Just watched Morgan Spurlock's documentary "Supersize Me" for the second time with a new low-carb mindset. The first time I watched it was over a year ago and I was still deeply entrenched in the low-fat mindset. I found myself nodding in agreement at how evil fast food was, and was shocked at how it destroyed this man's body so quickly.

This time, however, I found myself arguing with the 'expert' opinions of why Spurlock's bloodwork numbers were out of control. They blamed saturated fat, while I was thinking it was the sugary soda, shakes, desserts, white buns and fries.

I realize fast food isn't great quality nutrition, but I also don't think Spurlock presented an unbiased documentary. So, I was wondering what would happen if he tried the same experiment, but tossed out all the processed carbs...

What if he just ate the fillings of the burgers rather than the whole thing?
Do you think the outcome would have been different?
Other thoughts?

Yes the outcome would be different because he would not have been able to get funding from the same source. I get a burger from BK without the bun or the ketchup and my results are different from his.

To be fair he did mention in the movie that MCD's puts sugar in everything -- even the salad (I think they are better about that now though.) And although he fixated on saturated fat he did at least mention the added sugar (and therefore carbs.) Also the title of the movie is "Supersize Me." When you supersize at MCD's you get a bigger sugar soda and more potatos -- in other words more carbs and maybe just a little more fat in the fries (but not as much as the added carbs.)

At the end they said he lost the wieght on his GF's diet. Even though the diet was vegetarian I doubt she fed him the same amount of sugar and high GI carbs that he got from MCD's. I don't think you can totally blame him for fixating on the fat at MCD's; I think that at one point in our lives we were all convinced that fat was bad. I guess it is all part of growing up in the West before LC caught on.

I read on the supersize me forum, soon after the movie came out, that this guy did his own little experiment where he ate McD's for 30days but exchanged all the drinks for diet. He said his blood work actually improved and posted his results etc. Woody, I think the name was.

I can't vouch for its truth as it's just something a guy was saying he'd done but it's an interesting thought all the same.

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The othe thing that can be very harmful with Fast food is that those burgers are not the real thing. When you buy meat and make your own hamburgers at least you know whats in it. But Fast food burgers have soo much preservatives and added junk. I know for a while I was buying ff burgers and eating just the meat, and i remember always wanting them. I would also stall out for weaks on my diet and would start to crave other no-no's after eating them..... just my $.02

Although I REALLY agreed with many things presented in the documentary, there were some things that I felt he was "tipping the scale" so as to cause the viewer to draw the conclusions in his favor, and against fast food:

1. He was not a big fast food eater himself before he began, and so therefore was not the best "baseline" case for the experiment... it might have turned out very different for someone who did eat McDonalds several times a week.

2. He didn't consent to drinking a glass of water because "McDonalds doesn't serve" it... although, if he would have asked for water instead of the soda, they would have given it to him.

3. He ate the fries every time... he didn't HAVE To eat the fries.

4. He interviewed 4 children---all of which "just so happened" to be unable to positively identify the people shown to them in the pictures (including Jesus Christ!) with the exception of Ronald McDonald... I have a hard time believing that there were only 4 children polled for his docu., and think that he deliberately chose those 4 to "tip the scale" toward his point.

5. His liver was showing signs of distress after 17 days, and yet he continued relentlessly eating the exact same way (at the tune of 5,000 calories a day!) for the duration of the month, putting himself in further risk!! I think that if he would have started eating more of the salads, STOPPED eating the fries, and ordering water at that point, he may have avoided putting on those last pounds, and his liver would have been ok.

Other than that, I was really interested in his conclusions and all the research about the food industry. There was a lot of truth to most of what he presented.

I was thinking about this movie earlier today... something along the lines of a possible sequel: Lowcarb-size Me!

i think he probably would have gotten sick, but he wouldn't have deteroriated as rapidly. He wouldn't have developed signs of metabolic syndrome so dramatically (like they hypoglycemic episodes, the "addiction to food" - craving it, the fast fat gain and so on).

BTW the movie is propaganda for a vegetarian lifestyle. There is no logic to his experiment; it tests and proves nothing. It only serves to make the viewer feel mild panic and hysteria about eating junk food (meat based junk food). The viewer is then introduced to a vegetarian diet, which looks "clean" and "pure" in comparison.
There's also a lot of anti-corporate propaganda in there too but the predominant theme IMO was pro-vegetarianism.

I agree but I also believe it succeeded in showing there's more in the food than you think and it has effects. That changing the foods you eat really can make a difference (I'm continually surprised by obese people I know that eat low fat, don't lose much weight and really aren't convinced that eating different foods really can make such a difference).

There's sugar in the rolls, sugar in the patties, sugar in the pickles, sugar in the mayo and I think the chips and drinks are self explanatory. People just don't realise what soft drink can do to you quite often - just that sometimes it makes people fat. It can do more than that!

Sorry, preaching to the converted. That's my rant.

Have a great day all,
e

I think the whole thing was less about experiment, and more about a freakshow type mentality. They didn't make the program to demonstrate how fast food is bad for you - although they focussed on that point....they did it to get ratings. It's the shock factor; you have to look as you drive past a burning car even though you're fully awair of what's inside.

People KNOW that if you eat 5000+ cals a day for a month you will get very fat and very sick.

I don't hold up the notion that if he had done the experiment any other way it would have been better for him.....simply put, eating like that consistently IS bad for you, we all know that. But the program writers assume that we are all very much more ignorant than we really are!!

Recently there was another kind of experiment over here in the UK where this woman went out every single night and consumed over 2000 extra cals a day binge drinking, she did it for a month - in that time her skin aged by 11 years!! It started to affect the liver function and she looked and felt absolutely terrible. (it begs the question WHY do you want to do that to yourself in the first place, even for TV?!)

I don't think it's what you eat or drink that is relevent, it's the AMOUNT you eat.....if I ate pasta once a month and ate LC the rest of the month it would be a healthy diet, but if I ate pasta 5 times a day for the next month then I'd be sure to make myself very fat and very ill from it.

And yet they claim it's the small meat patty that's the problem!

mrstmitch, great analysis - thanks. I haven't seen the film, I should watch it sometime.

Note that several people have done rebuttal experiments:


There are links for all these on the Wikipedia page I linked to if you want to read more about 'em.

I agree - an LC-Size-Me! rebuttal would be great.

Another thing that I thought was funny about the movie. Notice the guy who was addicted to, I believe, big macs. He went in all of the time and ate a sandwich. He didn't get the drinks or the fries but he would go in and constantly get a burger. That guy seemed to one of the thinest people in the entire movie. Made you wonder if the fries and the soda were worse than the burgers.

On a related note, I found the book Fast Food Nation to be very interesting & informative re the food industry...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/00...5Fencoding=UTF8

I thought the same thing, burgers kept him thin.... and coke and transfat will kill you