Don't Eat This Book

Since my main goals in life right now are to get healthy and lose weight, I am addicted to learning about nutrition and the restaurant/fast food industry. While I don't eat fast food very often, I want to become informed so I can make good decisions for the rest of my life.

This week I am reading Morgan Spurlock's Don't Eat This Book. It's a companion to Super Size Me, which came out a few years ago. I think Kyle is tired of me chasing him around the house so I can read him the latest interesting passage. So instead, I will post some of my thoughts online. Here are a few highlights:

• Fast food contains even more chemicals than I thought and really shouldn't be classified as food.
• Only one-fifth of what you spend at a restaurant goes toward food (the rest covers a restaurant's operating expenses). This makes it easy for restaurants to give you a huge portion so you feel like you're getting your money's worth by stuffing yourself.
• There's a good chance the portion size/nutrition info on the website isn't even close to what you'll actually receive at the restaurant.
• McDonald's cooked their French fries in lard until 1990 (again with the lard!). Maybe that's why I remember Adventists eating at Burger King when I was growing up. Even after they started cooking their fries in vegetable oil, for many years they still added small amounts of beef flavoring. EEeeewww.
• McDonald's website actually states: "None of our products are certified as vegetarian." None?! Of how many other restaurants is the previous statement true?