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Originally Posted By: Vanger Blade
It doesn't accurately illustrate the unhealthiness of McDonalds at all. Before starting the documentary the guy was a vegan (girlfriend induced) for several months, at least 6. His body wasn't used to a diet with meat and dairy products in it. Anybody would look suspiciously unhealthy after a change like that, whether or not there was an actual problem with the food.
Wikipedia states: "Prior to the experiment, Spurlock ate a varied diet but always had vegan evening meals to appease his then-girlfriend (now wife), Alexandra, a vegan chef." That certainly doesn't sound like he never ate meat or dairy, just that he avoided them for one meal a day. I'm not entirely disagreeing with your criticism, but let's not exaggerate things here.
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Originally Posted By: Excalibur
Probably because it's fast and cheap, or at least that's what a lot of people tell me.
So is A&W, or Burger King, or Dairy Queen, or Subway, or any other fast food restaurant you can think of. And most of them are better than McDonalds.
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Thanks for the correction. It's been a while since I've heard anything about the subject. The last discussion I had was in a health class in high school some years ago.

 

And no I'm not arguing that eating nothing but fast food for a month is good for you. It's certainly not. I'm arguing that the documentary isn't all it's cracked up to be. People use it to say how bad fast food is for you. Well, if I were to eat nothing but home cooked salmon and a baked potato for every meal of a month, I STILL would be lookin' pretty unhealthy.

 

Edit:

Quote:
So is A&W, or Burger King, or Dairy Queen, or Subway, or any other fast food restaurant you can think of. And most of them are better than McDonalds.

McDonalds is typically the absolute cheapest, except for MAYBE taco bell.

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Originally Posted By: Excalibur
McDonald's salads have more calories than their cheeseburgers when you factor in salad dressing. Their stuff really isn't healthy.
In general, the terms "fast food" and "healthy" are mutually exclusive. Having eaten and/or worked at several fast food chains, I know this for a fact.
Originally Posted By: Master1
People apparently can say: It doesn't look like that (while pointing to the picture on the menu) and, if they can't get it to look like that after 2 or 3 tries, you get it free.
Proving the customer is right, for a change. However, no matter what fast food place you go to, the food will never, ever look like the picture. The food shown in the picture--if it can even be called food--is specially made to be photographed in a studio, and the picture is photoshopped afterwards.
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Originally Posted By: The Mystic
Proving the customer is right, for a change. However, no matter what fast food place you go to, the food will never, ever look like the picture. The food shown in the picture--if it can even be called food--is specially made to be photographed in a studio, and the picture is photoshopped afterwards.

Oh believe me, I know this. But since they are advertising with that image, one can argue that that is the expected product, and repeated failure to deliver said product is unacceptable. Sort of like false advertising. Just maybe.
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Originally Posted By: Randomizer
Coca-Cola required that all photographs of its product be produced by the company because if you don't do it right Coke looks like mud. smile

Of course the photos are enhanced. Would you buy it if you saw a photo of a typical menu item?

Typical KFC food item (pre-Photoshop)
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It's called food styling. They get around that by not photographing actual food. Some examples: In the ads for cereal, where it is in a bowl of milk, it is not milk. No, milk is far too runny for that. Instead, they use Elmers' Glue- it looks much nicer. Oh, and those delicious-looking hamburgers at McDonald's? The cheese is a variety of plastic, as it melts better and more evenly, without bubbles, like real cheese (not that they use that at McDonald's). There are many, many other examples, but they might make you want to curl up in a ball and never eat food again in your life.

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Originally Posted By: Dantius
In the ads for cereal, where it is in a bowl of milk, it is not milk. No, milk is far too runny for that. Instead, they use Elmers' Glue- it looks much nicer.
I heard that it was because milk has a bluish tint when photographed.

Quote:
Oh, and those delicious-looking hamburgers at McDonald's? The cheese is a variety of plastic, as it melts better and more evenly, without bubbles, like real cheese (not that they use that at McDonald's).
To me, there is no difference between the cheese in the photos and the cheese they serve, because the latter both looks and tastes like a form of plastic--and probably is, come to think of it.
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Also, mashed potato is used for ice cream, because real ice cream will melt too fast under studio lights.

 

Oh, and you know those spectacular photos where someone is pouring wine or something and it's splashing all around inside the glass? Those are real, but when you're pouring that fast you can't just stop in an instant: there's going to be wine everywhere about half a second after the photo is taken.

 

Originally Posted By: The Mystic
To me, there is no difference between the cheese in the photos and the cheese they serve, because the latter both looks and tastes like a form of plastic--and probably is, come to think of it.

 

You can actually make plastic out of the main protein in milk and cheese. I had my Year 9 science students do it last semester.

