McSupersizes to be phased out

Wednesday, March 3, 2004 Posted: 2:15 AM EST (0715 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/03/02/mc...e.ap/index.html

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Say goodbye to those supersized fries -- McDonald's is slimming down its menu.

The hamburger giant has started phasing out its trademark Supersize fries and drinks in its U.S. restaurants as part of an effort to simplify its menu and give customers choices that support a balanced lifestyle, a company spokesman said Tuesday.

By the end of 2004, Supersize will no longer be available at the nation's 13,000-plus McDonald's outlets except in certain promotions, McDonald's spokesman Walt Riker said.

The move comes as the world's largest restaurant company, and fast-food chains in general, are under growing public pressure to give consumers healthier food options in a nation that has suddenly become aware of its bulging waistline and the health dangers that come with it.

McDonald's added entree salads last year and has been moving to provide more fruit, vegetable and yogurt options with its Happy Meals. But the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company remains a magnet for public concerns -- and legal actions -- when it comes to obesity.

Riker said the changes started going into effect in January.

"This core menu, which has been under development since 2002, simplifies our menu and restaurant operations and provides a balance of choices for our customers," he said. "A component of this overall simplification, menu and balanced lifestyle strategy is the ongoing phase-out of the Supersize fry and the Supersize drink options."

The company did not immediately disclose other details of the menu changes.

Two lawsuits claiming McDonald's hid the health risks of eating Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets were thrown out in federal court in New York last year.

But the issue hasn't disappeared.

An award-winning documentary called "Super Size Me" has heaped on more unwanted publicity for McDonald's. The documentary, which chronicles the deterioration of filmmaker Morgan Spurlock's health during a monthlong experiment eating nothing but McDonald's food, won a directing prize at the Sundance Film Festival and is set for wide release this spring.

Riker said the phasing out of super-sizing has "nothing to do with that (film) whatsoever."

The company earlier issued a statement calling the documentary "a super-sized distortion of the quality, choice and variety available at McDonald's." It says the film is not about McDonald's but about Spurlock's decision to act irresponsibly by eating 5,000 calories a day -- "a gimmick to make a film."

Le Big Mac 'is healthier than quiche lorraine'

By John Lichfield, in Paris

03 March 2004

http://news.independent.co.uk/europ...sp?story=497311

The Big Mac, epitome of American culture and the junk food revolution, receives an unexpected thumbs up from two leading French nutritionists in a "good food guide" to supermarkets and fast food restaurants published today.

The relative fat-to-protein contents of a Big Mac is considerably healthier than classic French snacks such as quiche lorraine and better than many other sandwiches or fast foods on the market, the authors say.

"Strangely enough, the products which are the most demonised are not necessarily the worst," say Jean-Michel Cohen and Patrick Sérog who analysed 5,000 forms of food readily available to consumers in French shops, supermarkets and restaurants.

In their book Savoir Manger (Flammarion, £13.30) published today, the two nutritionists brave the fury of the French cultural and culinary establishment by giving a coup de coeur - or seal of approval - to the Big Mac and the McDonald's cheeseburger.

However, other McDonald's offerings - notably chips and Filet-O-Fish - are given very poor marks for their relatively high levels of fat, compared to protein.

Even though it is hugely popular with ordinary French people, and responsible for many of the 90 million hamburgers sold in France every year, McDonald's has become the symbol of what the French call malbouffe (junk food).

M. Cohen and M. Sérog, two of the country's best-known nutritionists, say that McDonald's, and other sellers of fast foods, should not be held responsible for the growing levels of obesity in France.

After studying the branded products on offer in supermarkets, cafés and restaurants - including many self-proclaimed health foods - they say that hundreds of them have higher than desirable - or necessary - levels of fat and sugar.

France's girth problem - something new in a country which has usually prided itself on its nutritional health - is not caused by over-eating, they say. It is caused by the persistent consumption of branded products with a higher value in calories than necessary.

"There is no point in denouncing manufacturers who encourage us to eat ever more heavy, fat and sweet foods," M. Sérog said yesterday. "We have to teach the consumer how to choose what to put in their supermarket trolley ... Our ambition is to help the French eat with their heads and not just their bellies."

Their 597-page book analyses, supermarket chain by supermarket chain, 5,000 of the most commonly eaten foods in France and offers guidance on the relative fat-to-protein and sugar contents of the different named brands. Health-food brands are dismissed as a "great disappointment", which are often unneccessarily high in fat or sugar.

The simple way to judge the nutritional health of a food, they say, is to divide its protein content by its fat content. If the result comes out as one, or more than one, the food is relatively healthy. If it is less than one, it should be avoided.

Since the labels in foods are often misleading, and consumers cannot easily do the arithmetic for themselves while steering a cart down a supermarket aisle, the book does it for them. The same methods, when applied in the final chapter to restauration rapide or fast food, will startle the French food elite.

