Meat Death and Corn and Roses, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #188
September 20, 2010 Mike Gold 0 Comments
If you didn’t realize McDonalds invented heart disease, you’re stupid. At least that’s what the smug bastards at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine believes. They have a new commercial airing in various local markets. There’s a dead man lying in a morgue, his widow at his side and a hamburger in his hand. The golden arches pop up over his feet along with the words “I was lovin’ it.”
Get it? It’s real subtle. The voice-over proclaims “High cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart attacks. Tonight, make it vegetarian.” By the way, according to Newsweek less than five percent of PCRM’s members are actually physicians.
Here’s a head’s-up for the PCRM. Meat eaters are not stupid. Human beings are carnivores. We’re born that way. Everything else is a choice, and when it comes to food people should have the right to make their own decisions. If that voice inside your head is a cow mooing in pain, you might chose not to eat meat. If that voice sounds more like soybeans being marched to the ovens, the whole vegan thing isn’t going to work. But if that voice is a barking dog, you might get your own mini-series.
Yeah, I know, some asshole spent a month eating nothing but McDonalds in front of his camera crew, and he almost died. We didn’t need to make this fool a millionaire just because he told us a month’s worth of McDonalds could be lethal. Hell, I’m surprised he lasted that long. McDonalds must be healthier than I thought.
Meat eaters can easily live normal healthy lives; there is no credible evidence that a vegetarian diet is any healthier than a responsible diet that includes meat and dairy. This commercial isn’t going to save anybody’s life, it’s just going to make the smug oh-so-superior vegetarians all the more obnoxious.
It follows that we also have a right to choose to eat that evil, evil corn syrup. But the corn industry is pulling a stunt that should make the PCRM green with envy.
In 1913, Gertrude Stein wrote “A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.” 97 years later, some corn industry marketing genius took notice. After all, corn syrup, the leading sweetener in soft drinks, bread and cereal and all sorts of good-tasting stuff, has been linked to obesity. If McDonalds’ hamburgers don’t kill you, that Coca-Cola will.
The Corn Refiners Association is not concerned about your food choices, but they are fretting about how sales of high fructose corn syrup is at a 20-year low. They’ve petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to change the name to corn sugar.
It’s all blue smoke and mirrors, but that’s what marketing does. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, in an astonishingly rare moment of sanity, sugar and high fructose corn syrup are nutritionally the same. The American Medical Association says there’s not enough evidence to restrict the use of high fructose corn syrup, but they continue to look into it.
I remember when Honey Smacks was called Sugar Smacks. Kellogg’s dropped the word sugar from all their cereals – as did Post and the rest. Sugar had become a nasty word. Today, not so much.
Personally, were I Kellogg’s I would have dropped the word “smack,” but that’s me.
Shakespeare said that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. That bard sure knew his stuff.
Fellow-traveler, anarcho-syndicalist and www.ComicMix.com editor-in-Chief Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking bizarro music and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com, every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, replayed three times during the week (check the website above for times). Likewise, his Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind political and cultural rants pop up each and every day at the same venue.
Martha Thomases
September 20, 2010 - 5:39 am
I agree with you up to a point. And that point is that commercials and/or public service ads are not an effective way to communicate real information.
If anything, humans are omnivores. We eat what we can find. And, as different tribes in different parts of the world found different things to eat, we probably evolved different preferences, genetically and culturally.
It is my personal opinion that McDonalds serves garbage. The food there is so full of chemicals and non-foodstuffs that I question that it’s fair to call it food. If I were to crave a hamburger, I’d crave a real one. At least Five Guys makes everything from scratch.
All that being said, this group, PCRM, is entitled to advertise their opinions. They are not trying to ban anything. They are not trying to use the government to close McDonalds. They are merely trying to inform the public of their opinions about the product.
Mike Gold
September 20, 2010 - 6:07 am
I never said PCRM is not entitled to advertise their opinions. For that matter, NAMBLA is entitled to advertise their opinions. And I strongly believe that the first amendment offers the tobacco companies the same rights as the PCRM: banning cigarette advertising is unconstitutional.
