Have you seen the movie, "Super Size Me"?

Facts:

▪                Each day, 1 in 4 Americans visits a fast food restaurant

▪                In 1972, we spent 3 billion a year on fast food - today we spend more than $110 billion

▪                McDonald's feeds more than 46 million people a day - more than the entire population of Spain

▪                French fries are the most eaten vegetable in America

▪                You would have to walk for seven hours straight to burn off a Super Sized Coke, fry and Big Mac

▪                In the U.S., we eat more than 1,000,000 animals an hour

▪                60 percent of all Americans are either overweight or obese

▪                One in every three children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime

▪                Left unabated, obesity will surpass smoking as the leading cause of preventable death in America

▪                Obesity has been linked to: Hypertension, Coronary Heart Disease, Adult Onset Diabetes, Stroke, Gall Bladder Disease, Osteoarthritis, Sleep Apnea, Respiratory Problems, Endometrial, Breast, Prostate and Colon Cancers, Dyslipidemia, steatohepatitis, insulin resistance, breathlessness, Asthma, Hyperuricaemia, reproductive hormone abnormalities, polycystic ovarian syndrome, impaired fertility and lower back pain

▪                The average child sees 10,000 TV advertisements per year

▪                Only seven items on McDonald's entire menu contain no sugar

▪                Willard Scott was the first Ronald McDonald - he was fired for being too fat

▪                McDonald's distributes more toys per year than Toys-R-Us

▪                Diabetes will cut 17-27 years off your life

▪      McDonald's: "Any processing our foods undergo make them more dangerous than unprocessed foods"

▪                The World Health Organization has declared obesity a global epidemic

▪                Eating fast food may be dangerous to your health

▪                McDonald's calls people who eat a lot of their food "heavy users"

▪      McDonald's operates more than 30,000 restaurants in more then 100 countries on 6 continents

▪                Before most children can speak they can recognize McDonald's

▪                Surgeon General David Satcher: "Fast food is a major contributor to the obesity epidemic"

▪                Most nutritionists recommend not eating fast food more than once a month

▪                40 percent of American meals are eaten outside the home

         McDonald's represents 43% of total U.S. fast food market

Source: http://www.vivavegie.org/101book/text/nolink/social/supersizeme.htm

Watch the documentary

Super Size Me is a 2004 American documentary film directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, an American independent filmmaker. Spurlock's film follows a 30-day period from February 1 to March 2, 2003 during which he ate only McDonald's food. The film documents this lifestyle's drastic effect on Spurlock's physical and psychological well-being, and explores the fast food industry's corporate influence, including how it encourages poor nutrition for its own profit.

Spurlock ate at McDonald's restaurants three times per day, eating every item on the chain's menu at least once. Spurlock consumed an average of 20.92 megajoules or 5,000 kcal (the equivalent of 9.26 Big Macs) per day during the experiment.

As a result, the then-32-year-old Spurlock gained 24½ lbs. (11.1 kg), a 13% body mass increase, a cholesterol level of 230, and experienced mood swings, sexual dysfunction, and fat accumulation in his liver. It took Spurlock fourteen months to lose the weight gained from his experiment using a vegan diet supervised by his future wife, a chef who specializes in gourmet vegan dishes.

The reason for Spurlock's investigation was the increasing spread of obesity throughout U.S. society, which the Surgeon Generalhas declared "epidemic," and the corresponding lawsuit brought against McDonald's on behalf of two overweight girls, who, it was alleged, became obese as a result of eating McDonald's food [Pelman v. McDonald's Corp., 237 F. Supp. 2d 512].^[3] Spurlock points out that although the lawsuit against McDonald's failed (and subsequently many state legislatures have legislated against product liability actions against producers and distributors of "fast food"), much of the same criticism leveled against the tobacco companiesapplies to fast food franchises whose product is both physiologically addictive and physically harmful.^[4][5]

Experiment [edit]

Spurlock has specific rules governing his eating habits:

• He must fully eat three McDonald's meals per day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
• He must consume every item on the McDonald's menu at least once over the course of the 30 days (he managed this in nine days).
• He must only ingest items that are offered on the McDonald's menu, including bottled water. All outside consumption of food is prohibited.
• He must Super Size the meal when offered, but only when offered (i.e., he is not able to Super Size items himself).
• He will attempt to walk about as much as a typical U.S citizen, based on a suggested figure of 5,000 standardized distance steps per day,^[8] but he did not closely adhere to this, as he walked more while in New York than in Houston.

