I don’t watch a huge number of films, but I do enjoy watching them occasionally and I’ve been using LoveFilm for the last couple of months after a friend recommended it. It’s especially good for catching up on films you didn’t have time to see when they came out. This week we had Super Size Me through the letter box, which another friend had recommended to me a while back.
I like documentaries generally, at least the informative ones anyway, and this one was simultaneously informative, funny and utterly disugusting in equal measure. I have to admire the guy for putting his health horribly at risk in the name of research, although I think everyone involved was surprised at just how much damage he could do in 30 days.
Some of the stats were interesting – I really didn’t realise that in the USA (allegedly) 40% of meals eaten by the average person are bought rather than made at home (that includes restaurants, take-out and fast food). To me that’s an incredible number – in comparison in our house I’d guess over 95% of the food is made at home.
But then, I’ve never really understood fast food. I can count the number of times I’ve eaten at McDonalds on one hand (in the 20ish years I’ve been an adult), and it’s always a very, very last resort – usually in airports at 3am when I’m jetlagged, but in recent years even that bastion has gone really thanks to decent airport restaurants being open 24/7. Our Island must be one of the last places in the world with no McDonalds – we did have a Burger King for a few years, but it shut down and is now a cafe / bistro. And don’t get me started on KFC – quite how you can take something as potentially delicious and healthy as chicken and turn it into a greasy, MSG-laden monstrosity I’ll never know (we don’t have any of those either, thank goodness). Probably the most decent food I’ve had from a fast-food joint is In-N-Out Burger (you were right Eric) – I actually saw them peeling real potatoes and mincing real beef, which is certainly a plus compared to the factory processed garbage most of these places use. Even so, I wouldn’t choose to eat it if I had an alternative.
As a bizarre coincidence, I read today that Activision is setting up a promotional partnership between Guitar Hero and KFC. Ugh.
Anyway, worth watching if you haven’t seen it already. Look out for the extras on the DVD, they’re very interesting – they did a decomposition test on ‘real’ food versus McDonalds, and it seems that even bacteria refuse to eat McDonalds french fries because they lasted for 10 weeks in a jar with little to no decomposition. That’s scary.
Now to await the UK follow-up – the health effects of eating nothing but take-out curry for 30 days 
Or maybe the fish & chip diet; although despite the unhealthy cooking mechanism, at least the ingredients in your local chippie are usually fresh & local, rather than being heavily factory processed like McD/KFC. The curry diet is almost certainly more entertaining though 
September 18th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
” I really didn?t realise that in the USA (allegedly) 40% of meals eaten by the average person are bought rather than made at home (that includes restaurants, take-out and fast food).”
Take-outs are actually pretty great. Most of the time it is locally owned – one of a kind – type of business where they way they prepare things is not all that different from what you would generally do at home.
And hell, it would take me months of practice to get some specific Indian/Pakistani dish right ( not to mention running around ethnic stores trying to find all the required ingredients) while on the other hand, in 20 minutes and for about $15 I can have all of that with no trouble whatsoever.
As far as I am concerned, there is simply no contest here,.
September 18th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Yeah that is a good film, very interesting. I wish I could agree about the takeaway situation though but I cant, because we have one take away every week (usually Friday night) and I love it – usually pizza.
My wife is trying to stop that now, especially since we discovered she’s pregnant (yay
)!
September 18th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Sure, occasional take-out is fine from local places. Giant fast-food chains are universally awful though.
I stand by my surprise at the 40% stat though – that’s 40% of ALL MEALS being bought rather than made. To me that’s really high – assuming 3 squares a day, that’s 8.4 bought meals every week. Even if 5 of those are buying lunch every day during the week, that’s still 3 other take-outs / restaurants, and that’s just the average. That’s much, much higher than in my house.
The guy in the film mentions how when he was a kid, his Mum used to cook every day, and occasionally they’d go out, but that’s not how it is anymore in modern America. Maybe we’re all 1950’s and backwards over here but that’s still how it is in my house. We’ll get take out maybe once a month – the majority of the time we cook. Of course it may be influenced by food being more expensive here, but beyond that it’s still good to know what goes into your food, and it’s not that hard. No pizza place I know can beat my wife’s freshly made pizza, and her vegetable risotto (all fresh obviously) kicks ass. I dare say I’m a dab hand with a thai green curry myself
Most of it doesn’t take long to make at all. But, each to their own – I was just surprised by the stat.