That doesn’t mean that some vegetarians don’t hold their noses so high up in the air they’d drown in mild humidity. You know, like the jagoffs at PCRM.
As for the preposterous notion of you actually eating a hamburger, I once took you to Hackney’s in Glenview Illinois (MOTU was there at the same time, but you’re the one who sat across from me). That’s the place to eat a hamburger. But if it’s fast food you’re craving, Five Guys is good — but the In-And-Out Burger on the west coast and in Texas is by far the best.
Marc Fishman
September 20, 2010 - 6:24 am
Ok, if I can start with a quote, to show you I agree:
“Not eating meat is a decision. Eating meat is an instinct!” –Dr. Denis Leary, Emerson University.
That aside… I don’t think Morgan Spurlock is an asshole. “Super Size Me” helped destroy the “Super Size” option at McDonalds. Ok, yeah, you can still make your meal “large” … but at VERY LEAST, the large IS smaller than the super size. And no, he didn’t even “almost” die. Basically, he was a fit guy who over indulged, and his liver and pancreas over-reacted to the high levels of sugars and carbs he was pelting his body with. In addition, he was being filmed alot, was traveling, researching for the film at the same time… and he over-exerted himself. And then he “michael moored” his documentary to make things look worse then they actually were. Like that’s any different than anything else these days.
My basic thought is that smokers should be able to smoke, drunks should buy booze, fatties can go buy fast food, and druggies can go shoot up. America is supposed to be the place where you make the bed you sleep in, so-to-speak. If you want to make the change, you have to do it yourself… not just put a hand out to the government to “make it all better”. And these stupid interest groups that try to control our behavior just makes me laugh.
Lastly… you also took me, my wife, and my unshaven cohorts to Hackneys. We loved it. My personal favorite burger is at the Billy Goat, or in my back yard.
Martha Thomases
September 20, 2010 - 6:31 am
My personal decision not to eat red meat evolved after my mother died of breast cancer, thirty years ago. I thought this meant I had an inherited tendency to get the same disease, and that the synthetic hormones and other stuff in retail beef wouldn’t do me any favors. I made other changes, too, like getting off birth control pills.
Nowadays, because I’m one of those elitist foodies, I have the choice to buy farm-raised, chemical free beef at the Green Market. I’m thinking maybe that’s something that I might like. However, in the decades since I’ve last had a burger, I’ve lost my taste for them.
Birth control pills are safer, too. That choice, however, has been made moot.
My husband likes Five Guys, and I believe him.
Vinnie Bartilucci
September 20, 2010 - 6:42 am
As both you and I have said before, it’s the condescending tone of ads like this, and more importantly, people like this. It’s the same tone you hear when someone says “You KNOW that wrestling is fake, right?”
We have a binary mindset in this country. Something is (or must be) either all the way in one direction or all the way in the other. We are not computers – we can grasp no only “yes” and “no” but all the subtle gradations of “maybe” in between. Dr. Daystrom knew that when he invented the duotronic computer.
The fun part about all the negative play HFCS is getting is that people think there’s something bad about its manufacture or its processing that makes it “worse” than regular sugar. And yet, you can go to the health section of your grocer and buy fructose in granular form, and it’s supposed to be BETTER for you, because it’s more natural.
There is exactly one thing about fructose, corn or other, that makes it slightly “worse” for you than cane sugar. Fructose is a “single sugar”, one sugar molecule on its own, as opposed to sucrose (table/cane sugar) which is a “double sugar”, or two molecules linked chemically. double sugars take slightly longer than single to break down in the body, which means that single sugars hit your system faster, and your body reacts to it faster. That’s it. It’s not the KIND of sugar one intakes that makes the difference as much as it’s the AMOUNT.
HFCS has been used for years for a simple reason – it was cheaper than cane or beet sugar. But thanks to the rise of corn being used to make fuel, its proce has risen, making cane sugar cheaper again. So many companies have been quietly moving back to cane sugar…and some not so quietly. Pepsi has been marketing their “throwback” brands, mainly different because of the use of “real” sugar in its manufacture. And they’re charging extra for the privilege of drinking it. Other companies, now that HFCS has been getting a bad rap, are touting the fact that they don’t use it. This makes the average person (and you know what Carlin said about the average person) think that it’s somehow “healthier” for them, and they buy it. And in both cases, the companies are actually SAVING money by moving away from a product they couldn’t care less if they use or not.