On February 1, Spurlock starts the month with breakfast near his home in Manhattan, where there is an average of four McDonald's locations (and 66,950 residents, with twice as many commuters) per square mile (2.6 km²). He aims to keep the distances he walks in line with the 5,000 steps (approximately two miles) walked per day by the average American.

Day 2 brings Spurlock's first (of nine) Super Size meal, at the McDonald's on 34th Street and Tenth Avenue, which happens to be a meal made of a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, Super Size French fries, and a 42 ounce Coke, which takes 22 minutes to eat. He experiences steadily increasing stomach discomfort during the process, and promptlyvomits in the McDonald's parking lot.

After five days Spurlock has gained 9.5 pounds (4.5 kg) (from 185.5 to about 195 pounds). It is not long before he finds himself experiencing depression, and he claims that his bouts of depression, lethargy, and headaches could be relieved by eating a McDonald's meal. His general practitioner describes him as being "addicted". At his second weigh-in, he had gained another 8 pounds (3.5 kg), putting his weight at 203.5 lb (92 kg). By the end of the month he weighs about 210 pounds (95.5 kg), an increase of about 24.5 pounds (about 11 kg). Because he could only eat McDonald's food for a month, Spurlock refused to take any medication at all. At one weigh-in Morgan lost 1 lb. from the previous weigh-in, and a nutritionist hypothesized that he had lost muscle mass, which weighs more than an identical volume of fat. At another weigh-in, a nutritionist said that he gained 17 pounds (8.5 kg) in 12 days.

Spurlock's girlfriend, Alexandra Jamieson, attests to the fact that Spurlock lost much of his energy and sex drive during his experiment. It was not clear at the time whether or not Spurlock would be able to complete the full month of the high-fat, high-carbohydrate diet, and family and friends began to express concern.

On Day 21, Spurlock has heart palpitations. His internist, Dr. Daryl Isaacs, advises him to stop what he is doing immediately to avoid any serious health problems. He compares Spurlock with the protagonist played by Nicolas Cage in the movie Leaving Las Vegas, who intentionally drinks himself to death in a matter of weeks. Despite this warning, Spurlock decides to continue the experiment.

On March 2, Spurlock makes it to day 30 and achieves his goal. In thirty days, he has "Supersized" his meals nine times along the way (five of which were in Texas, four in New York City). His physicians are surprised at the degree of deterioration in Spurlock's health. He notes that he has eaten as many McDonald's meals as most nutritionists say the ordinary person should eat in 8 years (he ate 90 meals, which is close to the number of meals consumed once a month in an 8-year period).

Findings [edit]

An end text states that it took Spurlock 5 months to lose 20.1 pounds (9 kg) and another 9 months to lose the last 4.5 pounds (2 kg). His girlfriend Alexandra, now his ex-wife, began supervising his recovery with her "detox diet," which became the basis for her book, The Great American Detox Diet.^[9]

The movie ends with a rhetorical question, "Who do you want to see go first, you or them?" This is accompanied by a cartoon tombstone, which reads "Ronald McDonald (1954–2012)", which originally appeared in The Economist in an article addressing the ethics of marketing to children.^[10]

A short epilogue was added to the film. Although it showed that the salads can contain even more calories than burgers if the customer adds liberal amounts of cheese and dressing prior to consumption, it also described McDonald's discontinuation of the Super Size option six weeks after the movie's premiere, as well as its recent emphasis on healthier menu items such as salads, and the release of the new adult Happy Meal. However, McDonald's claimed that these changes had nothing to do with the film.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me

"The 59 ingredients in a fast-food strawberry milkshake"

'To make one at home, you need four fresh ingredients. The processed version isn't so simple ...'

