McRage

At 3 a.m. this past Sunday, 22-year-old Shanaya Edgell had a hankering for a McDonald's cheeseburger. So along with her boyfriend, Darrell Page, she went to a McDonald's in Janesville, Wisconsin. Unfortunately for her, the fast food joint had already switched over to its breakfast menu. And Edgell wasn't in the mood for a McGriddle, dammit.

According to the Janesville Police Department, Edgell got upset and left with Page. But as they drove away, she changed her mind and demanded that her boyfriend turn the car around. He wouldn't, so Edgell began striking him in the face, biting his arm as he tried to steer the car, and tearing off his shirt. When Page pulled over, Edgell jumped out and threw herself on the hood of the car to prevent him from driving away and leaving her with no ride to Mickey D's.

Just another example of fast food rage, I guess. You know -- like the woman at the McDonald's drive-thru window who started beating on the staff because McNuggets weren't available on the breakfast menu. Or the guy in Australia who rammed his car into two women because he was upset that he couldn't order off McDonald's breakfast menu at 3 a.m. (Too bad he didn't live near the Golden Arches in Janesville, Wisconsin. I have it on pretty good authority that they serve breakfast at that hour.)



(This video gets really good at about the 1:10 mark. I also love the fact that after the assault ends, the McDonald's employees go right back to serving customers like nothing happened.)

Note to McDonald's: In more ways than one, your breakfast menu is a menace to society.

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The Joy of Not Eating Crap

Mark Bittman penned an interesting Op-Ed piece in the New York Times this weekend about how junk food really isn't cheaper than "real food."

In fact it isn’t cheaper to eat highly processed food: a typical order for a family of four -- for example, two Big Macs, a cheeseburger, six chicken McNuggets, two medium and two small fries, and two medium and two small sodas -- costs, at the McDonald’s a hundred steps from where I write, about $28...

In general, despite extensive government subsidies, hyperprocessed food remains more expensive than food cooked at home. You can serve a roasted chicken with vegetables along with a simple salad and milk for about $14, and feed four or even six people. 

I'm not saying that the way we eat in our house is cheap. But as Bittman points out, it's not a zero-sum game. Just because your budget might not allow you to splurge on organic everything at Whole Paycheck doesn't mean you're stuck with Pop Tarts and Dr. Pepper. After all, "the alternative to soda is water, and the alternative to junk food is not grass-fed beef and greens from a trendy farmers’ market, but anything other than junk food." 

So why are people still gorging on junk food? Well, for one, it's engineered to be tasty as hell. The hyper-palatability of highly processed foods is likely a key reason we've become a society of blobby junk food addicts.

But there's another reason we eat this crap: It's incredibly convenient. Instant gratification can be achieved in the time it takes to place an order for pizza on the phone, or to nuke a TV dinner. In a way, "real food" can seem more expensive because it requires an investment of time to buy ingredients and ACTUALLY COOK SOMETHING.

Still, grocery shopping and kitchen time is deemed a "cost" because cooking itself is seen as a chore.

The core problem is that cooking is defined as work, and fast food is both a pleasure and a crutch. “People really are stressed out with all that they have to do, and they don’t want to cook,” says Julie Guthman, associate professor of community studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and author of the forthcoming “Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice and the Limits of Capitalism.” “Their reaction is, ‘Let me enjoy what I want to eat, and stop telling me what to do.’ 

So what can be done to change this? Bittman offers suggestions, but here's my recommended starting point:

Instead of turning on Two & A Half Men or updating your Facebook status, spend some quality time in your kitchen. Make cooking a passion, not a chore. Take pleasure out of making food. Teach others to do the same. And definitely make someone else wash the dishes.

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"Healthy" Happy Meals?

McDonald's announced today that it's making changes to Happy Meals by: (1) adding a serving of fruit or vegetables, and (2) subtracting 1.3 ounces of French fries from the existing portion size. By next spring, all 14,000 McDonald's restaurants in the U.S. will feature the new "healthier" Happy Meals.

The fast food chain will continue to serve apple slices (minus the caramel sauce that currently accompanies them in Happy Meals), but plans to include carrots, raisins, pineapple slices and mandarin oranges in the rotation.

As for the fries, why not cut them out entirely? Because "children and parents rebelled."

"People come to McDonald's and, first of all, they want the choice and the control to be theirs, but their expectation of a Happy Meal does include a fry," said Jan Fields, president of McDonald's USA. "When we did it without fries, there was a huge disappointment factor."

"Experts" have declared that McDonald's is moving in the right direction:

Geeta Maker-Clark, a family physician at NorthShore University HealthSystem, described the changes as "really good steps."

"I applaud any move toward including more whole food into a heavily processed meal," she said. "Bringing a whole food into it shifts the pendulum toward something more healthy, and I applaud the decreased portion sizes."

My prediction? These changes won't make a dent in childhood obesity.

