September 15, 2009
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Supersized Lie?
the documentary Supersize Me’s effect on modern food culture was nothing short of seismic, imo. it seemed to confirm every terrible fear that people had about fast food and its ill effects on human health. just this week, brazil made a pretty controversial judgment against mcd’s using the film as motivation. filmmaker morgan spurlock ate nothing but mcdonald’s for thirty days, got fat as a house, saw his health decline rapidly, and it was all on camera. when i was watching it though, i couldn’t ignore several red flags raised by his filmmaking that made me wonder exactly how much of that film is true.
here is what i believe to be true:
- he really ate mcdonald’s three times a day for thirty days, opting for the SuperSized option whenever it was offered to him.
- all physical effects that we saw on camera are real. he got fat. he got unhealthy.
- during the “jar test”, where he dropped different items of mcdonalds food into separate glass jars and observed them for a period of time, the foods that disintegrated into a black moldy mass were behaving normally. the french fries were really intact with no real visible decomposition noted.here is what i am skeptical of:
- what he chose to eat at mcdonalds was a fair representation of the mcdonalds menu.
- the gagging and puking scene.
- the sentiment behind french fries in the jar test.1. his meal selection. while eating mcd’s three times a day, he had to follow two rules: he had to go supersized whenever it was offered and he had to try everything on the menu at least once. i haven’t crunched the numbers, but i feel that leaves some room for spurlock choosing unhealthy items when he wasn’t necessarily required to. and if that’s so then how much of his poor health is his own fault and how much is it the fault of the menu?
2. there was a scene later on in his experiment when spurlock is eating a burger in his car and he just can’t continue because the thought is grossing him out. he literally can’t eat anymore, then he vomits. there are several implications here, most including some elements of the basic notion that he got so unhealthy that his body is acting in self-defense against ingesting more toxins. this also drew a visceral reaction from me, as i tried to imagine what it would be like to eat mcd’s everyday to the point of nausea.
so did he puke because mcdonald’s is so bad or because he embarked on the very unnatural experiment of eating the same thing everyday. might he also have the same reaction if he ate salad three times a day? fruits and veggies? i say probably. this ambiguous implication isn’t even the big thing that annoys me here. it’s the film editing. there’s a scene where he’s gagging a little, then it cuts away and all of a sudden he’s puking. i am not sure that he didn’t stick his finger down his throat to induce vomiting during that cut-away. as a matter of fact, since he clearly edited this film with an agenda in mind, i think it’s as likely a possibility as anything else. yes, i think he faked it for the camera.
3. the jar test. this is a segment at the end of the film where he puts different mcd’s items into separate jars and puts a time lapse camera on all of them. everything molds up and decays, except the french fries which look like they are brand new. disgust ensues. the indisputable implication here is that the items that molded up and decayed visibly behaved normally while the french fries looked like alien unnatural beings. that’s what food should do right? decay? but the film also implies that the french fries are somehow made to resist this, and we should feel disgusted by the fries because they clearly contain something unnatural, probably a preservative, that we shouldn’t be eating.
i call bullshit on this too. have you ever bought a block of cheese and not finished it? let it hang out in the fridge for a few days? did it get spots of mold? did it mold up in the exact place where you touched it with your fingers? our hands are dirty and they make everything they touch dirty. spurlock touched every item in the jar test with his bare hands when he was placing them in the jar. even before spurlock touched those things, the employees at mcd’s touched them while assembling them. all those items in the jar test were touched by human hands except… the french fries! the fries go straight from the sizzling hot fryer to the french fry bin where it is tossed and poured into the fry carton with a metal funnel. spurlock pours the fries into the jar straight from the carton without a single human cootie to be had. also, what’s in most mcd’s sandwiches? raw ingredients! raw, uncooked, germy ingredients! lettuce, tomatoes, mayonaise-based sauces, all dirty as fuck. the fries were sterile or close to it while the sandwiches were dirty and contained many contaminants. if anything, the fries were the only “clean” items of food in this jar test. this experiment is complete bullshit. video here.
if he can bullshit using cut-aways and faulty “scientific” experiments, can’t he pretty much bullshit most everything? besides. who ever said it was a good idea to eat like a jackass for thirty days?
*** UPDATE – while re-watching the video, i am now reminded that spurlock included regular, non-mcd’s, french fries in this experiment as well and they molded up like the sandwiches. why? possibly because the restaurant used their hands or dirty tongs to plate the fries (what i consider the most likely explanation), or possibly because the frying oil wasn’t as hot as the mcd’s oil, or possibly because the regular fries are thicker cut, leaving a higher moisture content after frying (also likely). all possible explanations.
