Super Size Me
Last night we finally got to watch the infamous docu-tainment piece Super Size Me (2004) on television where the intrepid host threatens his long-term health by eating nothing but fast food for a month interspersed with info-mercials on the business practices of the American fast food industry, very much in the style of Bowling for Columbine. This is not a film for those viewers still eating their dinner or those prone to empathising with another’s suffering, I should also warn that there are some shocking scenes of scary clowns and there is a scene where his girlfriend goes into cringingly sincere detail on the effects that this junk food diet has had on their sex life (frankly we didn’t want to know dear). It was very entertaining and while not exactly a revelation to healthy diet nuts like ourselves it was very informative.
Two years ago we flew into Denver for a road trip to visit Yellowstone, The Rockies and Canyon Lands. Now it was not the first time I had visited the States but business trips to New York or holidays in Hawaii hardly give you a realistic view of America so I was looking forward to this opportunity to see another side of this vast continent. The first clue we had that anything was wrong was the prevalence of Atkins diet signs in restaurant windows but the big shock came when we visited the Cherry Creek shopping centre in Denver as Helena returned from the toilets ashen faced; “All of the toilets are full of vomit”.
As we made our journey we were careful not to eat in fast food restaurants if we could avoid it and always asked people where the best places to eat in town were, nevertheless the food was always too high in salt and sugar for us and I often felt sick after a meal. Within a week it was clear we were gaining weight fast and in spite of lots of hiking I felt weak and tired. Thank god we reached the oasis of Moab when we did and were able to get some decent whole food and salad, I really liked that town.
It took us over a month to detox with a strict diet of salads and fruit on our return. I know that there are campaigns to improve the American diet but you guys have to get more militant on this issue - its killing you.
Talking Aside :
We were walking along the main street in Cody one evening looking for a place to eat when a small truck screeched to a halt alongside us and the young woman at the wheel leaned out and shouted over to us saying “You guys look fantastic together, you really do - you should get married.” I wasn’t really prepared for this kind of statement and all I could say in full Hugh Grant bumbling style was “Er, why thank you very much”. And off she drove.
We’ve done a fair few US road trips like yours over the years and there really is little choice but to sit back and enjoy the horror food, and culture, wise. Moab is, of course, a little different as long as you’re OK about breathing in all that dust from the nearby uranium mine.
Ah, the joys of US road trips
British variant of Supersize Me here
http://tesco-value-me.livejournal.com/
As far as I know Uraninite is pretty harmless in its natural form and it was quite apparent that the food was going to kill us first! Mind you those Halliburton trucks are pretty scary with the darkened windows and chains on the fender, they reminded me of that movie about a “possessed” psychopathic truck (I can’t remember the title).
Tescos seem to want to become the British Wal-Mart and I make a conscious effort not to shop there on principle as I think their business practices are seriously questionable and the fact that they have avoided investigation up to now by the Office of Fair Trading highly suspicious.
Interesting. When I was in London I had never seen so many pasty, puffy, pale skinned people in my life before. Everyone looked horribly in ill health and poorly fed. In the cafes, I had my first taste of what you call a banger, and my last. I cut this pallid excuse for a sausage open and instead of meat inside, it slowly deflated as grey grease drizzled out.
I kept trying different restaurants and cafes and it was all the same, greasy, tasteless, terrible. Finally I came across a McDonalds and said Oh, what the hell, and had a Big Mac and a salad and it was the best meal I’d been able to find in London at any price. So that’s where I ate from then on until I left.
In the years since, I have eaten at McDonalds perhaps 3 times as I don’t care for fast food. In London it’s the only place to eat. It’s no wonder the French laugh at English food, it really is terrible, tasteless and extremely unhealthy.
All I can say, Wolfie, is you and your wife must be exceptions or you must live in a country setting where people know how to eat. Americans consume too much starch and fat and there’s no doubt of it, in the cities. Country people tend to be leaner and more health conscious. But I guess it’s fashionable to complain about “them” as compared to “us”, no matter who or where we are because obviously, our impressions aren’t always the true picture.
That thing about the toilets all being full of vomit… I have never seen that in my life. Either there was a local illness going around, or an outbreak of bacterial food poisoning - salmonella or whatever - or some unusual event. To assume it was due to the so-called American Diet is a mistake. For that matter, I’m sure there’s no such thing as either an English or an American diet, we all have our own preferences.
And I also have to say that the US is literally filled with very excellent restaurants. Most restaurants are VERY careful about using salt because of lawsuits, and the only time you get sugar in your food is when you order something sweet, so if you got too much salt and sugar it was because you salted it or ordered sweet foods, and or put sugar on/in it.
I have an alternative probability to your complaints. You came from almost sea level to a place 1000’s of feet ABOVE sea level. The air is thin where you were and it’s small wonder that you felt weak and tired. Additionally you were probably retaining more water in yoiur systems than usual because of a change in diet. That month of detox was more like a month of re-acclimation.
Nothing to say about the incredible beauty of all that you saw in my wonderful country?
[...] Wolfie has a nice post on Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me. [...]
Oh dear, it sounds like you got trapped in the hideous tourist-trap known as the “West End” where crooked restaurateurs peddle vile over-priced muck to the poor unfortunate visitors to our country. It is certainly a blot on our cultural landscape of which no Britain can be proud. Please accept my apology as an Englishman for this criminal attack on your wellbeing but alas these areas are controlled by gastric gangsters with no sense of national pride. If you were to hop onto the tube and venture out into the more residential [affluent] suburbs of our city you would find a plethora of fine eateries to exonerate the British cuisine. Maybe next time.
As for the Cherry Creek vomit; our assumption was bulimia, not poisoning (the Atkins reference was a clue). Clearly a local habit judging by the waif-like young women swanning about the mall.
what exactly the phrase “living on borrowed thyme” means?
Its a play on words from the well known metaphor :
“living on borrowed time”, but with a gastronomic twist (thyme being a herb).
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I can not agree with you in 100% regarding some thoughts, but you got good point of view…