What a country.
Martha Thomases
September 20, 2010 - 7:01 am
@Vinnie: I think condescension is in the eye/ear of the beholder. I find most fast-food commercials really patronizing. And depressing.
On my corner, there’s a McDonalds, and across the street, one of those delis common near large office buildings, with salads and sandwiches and muffins and a pasta bar. The deli choices are not necessarily healthier (a chocolate chip muffin is a piece of cake for breakfast), but it is all freshly made. At lunchtime, the McDonalds is full of kids from the high school, but the real crowd is at the deli. I think, given the choice, people choose the better stuff.
John Tebbel
September 20, 2010 - 7:11 am
Don’t worry about anyone seeing this ad. This group has no money compared to the other players in this game. It is part of the new breed of meta-ad that is circulated by partisans of one or another stripe on Punditelevision and our beloved blogosphere.
As mentioned above, it does nothing to advance any cause whatsoever.
Mike Gold
September 20, 2010 - 7:27 am
Martha, most all commercials, both for-profit and public service announcements (except my own, of course) are condescending. That’s another topic. I’m waiting for the Geico man to look up at the camera and say “We’re cheaper. You’re stupid. Fuck you.”
As for “freshly made” food at delis, you must have seen at least one of the many, many news stories about just how dangerous NYC deli salad bars are. Not a source of healthy food at all. And since we do not irradiate our food, the likelihood of your getting a good unhealthy dose of fecal coliform, Enterococcus, E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes or Salmonella is substantial. We have “limits” for meat and dairy, but none for veggies. And it is common for NYC food inspectors to find such veggies to be past their “use by” date.
I’m not suggesting this is limited to New York City. I simply live in the NYC market (as does Martha), and therefore that’s where my familiarity lies. And I’m amazed that ANYBODY who’s RVER worked in food service would actually eat food they do not personally prepare. So buyer beware.
John, LOTS of people will see this ad. Remember the Apple 1984 ad? It was only aired ONCE by Apple’s ad agency; all the other times it was shown as a news story or feature. Remember the anti-Goldwater ad with the little girl pulling pedals off of a flower and starting a nuclear war? That was aired only ONCE by the Democrats, but it was re-broadcast repeatedly as a news story or feature ever since.
Both of these examples came out a great, great many years before You Tube. As you point out, it was made for viral redistribution. And I’m doing my part.
Rick Oliver
September 20, 2010 - 10:49 am
I have no idea if the ad is condescending since I haven’t seen it, but regardless of its level of condescension, it doesn’t hurt to remind people that hey, maybe you should think about eating less meat, for any number of reasons, including:
1. Americans tend to eat more protein than they really need (do we really need a sandwich where the “bun” is made from two breaded chicken breasts?) Eat less meat, and maybe you’ll eat more stuff that you haven’t been eating that you really should be eating. (Alternatively, you could just eat more fries.)
2. Reduce your intake of animal products, (including milk products and eggs), and you reduce your intake of cholesterol, because animal products are the only external source of cholesterol.
3. Our high demand for food from animal products has led to the rise of grotesquely large animal factories that, humane issue aside, create numerous health hazards including: extensive ground water and stream pollution, distribution of infected products on a mind-boggling scale (e.g., half a billion eggs primarily from a single supplier), and the rise of super-bugs immune to almost all know antibiotics because factory animal feed is laced with low levels of antibiotics to keep the animals “healthy”.
Jeremiah Avery
September 20, 2010 - 10:55 am
Did anyone read those articles in which different advocacy groups were going after McDonalds on the assumption that the happy meal toys are being marketed to children too heavily, thus causing an increase in obesity?
It’s not so much the kid’s fault; but rather the parents shouldn’t bring their children there if they’re so concerned. Likewise with cereals, the kids aren’t buying them, it’s the parents. I’d want some of that junk when I was a kid and my mother said what some don’t say enough of today, “No”.
