Maggie's Farm

I liked the article on fast food and personal responsibility. But I have to say that the documentary made by that glutton who chowed down on 5000 MacD's calories a day for a month had an extremely salutary effect on my son and his middle school classmates. They were shown the movie in school and for weeks they were talking about "How could anyone eat that garbage for a month straight?....Why would you eat that much in one day?...Enough is enough! ....You have to eat some vegetables...etc."

What impressed them was seeing someone gain weight so fast, have their numbers get worse, feel awful, simply as a result of rotten diet. It had more effect on him and his food choices than 13 years of maternal nagging and adding grated zucchini and carrots to chocolate cake (delicious as well as nutritious). He is still (two months later) limiting his portion size, considering what is healthier to eat, etc.

So, yes, the filmmaker was PC and blaming a large corporation when he should have been confessing his own sinful gluttony (don't even try to whitewash it as another addictive behavior). But such dramatic human interest stories can have a good effect.

Finally, I should add that I loathe MacDonald's. I hate the taste of their food, hate its rotten quality, hate the fact that most of its employees can't speak English, hate the filthy rags their cleaning crews use to spread germs from table to table.

What is so sad about the people becoming obese in the modern world is that most of them are doing so on abominable food. I think the reason they gorge themselves is mostly untreated mental illness (I never met an extremely fat person who didn't have serious emotional issues) but partially the body craving truly good food. Something healthy and delicious satisfies quickly and we don't do more than mildly overindulge in it. But junk--we just gorge on that bag of Doritos or french fries. And are never satisfied.

The answer, I think, is simple. Teach children how to cook good simple food in school if their promiscuous single mothers or lazy eating disordered Fairfield County toy bride mothers can't or won't at home. Re: the latter, have you ever noticed that the size and elaborateness of the kitchen is usually in inverse proportion to the skill and dedication of the cook. My best friend's kitchen is five times the square footage of mine and she warms up Stouffers, whereas everything in mine is made from scratch. You love what you cook yourself.

Excuse the grouchiness, a little too much family bonding cooped up together in this tiny house. All those Army ads are tantalizing....Too old, too out of shape...Rats!