@Paul: congrats! Better start getting in the extra sleep now
September 18th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
“No pizza place I know can beat my wife’s freshly made pizza, and her vegetable risotto (all fresh obviously) kicks ass. I dare say I’m a dab hand with a thai green curry myself ”
Well, then there is a matter of having the right wife ..
September 19th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Actually, the movie gives a bit of a false interpretation to its own results. Not the fast food itself is the bad thing, but the masses of food are, especially the combination between soft drinks and potato snacks – the burger is still (after the salad) the healthier part of a McDonalds meal. The movie proves this itself, by showing this Big Mac guy, but it becomes clear, if you take a look for the ingredients. Especially the sugar and the fat – which mostly is in the potato snacks due to the frying – are a very bad combination and they are it, which are sold in big quantities. They super size you.
The idea of fast food and take away food isn’t that bad at all, if you take a historical look at it. Fast food is very common in asian countries, but you wouldn’t come to the idea to compare that with McDonalds, as it is made fresh. Most chinese food is based on the idea of fast food, e.g., which is true for typical thai food, too.
September 19th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Ah, one thing left, steve, it’s nice, that your island has no temples of fast food, which makes me want to visit it a bit more, but do you have a subway branch? I like them a lot and I really think, they are the healthier alternative, even compared with home cooked food (At least with typical german cookings
).
September 19th, 2008 at 8:39 am
You’re right that the burger is probably the most healthy part, but the industrialised factory processing of McDonald’s burgers mean they’re far from good.
If you watched the extras on the DVD they debate this, and point out that actually it’s the fact that these places have become so huge, and industrialised their processes to such a degree, that makes them so awful. Some research was done on a McD buger and it was discovered that there were over 1000 separately identifiable cattle in that one burger, which just isn’t natural. It’s a world apart from buying some food from a street vendor in asian countries – provided you make sure they’re actually cooking it there and then of course
No, we don’t have any Subways either. The only thing we really have that resembles a chain is Marks & Spencer, all the other places are individual local businesses. We don’t even have a Starbucks. My favourite place for take-out coffee is a local place owned by the husband-in-law of an old work colleague of mine, and his ‘chain’ consists of one shop and a beach kiosk
I like it this way, personally – I used to really like Starbucks until I got my own espresso machine, and now I prefer my own coffee by far. It’s cheaper too 
Generally I think local places where they control their own produce leads to a better result than some huge centralised system. It’s more interesting than seeing a street full of clones too.
September 19th, 2008 at 11:18 am
I’m of the opinion that fast food is okay, so long as it is eaten in moderation… Then again, whenever has America ever done ANYTHING in moderation?
i.e. I can well believe that 40% stat.
BTW, I saw this a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it. A great little documentary
September 20th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I’m reluctant to post since it’s been so long since I’ve seen this movie, and I think I was drinking wine that night…
At any rate, as I recall I found the guy to be a pretentious sort who mugged for the camera and dishonestly shaded a lot of what he said.
Not that I’m defending McDonald’s. For a much more extensive look at the disgusting truth about fast food, read the book Fast Food Nation, which details such pleasant things as the unthinkably frequent contamination of meat by offal.
By the way, there’s some movie with the same name that I haven’t seen, and it’s fiction.
September 20th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I know, maybe I should do something equally as valid as Spurlock’s experiment and see if I can become famous too. Let’s see… he ate twice as much per day as a normal person does.
For my experiment:
An average person is supposed to drink 2 litres of water a day. Instead I’ll drink 4 litres of rum a day, and see what my health and mental state is like after 30 days.
Forcing yourself to have massive quantities of things over a 4 week period which your body isn’t used to? A good way to make cash from movies and books, a laughably bad way to do a scientific study.
There have been other similar experiments done to recreate Spurlock’s one, and they don’t have the negative results of his.
I’ll agree on KFC being crap. I once had a burger from there which I swear contained a crumbed face hugger from aliens (that’s what it looked like). Oportos is far better, or Nandos (mmmm, extra hot chicken burger (24 hour marinated flame grilled chicken fillets), peri peri chips and perinaise dipping sauce… a trilogy of delicious mouth burning).