Vinnie Bartilucci
September 20, 2010 - 11:19 am
“advocacy groups going after McDonalds on the assumption that the happy meal toys are being marketed to children too heavily, thus causing an increase in obesity?”
If they get shouted down over that, they’ll shift to the fact that the colors in the logo are too bright. If they can’t get what they want via the free market or simple education, they’ll get it via the court system. Far too common a tactic today.
“the parents shouldn’t bring their children there if they’re so concerned.”
But they’re NOT concerned. It’s a completely different group of people who are being concerned FOR them.
Some parents complain that they don’t know how to say no to their kids. These people should not be allowed near sharp objects. These are people who thought “boy, when I’M a parent, I’m gonna let me kids do everything they want, not like the monsters MY parents are”. And they never had that “Wow, they had a point” moment, and their kids are gonna suffer for it.
MOTU
September 20, 2010 - 12:16 pm
My mother has been smoking since she was a teenager. 7 decades later she’s still smoking two-three packs a day. She knows full well what’s she’s doing it and clearly she’s addicted.
When she was growing up the tobacco companies had a pretty convincing line going that smoking was not additive but everyone knew it was. My mother knew it was.
I was around 10 years old when I asked my mom for a puff of her cigarette, she said; “No, these things will kill you.” I said. ‘YOU smoking them!” She said; “I’m not you, and YOU do what I SAY, not what I do.”
I eat bad food, I work 16-20 hours most days, I rarely excise, before I was married the only time I went to the doctor as an adult were the two times I was stabbed and the itsy bitsy heart attack. I’m a Black man and my blood pressure is high and we ALL knows what that means. I know what that means but still even if I was a pig I’d still eat pork.
I’m trying to get better, I’m not drinking, I’m excising more, I’m cutting down on bad food etc. I went to a McDonald’s drive through Saturday night. The voice from the speaker asked if I would like to try a Mc turd or whatever they were trying to add to my order. I asked them if it was free, they said “No.” then I said “No.”
Now- if Ronald McDonald walked up to my car put a gun to my head and asked me the same question I would have no problem adding a Mc Ass to my order.
But no one is putting a gun to anyones head, so it’s all on YOU fat boy.
Mike Gold
September 20, 2010 - 12:53 pm
Rick, our friends at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University soak people for about a quarter-million dollars to teach them one simple fact. Let’s call it “Communications Theory,” in an attempt to justify the price tag. It goes like this:
I’ve got a message. Let’s call me “A.” I want to get that message to you. Let’s call you “B.” The process of transferring that message from A to B is called “communication.” But, because nothing is simple, B can only understand the message in terms with which he is familiar. A has the knowledge so he’s in a superior position. Therefore, it is incumbent upon A to express that message in terms that B can understand. A can spend some time stepping B up to his level, but communication can only occur when A is sending out signals that B can receive.
Ergo, the WORST way to get the “vegetarianism is good” message to me is to imply that I’m so fucking stupid that I’m going to wind up in a morgue with a Big Mac in my hand, a grieving widow at my side, and the McDonald’s arches over my feet.
Actually, that’s the BEST way to get me to go to McDonald’s because I have this “fuck you asshole” streak going for me. And I don’t even like McDonalds — if I didn’t spend a lot of time on this great nation’s Interstate Highways, I’d never eat there. Unless I see this sort of snooty shit on my teevee.
Vinnie Bartilucci
September 20, 2010 - 1:30 pm
“I would have no problem adding a Mc Ass to my order.”
I believe the McAss is added automatically, a little at a time, each time you place your order.
Why do you think Ronald wears those huge pants?
Mike Gold
September 20, 2010 - 1:38 pm
Vinnie, MOTU: McAss is McDonald’s line of cheap, fast whorehouses. “I’m lovin’ it” indeed.
Rick Oliver
September 20, 2010 - 1:47 pm
Mike:
I acknowledged that I don’t know how condescending that ad is, but as a general rule I don’t find vegetarians or vegans to be snooty. There are, of course, always exceptions.
