Some of you may recall my battle with Whole Foods Market, the poster child for the "health food" movement. I threatened to sue them for violating California's ill-advised Proposition 65, which requires warning labels on just about anything that might harbor, even in an infinitesimal amount, a substance that can cause cancer at high doses when given to lab rats. (For more on that, please see: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,58760,00.html.) The company claimed I was picking on them unfairly. "Why are you picking on us?" their lawyer demanded to know.
Well, now another big-name food company is coming under attack. This time, it is not from me, but from documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock. And the business is not Whole Foods Market but McDonald's.
In his just-released film, Super Size Me, Spurlock ate nothing but McDonald's food every day for one month, three meals a day 5,000 calories' worth. He accepted any super-sized item they offered him and ate everything on the menu at least once. Furthermore, he abandoned any attempt at exercise during this period. Luckily for him, suspense is less important in documentaries than in other genres, because to nobody's surprise, he gained twenty-five pounds and became ill.
But I just don't get it. As the Whole Foods folks wondered, Why them? Why Mcdonald's? 5,000 calories a day will put on the pounds, no matter where you get them.
If not for the fact that (a) I am training for a half-marathon and (b) I could not afford it, I would announce that I am going on the Spurlock-inspired Whole Foods Market Diet.
For one month I would eat three meals a day, consuming nothing but Whole Foods fare. Cameras rolling, I would eat everything sold in that store during that period at least once. And like Spurlock, I would be sure to accept any super-size product they offered to sell me, even if it meant I had to consume 5,000 calories a day, just like our hero. And, though it would be painful, I would give up running and other major calorie-burning exercise for that month.
The result? I don't need to tell you the ending. What do you think would happen?
Jeff Stier, Esq., is an associate director of the American Council on Science and Health.