A Big Mac, for every 100 grams, (they usually weigh just over double that) has 239 calories, 12 grams of fat, 12 grams of protein and 2.8 grams of salt. By M. Cohen and M. Sérog's simple division test, a Big Mac works out at exactly "one" or healthy. "They also have a very filling effect on the stomach, which is good," M. Cohen said. By comparison, a "classic" quiche lorraine - a traditional French dish which is made from eggs, ham, milk and pastry - has in each 100 grams 359 calories, 11.6 grams of protein and 26.2 grams of fat. This works out as a protein-fat ratio of 0.44 - or very unhealthy indeed.

But the authors warn that fast-food restaurants can end up being bad for the health because of the quantities of chips, sugared drinks and desserts which consumers usually eat with their burgers.

CALORIE COUNT

Calories counted are per 100g of food. A protein-fat ratio of 1 or higher is good

Big Mac

Calories 239, protein 12g, fat 12g

Protein-fat ratio: 1

Quiche

Calories 359, protein 11.6g, fat 26.2g

Protein-fat ratio: 0.44

Croissant with ham

Calories 287, protein 10.5g, fat 16.6g

Protein-fat ratio: 0.63.

Monoprix tomato mozzarella sandwich

Calories 202, protein 5.5g, fat 12.4g

Protein-fat ratio: 0.44

McDonald's Fries

Calories 282, protein 3.6g, fat 13.8g

Protein-fat ratio: 0.26

McDonald's chef's salad

Calories 128, protein 12.2g, fat 8.6g

Protein-fat ratio: 1.67

Say goodbye to the Super Size

By DARREN YOURK, Globe and Mail Update

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet...Story/National/

It's the end of an era and a marked change in the lexicon of Canadian fast food connoisseurs.

McDonald's Canada said Wednesday that Supersizing -- the trademark introduced by the fast food giant to describe its offer to top up pop and French fry orders for a few extra cents -- will no longer be used in its more than 1,300 restaurants in Canada.

The company, which feeds an estimated 3 million Canadians a day, will continue to offer fries in the same three sizes: small, medium and what was called a Super Size has been changed to a large.

The story is different in the United States, where the Oak Brook, Ill.-based company offers four sizes with a Super Size of 7 ounces. McDonald's announced its Super Size would be phased out in its 13,000 American restaurants by the end of 2004.

McDonald's Canada offers fries in 2.6, 3.7 and 6-ounce sizes.

The death of the super size name continues McDonald's trend of trying to put a healthier face on food that has long been considered bad for consumer's waistlines and long-term health.

“We've not eliminated any portion sizes that used to be there,” McDonald's Canada spokesman Ron Christianson told globeandmail.com Wednesday. “We've simply done an adjustment of the terminology Super Size to a large and ceased promoting it in our restaurants.”

“We are not actively promoting when people order their meals ‘Would you like to Super Size?'”

The move is part of the company's Healthy Lifestyles initiative, a campaign introduced in January that offers customers healthier menu items complete with nutritional information.

After building an empire on burgers and fries, the McDonald's menu has recently been expanded to include more juices, chicken, yogurt and leafy greens.

The company and sandwich chain Subway have both introduced Atkins-approved meals to their menus to appeal to those following the increasingly popular diet's mantra of low carbs lead to significant weight loss.

But the company has also struggled for good press on the issue, facing lawsuits by American customers for allegedly causing obesity and being the subject of an award-winning documentary called "Super Size Me" which showed the deterioration of the filmmaker's health during a month-long experiment of eating nothing but McDonald's food.

Mr. Christianson denied that any outside pressure led to the terminology change in Canada.

“We've always been a responsible company,” he said. “We feel we have an opportunity as a Canadian company reaching millions of Canadian customers every week to help them lead more healthy, active lifestyles.”

“We're doing that by offering them more choice within our restaurants, providing them with additional nutritional and ingredient information and helping to promote the importance of physical activity.”

Gimme a break. If that was the case -- if McDonald was healthy food, the only thing that would have happened to Morgan Spurlock would have been a weight gain. Scarily enough he not only gained weight but had problems with ashma nd his kidneys.

I'll let you draw your own conclusions from that

By Karen Hershenson

CONTRA COSTA TIMES
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/7787109.htm

PARK CITY, UTAH

THE TRANSFORMATION on screen is dramatic: In just one month, 33-year-old Morgan Spurlock goes from being a slender, robust man to a bloated slug with creaky knees and drastic mood swings.

He gains 25 pounds. His cholesterol soars. His liver function is dangerously impaired. At one point, his doctor gravely warns him about when he might want to call 911.

Yet all this physical and mental distress is self-imposed. In order to make a point about the deteriorating American diet and resulting obesity epidemic, Spurlock vowed to eat nothing but food offered at McDonald's for 30 days. The result is "Super Size Me," one of the hot tickets in the documentary competition at the Sundance Film Festival, which continues here through Sunday.

The film is both thought-provoking and hilarious. We witness Spurlock wolfing down his first super-sized meal. Soon after come the "McGurgles" and the "McGas," and finally he upchucks in the restaurant parking lot, the camera right there.

Later, his girlfriend, a vegan chef, shares another, more intimate result of a fast-food diet -- sagging sexual performance.

"I think the saturated fats are starting to get to his penis," she says.