Kids'll continue to gobble up the McNuggets they fish out of their Happy Meals. They won't miss the 1.3 ounces of fries that McDonald's is taking out 'cause they'll just grab more from their parents' large order of fries. Then, they'll suck down the Coke that came with their Happy Meal, play with the crappy little toy that came with their food, and THROW AWAY THE TINY PACKET OF CARROTS.

Let's get real: People who regularly feed their kids at McDonald's aren't the type of parents who are super-concerned about making sure their offspring finish a few carrot sticks. Don't believe me? McDonald's has been offering apple slices with their Happy Meals since 2006, but "only 11% of kids meals are ordered with apples." And of those 11 percent, I wonder how many packages of apple slices are left untouched.

If fighting childhood obesity was truly McDonald's aim, it'd get rid of the sodas. But that's not what the chain is after. As the L.A. Times put it, "[t]he business strategy for McDonald's is to make parents feel less guilty about feeding fast food to their children, so they'll become more frequent customers." And viewed through that lens, this move is likely to be a rousing success -- for McDonald's.

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Paleo Choices at McDonald's

An email from a reader:

“During the week, I have to pick up lunch at McDonald's. There is literally nowhere else I can go that is as quick and affordable. It's the only place within a 15 minute drive from my office where I can eat for under $5 and I only get 30 min. lunch breaks at work. My question is: What should I order if I want to eat Paleo? I usually have a Big Mac but with no sauce and I remove the buns. Thanks.”

Answer: Water. And possibly the coffee, assuming you take it black and with no sweeteners. Maybe the salads, if you get it without the dressing, “cheese,” and fried pieces of “chicken.”

But COME ON. Are you really asking me this question? Did you really think I'd answer by saying something like: "Get the McNuggets, but scrape off all the breading with your fingernails"? I recognize McDonald’s is dirt-cheap and ubiquitous, but so is bird shit.

Look -- I’m not saying that you can’t live on fast food. With Fat Head, Tom Naughton punched Mayor McCheese-sized holes in Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me, showing that you’re unlikely to vomit and die from eating at McDonald’s. You can probably eat low-carb and stave off obesity (but not systemic inflammation) for a good long while by avoiding the sugary beverages and refined carbs at fast food joints. If you live in Asia, you can get gluten-free buns at McDonald’s -- they’re made of rice. And even if you’re stuck with regular old Mickey D’s buns, you can devour 25,000 Big Macs over the course of 39 years and live to tell the tale.

But why go to the trouble of driving to McDonald’s when you can eat real food? Believe it or not, YOU CAN PACK YOUR OWN LUNCH FOR UNDER FIVE DOLLARS. True story!

Buy some eggs, unprocessed deli meat, avocados, salad greens and tomatoes. Hard-boil the eggs. Throw together a bunch of big-ass salads with everything you bought. Bring your salads to work. Don’t forget to pack a fork. You’ll save: (1) time, (2) gas money, (3) me from having to answer questions like “What Paleo foods can I order at McDonald’s?”

Because seriously, if you’re going to break down and make a trip to McDonald’s, don't go all half-assed. Get their tasty, tasty fries. And if you’re in Japan, order a Double Mega Tomago Burger. ‘Cause you only live once.

Ronald McDonald Kills & Eats His Friends

Subtlety is not PETA's forte, as evidenced by its latest comic book for children:

First, it was your mommy and daddy who murdered animals. Now, it's the guy in whiteface who taught you how to ice skate. So, so sad.

Thankfully, the Fry Guys are safe from the evil clown's poultricidal rampage, but Mayor McCheese has taken to traveling with an armed security detail.

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Tweet Tweet

Like just about everyone else at our tech-immersed box, I've become a big fan of Twitter -- though I’d be the first to admit that I should have jumped on the bandwagon sooner. If nothing else, Twitter serves as an incredible news reader. By following the folks who share links to topics of interest to me -- including CrossFit, Paleo nutrition, minimalist footwear, etc. -- I end up with a nicely-curated selection of reading materials, videos and photos. I can also follow specific lists (say, of CrossFit Palo Alto members) or take advantage of Twitter feed aggregators like CrossTwits.

Best of all: With a 140-character limit per tweet, people on Twitter are forced to GET TO THE POINT ALREADY.

Here are just a few random items that popped up on my Twitter feed today:

• What's the connection between wheat and schizophrenia?
• Fatigued from exercising? It's all in your head.
• Steve Nash and Grant Hill appear to be eating Paleo.
• The best thing you can do with McDonald’s French fries? Sculpt a big-ass skull.
• Some guy’s body literally fused into his chair after staying seated for two years.
• Perez Hilton’s take on the Paleo diet is boring and wrong.
• Failure can be a good thing.
• I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson's workout is ridonkulous (and hazardous to your health).
• Holy crap -- two brothers (both U.S. Marines) busted out over 15 rounds (!) of Games Open WOD 11.2!
• The advice to “drink 8 glasses of water a day” has no scientific basis, so give your bladder a break.
• And while we're on that topic, I have a feeling my pee is going to smell funny for the next month.