John Tebbel
September 20, 2010 - 2:01 pm
Yes, lots of people will see the ad. Lots more will see ads by McDonalds, Kraft, ConAgra, Cargill, the exact people they want to see the ads in the exact quantity, followed by the next campaign and the next and the next.
Yeah, the public interest people run the show, call the shots, frame the debate. Not.
R. Maheras
September 20, 2010 - 4:06 pm
I know what’s healthy and I know what isn’t, and if I want to eat at McDonald’s a few times a month, I’m going to do so.
Show of hands for those who know vegans who have dropped dead at relatively young ages. My hand is raised.
McDonald’s food itself, in moderation, is not harmful. The whole weight gain thing from the documentary was based on overconsumption and no real exercise. When I was in my early 20s, I was 5′ 9″ and weighed about 150 pounds. I was in excellent shape, had a physically demanding job pulling caselot book orders in a warehouse, and I played 3-4 hours of basketball every Sunday night. I was single, so I regularly ate at McDonald’s 3-4 times a week (but not 21 times a week, as the “Supersize Me” director did) and my usual meal was two plain quarter-pounders with cheese and a large Coke. During that period I didn’t gain an ounce.
We had a discussion on this board a while back, and I mentioned that I think exercise has more to do with obesity than anything else. These days I’m quite a bit heavier than I was 35 years ago, but I know the reason is I have a much more sedentary life now. I proved this a few months ago when I started a routine where I tried to walk about 25 miles a week. I did not change my diet, mind you, I just started walking. In about two months, I lost 14 pounds.
Supersize that, you McDonald-haters.
Mike Gold
September 20, 2010 - 4:22 pm
I’m with you, Russ. Generally speaking, fat is a choice. Everybody makes unhealthy choices: tobacco, alcohol, drugs (legal and illegal), driving too fast, indiscriminate sex, fireworks, hunting (you never know about assholes in the bush), drawing pictures of Mohammad, knocking over Harleys, being a Cubs fan at Brewers park, or simply acting holier-than-thou in the wrong person’s face.
And, now, you live in the land of the In-And-Out Burger, don’t you? Sigh.
This thread makes me hungry. I’m gonna make me a bacon burger.
Rick Oliver
September 20, 2010 - 4:41 pm
I missed the part where anyone said you couldn’t eat whatever you wanted to eat. And you’re certainly entitled to believe whatever you choose to believe based on your personal anecdotal experience or selective evidence. I personally choose to believe that heavy drinking will add years to my life because a recent study indicated that heavy drinkers live longer than non-drinkers. So I’m skipping McDonald’s tonight and heading straight for the bar. But I’ll be walking; so I’ll get some exercise on the way.
Mike Gold
September 20, 2010 - 4:49 pm
Rick, as I recall, many years ago I told you that McDonald’s sprayed sugar (of some sort) on their fries. Your response: “Shit, that was the one thing I ate there.”
According to a recent study (http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-09-10/fat-men-last-longest-at-having-sex/) fat guys fuck for an average of 7.3 minutes, while slender men last an average of 108 seconds.
Which gets back to Russ’s point about exercise. Then again, last Friday Bill Maher (“I’ll take funny food fascists who smoke a lot of weed for four hundred, Alex”) suggested maybe it only SEEMS longer.
MOTU
September 20, 2010 - 5:18 pm
Mike,
Bacon Burger…yummmm,
Rick Oliver
September 20, 2010 - 5:58 pm
Mike: Any study that claims that 7.3 minutes is the high end of the performance scale is almost certainly bogus. Or I’m way above average. And since I’m in the middle of a divorce, I’m going to have to go with option A.
But you were absolutely right about the sugar on the fries. Burger King does it too. The caramelized sugar provides the brownish “cooked” tinge to the outside of the fries.
Rick Oliver
September 20, 2010 - 5:59 pm
MOTU: Where can I get the hat?
MOTU
September 20, 2010 - 6:28 pm
Rick,
All my MOTU hats were made for me. Sorry, it comes with the job.
Doug Abramson
September 20, 2010 - 7:09 pm
Mr. Gold,
What’s on the dollar menu at McAss?
Mike Gold
September 21, 2010 - 6:55 am
TP.