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Originally Posted By: Thuryl
Also, mashed potato is used for ice cream, because real ice cream will melt too fast under studio lights.
I forgot about the mashed potato/ice cream thing. Those studio lights must get really hot.
Quote:
Oh, and you know those spectacular photos where someone is pouring wine or something and it's splashing all around inside the glass? Those are real, but when you're pouring that fast you can't just stop in an instant: there's going to be wine everywhere about half a second after the photo is taken.
Yeah, that's probably done for effect, with someone waiting outside the shot with a paper towel to clean up the mess. They could just pour normally, though it would be less dramatic and not nearly as wasteful.
Quote:
Originally Posted By: The Mystic
To me, there is no difference between the cheese in the photos and the cheese they serve, because the latter both looks and tastes like a form of plastic--and probably is, come to think of it.
You can actually make plastic out of the main protein in milk and cheese. I had my Year 9 science students do it last semester.
Neat!
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Originally Posted By: Thuryl
Oh, and you know those spectacular photos where someone is pouring wine or something and it's splashing all around inside the glass? Those are real, but when you're pouring that fast you can't just stop in an instant: there's going to be wine everywhere about half a second after the photo is taken.

And the world will never want for paper towel commercials.

Dikiyoba.
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Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Originally Posted By: Thuryl
Oh, and you know those spectacular photos where someone is pouring wine or something and it's splashing all around inside the glass? Those are real, but when you're pouring that fast you can't just stop in an instant: there's going to be wine everywhere about half a second after the photo is taken.
And the world will never want for paper towel commercials.
Or maybe that's the reason for making paper towel commercials. tongue
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Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith
Isn't margarine something like one polymer away from plastic? I've heard not even bugs will touch it if you leave it out.

Untrue, or at least unhelpful. Plastic usually is one polymer. Everything is that polymer away from being plastic, really. And margarine is largely partially hydrogenated vegetable oil with some milk mixed in. It's perfectly edible, although it's really not butter.

—Alorael, who thinks the bottom of the Snopes article just about sums it up. Margarine may not be especially healthy, but it's probably not especially unhealthy. The trans fats are the issue, and some margarines are trying to reduce their trans fats now.
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Originally Posted By: The Mystic
Yeah, that's probably done for effect, with someone waiting outside the shot with a paper towel to clean up the mess. They could just pour normally, though it would be less dramatic and not nearly as wasteful.


I once photographed myself pouring milk into a glass without spilling any. I can confirm that it looks really lame.
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Originally Posted By: Excalibur
Originally Posted By: Anyone Else with Them
My dog eats dirt clods.

Just sayin'

At least your dog doesn't drag various corpses into the yard. Why, the other week it was eating a coyote.

Corpses are totally normal in a dog's diet and relatively healthy (though they might smell terrible). My dog totally wins the weird food contest, as he once nearly killed himself by eating tar and is now on a special diet for the remainder of his life. He's also famous in my household for once eating an entire bar of soap and spilling a whole bottle of shampoo on the carpet so that whenever he licks the spot, it foams up.
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Originally Posted By: Vanger Blade
Quote:
So is A&W, or Burger King, or Dairy Queen, or Subway, or any other fast food restaurant you can think of. And most of them are better than McDonalds.

McDonalds is typically the absolute cheapest, except for MAYBE taco bell.
It's not worth the money saved.

Even Taco Bell is better than McDonalds, though not by much.

Originally Posted By: The Mystic
Originally Posted By: Excalibur
McDonald's salads have more calories than their cheeseburgers when you factor in salad dressing. Their stuff really isn't healthy.
In general, the terms "fast food" and "healthy" are mutually exclusive. Having eaten and/or worked at several fast food chains, I know this for a fact.
In general, you're probably right, but if it's a sub or pita place you're probably wrong. That's not to say that these are healthy, just that they can be (depending what you put on them). Certainly healthier than the burger places.

Originally Posted By: Master1
Sort of like false advertising. Just maybe.
I sometimes get the impression that a lot of advertising is false advertising. Particularly on the Internet.
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Originally Posted By: Anyone Else with Them
My dog eats dirt clods.

Just sayin'

Whenever my dog passes any dog poop, he stops to sniff. Whenever he passes any poop that is not from a dog, he stops to eat.

Also, my family has a raspberry bush in our backyard, and we have seen him go up to it, grab a raspberry, and then back up slowly and eat the berry when it comes off.
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My cousin is a food photographer and gets the question about the food being fake all the time. Almost all the time when she photographs it, it's real. They actually eat it afterwards sometimes. I don't know how common that is in the industry, though, nor do I know if the photos are touched up afterwards.

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I once got to visit the work place of a friend's parent, who was a photographer, and while I don't know if food photography was any specialty of that studio, what they were working on at the time was advertising photographs for chocolate. They had a truly impressive pile of various types of the client's chocolates all of which were apparently real. So, at least in that situation heat was apparently not an issue that concerned them.

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That makes sense. If you put the time into making a nice, well constructed hamburger with fresh ingredients, of course it will look very different from the hastily assembled mess they wrap up and serve you when you get there. The nicer one isn't necessarily fake. It's not hard to make a nice looking burger, it's just not fast. And we're all about fast.

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The special cases I've heard are milk, because of the need for color and consistency, and ice cream, because of the need for durability. On the other hand, I've also read that the milk isn't usually replaced with glue but with thickened cream. I'll accept that.

 

Mostly, I'm dubious about replacing food with things that look like food. Engineering false food requires some planning and effort. You have to find look-alikes, they have to be processed to look right, and so on. You know what's easier? Beautifying real food.

 

—Alorael, whose food presentation is somewhat lacking. Personally, he thinks it's the diners' fault if they can't catch the meal before it splatters.

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