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In this week's Unsettled Science from Nina Teicholz:

Quote:

A Surprising Defense of McDonald’s

The New York Times this week marked the 20-year anniversary of the documentary “Supersize Me” with a newly energized critique of fast-food restaurants. As you might remember, “Supersize Me” featured the independent filmmaker, Morgan Spurlock, eating nothing but McDonald’s for 30 days, with all possible items “super sized.” Spurlock wound up considerably fatter and sicker than when he started, making his film “the high-water mark in a tide of sentiment against fast food,”as the Times put it. The next two decades, though, have only seen McDonalds get bigger than ever, with nearly 42,000 locations, and fast food in general has boomed. The Times reserves particular opproprium for the way fast-food chains market to children via celebrity endorsements.A serious challenge to the fast-food-is-bad narrative is one of our favorite food films, the 2009 documentary “Fat Head,” by the comedian Tom Naughton. Taking his cue from Spurlock, Naughton ate his meals exclusively at fast-food establishments for 28 days. Unlike Spurlock, he recorded all his meals in detail for complete transparency. Naughton decided to reduce carbohydrates modestly by occasionally tossing out the hamburger buns and not buying sugary drinks, although he still ate fries and some desserts. At the end of the experiment, he had lost more than 12 pounds, much of it fat, and his total cholesterol had dropped.

Naughton’s experience forces us to consider the possibility that fast-food restaurants, despite the bad rap, aren’t inherently harmful. The burgers contain plenty of high-quality protein, as do the bacon and cheese on top. They’re also cheap and easy. As a top commentator wrote to the Times, “A family with two working parents doesn't have time to cook nutritious meals from scratch every day. Particularly in between ferrying kids around. Hell, it's hard for childless people at this point.” Inflation undermined the dollar’s purchasing power by about 7.4 percent between 2021 and 2022,according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, meaning that for people on minimum wage, quick and inexpensive food may very well be the only way to feed a family.Maybe we should stop demonizing fast food and instead entertain the idea that these restaurants serve an important function, by providing affordable meals to over-stretched families on the go. And, as Noughton showed, fast food can be healthy, depending on what you eat. How about this new motto for Mickey D’s: eat the patties, skip the bun. Resist the shake! (NT)

I'm with Nina, eat the patties!