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:06 am
The film isn’t meant to come across as a hard scientific study. Supersize me is definitely anecdotal, and meant to portray one guy’s personal experience in an entertaining way.
The film had a pretty big impact, raised awareness about some serious health concerns, and even McDonalds responded by changing some menu items and their “supersize” policy after the film was released. If I’d made this documentary, I’d be pretty happy with that.
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I do visit Wendy’s and McDonalds on occasion, but I switched over to McDonalds salads(asian and southwest salads) once they finally came out with decent ones.
Last time I had a McDonalds burger I got the worst gut pain and had to run to the bathroom a short time after. I can stomach a Wendy’s burger, but I much prefer the Taco salad. As far as KFC goes, their best food is the non-chicken, like biscuits and coleslaw. I can’t stomach the greasy chicken any more, just too heavy for my stomach, and makes me feel nauseous.
December 16th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I have done a fair bit of research into fast food in my lifetime, including, KFC, McDonalds, Burger King (Hungry Jacks in Australia), Wendys, Oportos, Pizzahut, (and in NZ Burger Wisconson & Burger Fuel).
In my early 20s I use to experiment with eating mcdonalds in the short time after Uni and before rugby practice, findings: Mcdonalds and high level exercise don’t mix, while there was some extra energy from the burgers, more than if I had eaten nothing, the outcome was always a dodgy tummy after training, I suggest a banana, never had a problem eating one of those minutes before training.
Mcdonalds have the 2nd best hash browns in the world, go to Sonya’s (Darjeeling, Himilayas, India) for the best.
My favourite is by far KFC, love it, key to KFC is to eat lease than you think you need. Quite frankly the chicken is all I want but somehow I always end up getting a burger in a combo. Infact in Delhi India, I ate KFC when I got Delhi Belly, cause I could trust it, and I got better.
The flame grill of Burger King is delicious, and gets me everytime. Bangkok Thailand is by far the best place to get Burger King, there salad and quality of burger preparation is outstanding. However in that heat the burger are maybe on the big side.
Wendies Dominion Rd, Auckland, NZ use to have the best quality salad in the burger and was great, but taken over recently and the standards have dropped.
Burger Fuel and Burger Wisconson (Auckland, NZ) made the burgers that are plate size, and I found that after training myself the limit was 3 of those burgers plus chips/Fries.
Pizzahut in Ipoh Malaysia, does the worst pizza in the world, I got one and instead of a doe base they used 3 overlaping wraps. Yuck it was awful!!!
But recently I have got into cooking at home, and the result is I make my own burger patties now, yummy. Beef goes perfect with stiltin cheese. And own Indian curries which take little effort and are way more taster than bought ones, especially in england where it seems the main curry ingredient is sugar.
So why do I cook my own, cause here in London, the price of fast food is astounding. Just had McD’s Filet-o-fish and fancy chicken burger/sandwich. Not sure why they always come out with promotional burgers, they are always rubbish.
So what are the biggest findings after 15 years of research:
1. Food is fast to obtain with little effort.
2. Fast Food is generally consistant quality, and generally getting more rubbish.
3. Fast food no good with exercise. But lots of exercise is needed to maintain stable weight if eating fast food.
4. Home cooking is more fun. But healthy recipes still come out tasting to healthy (flavourless) so add half a block of tasty cheddar (england has great cheddar).
5. Fast food is addictive and becomes a financial drain.
6. I will forever love KFC, and clearly by the number of outlets worldwide a lot of other people do to. So stop the KFC bashing, it is finger licking good.
7. All these joints create lots of jobs, especially for kids, otherwise they would have to become drug runners … or steal money from there parents. Better than the kids jobs created by nike, etc.
8. Burgers absorb a lot of beer. Hmmm Beer.
9. I love KFC, but now only go on special occasions. E.g. after lots of Beer.
10. I hate McD’s Salads. All the quality lettuce goes in the salads and the burgers now days end up with rotting lettuce because of it. Thank you very much hippies! Why don’t you go to a salad bar …?
PS. I really want to try a Krusty Burger!