Ground-breaking documentaries like this one have become a growing element at Sundance. Following the box-office success of films such as "Spellbound," "Winged Migration" and Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine," docs are hot -- there are a record 40-plus of them screening in this year's festival. Even the opening-night film, "Riding Giants," was a documentary.

And the more receptive audiences become, the more the genre evolves. Past Oscar winner Jessica Yu, for example, used a cutting-edge animation technique (and a staff of seven animators) to create "In the Realms of the Unreal," her stunning competition film about Henry Darger, a Chicago recluse who left an amazing legacy -- a 15,000-page novel and hundreds of color-saturated paintings, some more than 10 feet long.

Spurlock, whose work is more in the irreverent, bad-boy vein, agrees that audiences have become more receptive to documentaries because of such pioneers as Moore and Errol Morris ("Thin Blue Line," "Fog of War"), but he also credits TV shows including "The Bachelor" and "The Simple Life" for their growing success.

"In the past few years, with the rise of reality television, I think that's really broken down the barriers of accepting them on a whole new level," he says. "Documentaries are the original reality television."

Spurlock's own dive into an altered reality was more dramatic than he could have imagined. One doctor compared it to "Leaving Las Vegas," in which the Nicolas Cage character tries to drink himself to death in just weeks.

"I felt consistently tired and sick and miserable," says Spurlock. "I don't think anybody realized how bad things were going to get."

Yet the filmmaker insists he wasn't trying to nail the fast-food chain, which never responded to repeated interview requests.

"McDonald's is a symbol for me in the film," says Spurlock. "They're Everyman food. They're all over the world, they're the biggest, and they represent every single fast-food restaurant every place."

He had rules for his McAdventure: he could only eat what was on the menu; he had to try everything; had to eat three square meals a day; and had to super size if it was offered. He worked closely with a team of medical experts, who charted changes in his body. Before the month was over, they were begging him to stop.

Spurlock still thinks the Big Mac is a tasty burger, but labels the Filet O'Fish "a disaster."

Still, the problem extends beyond fast food, he says. It starts at home, where overworked baby boomers are all too willing to tell themselves, "Hey, I do deserve a break today," and eat the majority of meals out.

At press time, Spurlock was negotiating with several potential distributors. But along with a theatrical release, he would love for "Super Size Me" to air on cable (he doubts the networks would touch it), and for it to be shown in schools and on college campuses, where unhealthful eating is rampant.

And while the public may crave sizzling hot fries, they're also starting to crave real stories like this one; films that make you think. They're tired of seeing the same formulas over and over, Spurlock says. Documentaries offer something original.

"We're tired of being spoon-fed such inane curiosities. ... There's only so many times you can watch 'Police Academy 6 or 7.'

Anyone ever seen one of those Pamphlets McDonald's puts out about a "Balanced" Diet. Of course, a simple look at the front shows their definition of "Balanced" is a Burger, Fries, and a Milk Shake. Interestingly enough, that would be "Balanced" if you only considered the food groups: Beef = Meat Group; Bun = Grain Group; Pickles, Ketchup, & Tomato = Fruit Group; Fries = Vegetable Group; Milk Shake = Dairy Group.

Also, that BS about 5,000 kcal is ridiculous considering there's almost nothing on their menu that you could eat 3 times a day and not exceed your Daily Calories.

Burger: 280 - 770 kcal
Fish: 410 kcal
Chicken: 400 - 510 kcal
Chicken Nuggets [w. Sauce]: 215 - 900 kcal
Fries: 210 - 610 kcal
Meal Salads [w. Dressing]: 180 - 710 kcal
Breakfast Sandwiches: 290 - 710 kcal
Hash Browns: 130 kcal
Hotcakes: 600 kcal
Breakfast Platters: 700 - 1,190 kcal
Deserts: 130 - 1,150 kcal
Beverages [not including Diet or Unsweetened]: 100 - 460 kcal

Breakfast: 930 (Breakfast Platter, Hash Browns, and Small Drink) to 1,780 kcal (Breakfast Platter, Hash Browns, and Super Sized Drink)
Lunch: 490 (Salad, Small Fries, and Small Drink) - 3,120 kcal (20 McNuggets w. Sauce, Super Size Fries, Super Sized Drink, and Large Milkshake)
Dinner: Same as Lunch

TOTAL CALORIES: 1,910 (Small Everything/No Desert) - 8,120 kcal (Super Sized Everything + Desert w. Lunch & Dinner)

5,000 kcal is about Middle of the road for 3 meals a day at McDonalds. With the Caloric content of many of their foods, he could have easily taken in 8,000 or more Calories a day. I'm sorry, but you can't put the blame on someone else when you offer a Meal that's 3,000+ Calories...That's more Calories than the average American needs for the entire day all packed into one meal w. Desert. And, let's not even mention the amount of Trans-Fat, which would likely be about 50g a day...

And, let's not forget the Bucket-O-Fries they tried out at certain McDonalds. Literally, a small bucket filled with French Fries. I'd say proabably at least 1.5x the size of Super Size Fries. Tack at least another 310 kcal if the person went with a Bucket-O-Fries instead of a Super Sized Fries. That's 3,430 kcal for ONE MEAL.