Britons now spend more than £52bn on food every year - and more than 90% of that money is spent on processed food. But the canning, freezing and dehydrating techniques used to process food destroy most of its flavour. Since the end of the second world war, a vast industry has arisen to make processed food taste good.

During the past two decades the flavour industry's role in food production has become so influential that many children now like man-made flavours more than the real thing. As marketing to children has become more and more important to processed food companies and fast food chains, flavourists have increased their efforts to discover what children like. The flavour companies constantly run "taste tests" for kids - focus groups in which new products are piloted.

Fresh fruit and vegetables often have complicated, unpredictable flavours that combine bitterness with sweetness. When flavourists create additives for adult foods, they try to imitate nature as closely as possible. When flavourists create additives for kids' foods, they usually get rid of the bitterness and increase the sweetness. Children's flavours are often twice as sweet as those made for adults.

"Children's expectation of a strawberry is completely different," says one flavourist. "They want something that is strong and that has something like bubblegum notes."

The phrase "artificial strawberry flavour" offers little hint of the scientific wizardry that can make a highly processed food taste like a strawberry. For example, if you wanted to make a strawberry milkshake at home, here's all you'd need: ice, cream, strawberries, sugar and a touch of vanilla.

Now take a look at the ingredients you might find in a fast-food strawberry milkshake: milkfat and nonfat milk, sugar, sweet whey, high-fructose corn syrup, guar gum, monoglycerides and diglycerides, cellulose gum, sodium phosphate, carrageenan, citric acid, E129 and artificial strawberry flavour.

And what does that "artificial strawberry flavour" contain?

Just these few yummy chemicals: amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, anethol, anisyl formate, benzyl acetate, benzyl isobutyrate, butyric acid, cinnamyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil, diacetyl, dipropyl ketone, ethyl butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl heptylate, ethyl lactate, ethyl methylphenylglycidate, ethyl nitrate, ethyl propionate, ethyl valerate, heliotropin, hydroxyphrenyl- 2-butanone (10% solution in alcohol), ionone, isobutyl anthranilate, isobutyl butyrate, lemon essential oil, maltol, 4-methylacetophenone, methyl anthranilate, methyl benzoate, methyl cinnamate, methyl heptine carbonate, methyl naphthyl ketone, methyl salicylate, mint essential oil, neroli essential oil, nerolin, neryl isobutyrate, orris butter, phenethyl alcohol, rose, rum ether, undecalactone, vanillin and solvent.

The chicken nuggets and hamburgers at fast food restaurants are usually the least profitable things on the menu. Selling French fries is profitable - and selling soft drinks is incredibly profitable. "We at McDonald's are thankful," a top executive once said, "that people like drinks with their sandwiches." Today, McDonald's sells more Coca-Cola than anyone else in the world.

The fast food chains buy Coca-Cola syrup for about 53p a litre. They add the syrup to bubbly water and serve it in a paper cup. A medium Coke that sells for 75p contains about 5p worth of syrup. Buying a large Coke for 85p instead, as the worker behind the counter always suggests, will add another 2p worth of syrup - and another 8p in pure profit.

Thanks in large part to the marketing efforts of the fast food chains, Americans now drink about twice the amount of soft drinks as they did 30 years ago. In 1975, the typical American drank about 120 litres of soft drinks a year. Today, the typical American drinks about 240 litres of soft drinks a year. That's well over 500 340ml cans of soft drink, per person, every year.

Even toddlers are now drinking soft drinks. About 20% of American children between the ages of one and two drink soft drinks every day.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/apr/24/food.foodanddrink

Do some research on the Mc'Rib' and 'Chicken' McNuggets, you'll be surprised.

Do the hamburgers only contain 20% real meat?

Research "Pink Slime"