



"I have cancer because despite warnings and information to the contrary, I chose to smoke two packs a day and got hooked against my will."



"I killed my mother and father because the childrens welfare workers didn't remove me from an abusive situation."



"It was the bartenders fault that I got drunk and rammed my car into a telephone pole."



"I didn't graduate from school because they gave me too much homework."



"I didn't get into school because they didn't have quotas for indigenous female hispanic black Icelanders at St. Mary's U."



Nobody twisted your arm to supersize your meals. Nobody told you to eat one or two or three quarterpounders.



It's always nobody's fault, certainly not our own.

[blaise]

But you can't stay away, can you?

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

[jkr]

M. said:

Food Porn Alert!

Heinz paid £15k for Jamie's beans on toast

John Plunkett
Thursday January 13, 2005

An unlikely war of words has broken out between Jamie Oliver and Heinz after the TV chef revealed the food giant paid £15,000 to have beans on toast included on the menu of his east London restaurant.

Oliver generated acres of publicity - much of it negative - when he introduced the unlikely dish on the menu at Fifteen, priced £7. Best Baked Bean Bruschetta was described as a "signature dish" of one of Oliver's trainees and was served with olive oil, cherry tomatoes, red chillies and parmesan on ciabatta.

- media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1389876,00.html

I don't watch cooking shows as a rule but I found The Naked Chef to be a little differnet than the norm & entertaining fluff. But this just proves that the guy is just another money grubber. Slapping beans on toast & charging 7 quid for it - please!!

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

jkr said:

I don't watch cooking shows as a rule but I found The Naked Chef to be a little differnet than the norm & entertaining fluff. But this just proves that the guy is just another money grubber. Slapping beans on toast & charging 7 quid for it - please!!

Naked Chef was both entertaining and informative. After that series, Oliver turned into a chubby-dubby media shill for his restaurant and its suppliers.

Anthony Bourdain, OTOH...

[Doc Holliday]

Habs_fan_in_LA said:

It seems that nobody is responsible for their own actions.

"I'm fat because McDonalds tricked me into eating too much and not exercising."



"I have cancer because despite warnings and information to the contrary, I chose to smoke two packs a day and got hooked against my will."



"I killed my mother and father because the childrens welfare workers didn't remove me from an abusive situation."



"It was the bartenders fault that I got drunk and rammed my car into a telephone pole."



"I didn't graduate from school because they gave me too much homework."



"I didn't get into school because they didn't have quotas for indigenous female hispanic black Icelanders at St. Mary's U."



Nobody twisted your arm to supersize your meals. Nobody told you to eat one or two or three quarterpounders.



It's always nobody's fault, certainly not our own.

..well said.

Today it's always the fault of the government or the corporate world...

..somehow our society didn't get deprived enough of its basic freedom to really measure the true blessing of always having a choice... We want the choice, never the consequences.

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

Doc_Holliday said:

..well said.

Today it's always the fault of the government or the corporate world...

..somehow our society didn't get deprived enough of its basic freedom to really measure the true blessing of always having a choice... We want the choice, never the consequences.

"Give me convenience or give me death"

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

Would you like fries with that?

Hungry!?

A 6 lb. Burger. Where's the beef? It's at a Pennsylvania pub that serves the world's biggest burger — weighing in at NINE lip-smacking pounds! That's no whopper — you can actually get this meat monster for $23.95, loaded with all the fixings: Two whole tomatoes, a half-head of lettuce, 12 slices of American cheese, a full cup of peppers, two entire onions, plus, a river of mayonnaise, ketchup, and mustard.

Origins: Even though consumers are increasingly opting for healthier foods these days, some people still prefer good ol' fatty standards such as burgers, cheese, french fries, and ice cream. And as long as customers want those things, some eateries will attempt to attract their business by offering larger portions of them than the next guy.

One extreme in the big burger business is represented by Denny's Beer Barrel Pub in Clearfield, Pennsylvania, which offers several varieties of "large" for the extreme burger enthusiast: a 2-pound Challenger, a 3-pound Baby Boy, and, as displayed in the pictures shown above, a 6-pound Ye Olde 96er (so named because it contains 96 ounces of meat).

Denny's (not to be confused with the national chain restaurants of the same name) offers prizes for customers who can completely consume one of their big burgers within three hours: a T-shirt, certificate, and 50% discount for anyone who finishes a Challenger (2 lb. burger) within an hour; a T-shirt, certificate, and 100% discount for anyone who can polish off a Baby Boy (3 lb. burger) in 90 minutes or less; and something special for anyone who manages the unthinkable and puts away a whole 96er (6 lb. burger) in under three hours.

Update: In January 2005, a 100-pound woman became the first person to win the Denny's Beer Barrel Pub challenge when 19-year-old Kate Stelnick of Princeton, New Jersey, downed a six-pound Denny's "96er" hamburger and five pounds of fixins' in 2 hours and 54 minutes, just shy of the three-hour time limit. For her trouble, Ms. Stelnick got a special certificate, a T-shirt, and other prizes, as well as having her tab for the $23.95 burger picked up by the house.

After losing the title of "world's biggest burger" to the Clinton Station Diner in Clinton, N.J., which introduced a 12.5-pound hamburger called "Zeus" in early 2005, Denny's reclaimed the crown a few months later by unveiling the "Beer Barrel Belly Buster" a monstrous 15-pound burger featuring 10.5 pounds of ground beef, 25 slices of cheese, a head of lettuce, three tomatoes, two onions, a cup-and-a-half each of mayonnaise, relish, ketchup, mustard and banana peppers. On a bun.

Last updated: 2 May 2005

- www.snopes.com/photos/commercials/bigburger.asp

[blaise]

Those pubs should sell life insurance on the side.

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

Mo'F'Naldo : (Flash content)

[Habs_fan_in_LA]

As famous Canadian, Alex Trebec said on Jeopardy:

"What did Dolly parton say to her plastic surgeon?"

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

September 14, 2005

Local woman loses weight on McDiet

by Jasten McGowan

Merab Morgan reacted with sheer disgust when she first saw the 2004 documentary Super Size Me, in which director Morgan Spurlock lived off the McDonald’s menu for a month. But instead of shying away from the golden arches, Morgan launched a 90-day McDonald’s diet of her own—and dropped 37 pounds in the process.

Unlike many viewers who took Spurlock’s anti-fast food message to heart, Morgan refused to buy into what she considers propaganda.

“Its not like the devil makes you do it,” the Henderson, N.C. woman said in response to those who blame fast food chains for their health problems. “I’ve been overweight for years, and I knew what I was doing was wrong whenever I ate the wrong thing or too much.”

- www.chronicle.duke.edu/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/09/14/4328098b3bf68

[Disgruntled70sHab]

Dis Jr and I were here the day after the event. A friend of mine who owns a restaurant here in Kingston made two of the world's largest hamburgers. There were two teams who tried to put a dent in the 30-lb burgers. The had 45 minutes each.

Check out Ian's Kitchen and Soda Shoppe in Kingston. We used to live about a baseball-throw away from this place, but have moved since.

Dis Jr. and I had our picture taken with one of these burgers. I'll try to get a JPEG of one and post it later.

Cheers.