If you're not already on Twitter, get on it. (And while you’re at it, follow me, dammit.)

A Burger is a Burger is a Burger

In recent years, there's been a lot of attention paid on the Interwebs to the disturbingly non-composing hamburgers from McDonald's. Here's a photo of a mummified Micky D's burger that looks the same as the day it was purchased -- despite being fourteen years old and kept at room temperature the entire time! Here's another unchanging burger that's been photographed every day for months! And here's a year-old Happy Meal that's similarly been stuck in time! As Nonna Joann put it:

The next time you’re tempted to purchase a Happy Meal for your child, think about these photos. Food is SUPPOSED to decompose, go bad and smell foul…eventually. When I was a kid, I remember our garbage pail for the left over food scraps was kept by our back door. After a couple of days, flies deposited their larvae (maggots) in the meat. When I would lift the lid, I would see the recently hatched maggots wiggling on the putrid mess. A fly never bothered to land on the tiny hamburger patty on my office shelf.

Moral of the story: McDonald's food is so weird that even FLIES won't touch it! It's as unnatural and gross as we all suspected!

Or not.

Serious Eats' J. Kenji Lopez-Alt did a little experiment. And it turns out that McDonald's hamburgers don't rot, but neither do any other burgers -- even homemade ones:

Well, well, well. Turns out that not only did the regular McDonald's burgers not rot, but the home-ground burgers did not rot either. Samples one through five had shrunk a bit (especially the beef patties), but they showed no signs of decomposition. What does this mean?

It means that there's nothing that strange about a McDonald's burger not rotting. Any burger of the same shape will act the same way.

Ha!

(Source: A Burger Today / Photo: Adam Kuban)

Give Me My F%$#ing Chicken

Nothing comes between me and my McNuggets.



There's something magical about fast food chicken that brings out the best in all of us.

Cheeseburger Smoothie

Sadly, this ain't real. (Or, more precisely, it's too good to be true.)

Jamba Juice produced this video to make the point that McDonald's has no business selling smoothies -- despite the fact that McDonald's smoothies contain fewer calories and less sugar than Jamba Juice's Banana Berry smoothie. In fact, a McDonald's cheeseburger contains far fewer calories (300 versus 480), overall carbs (33g versus 112g) and sugar (6g versus 99g) than the Jamba Juice smoothie.

Weirdly enough, a cheeseburger smoothie might actually be less damaging (and possibly tastier) than an actual Jamba Juice smoothie.

You Say Potato, I Say Diabetes

Dammit. Today was National French Fries Day, and I totally missed it.

I suppose it's for the best -- starchy tubers aren't exactly on the Paleo menu. But I still kind of want to make McDonald's fries at home.

I'm Baaaack!

Did you miss me?

George Foreman at McDonald's

Yes, it's an old photo -- but I'm still lovin' it.

(Source: Buzzfeed)

"Fish" vs. "Fish"

What contains more calories: A McDonald's Filet-O-Fish or a bag of Swedish Fish candies?

Take this quiz by Mental Floss to test your calorie-estimating abilities.

(Source: Mental Floss)

McDonald's Cheese Katsu Burger

I honestly haven't eaten a single bite of McDonald's food since 2001. After reading Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation," I swore off the Golden Arches for good.

Still, McDonald's Cheese Katsu Burger is strangely alluring. After all, I love cheese. And katsu. And burgers.

Thank God it's available only in Japan.

(Source: This Is Why You're Fat)

McNuggets: Only 6.5 Points!

Weight Watchers' newest corporate partner is ... drum roll, please ... McDonald's. As the UK's Daily Telegraph puts it:

Chicken McNuggets (my personal favourite) or a Filet-O-Fish (does anyone actually order this?) are worth 6.5 points on the Weight Watchers programme. Dieters are allowed to consume 18 to 40 points each day meaning that someone could be justified in cramming around 40 golden nuggets down their gullet. Get in!

Weight Watchers has given its stamp of approval on three Mickey D's meals in Australia and New Zealand: The aforementioned McNuggets and Filet-O-Fish (both of which come with a side salad and a medium diet soda), and also something called the Sweet Chilli Seared Chicken Wrap (which comes with a diet soda but no McSalad).

Weird. But I guess Weight Watchers assumes (probably correctly) that many dieters are likely to find themselves at a McDonald's at some point, so it's better to give them some guidance on choosing the least nutritionally damaging stuff in the restaurant.

Speaking of which, here's what's in the three Weight Watchers-approved items (sans soda, salad, fries, shake, etc.):

• 6-Piece Box of McNuggets: 269 calories | 11.3 g of carbs | 12.9 g of fat | 405 mg of sodium
• Filet-O-Fish: 330 calories | 32.4 g of carbs | 14.9 g of fat | 647 mg of sodium
• Sweet Chilli Seared Chicken Wrap: 374 calories | 40.5 g of carbs | 9.8 g of fat | 801 mg of sodium

Best bet: Pack a lunch.