A. and I just watched the documentary Supersize Me. For those of you not familiar with the premise, the filmmaker, Morgan Spurlock, goes on an all-McDonald's diet for 30 days. He also explores the obesity epidemic in the U.S., and some of the causes for it - easy and cheap availability of high fat, high sugar processed foods; lack of exercise caused, at least in part, by our car dependent culture; and multi-billion dollar advertising campaigns by big food companies, among others. He notes in the movie that McDonalds, Pepsi and Hersheys combined spent around $2.5 billion in direct advertising for TV, radio and print. That's only three of the many big food companies out there.

During the 30 days of Spurlock's experiment he gains about 25 pounds, his cholesterol goes up 65 points and many of his blood tests go to hell. His liver essentially turns to mush. The three doctors he is seeing seem shocked that a high fat diet can cause this kind of damage and are advising him after three weeks that he needs to stop. He does make it through the 30 days, but it takes 8 weeks of a vegan diet to get his medical test results back to where they were before his McD's binge and about a year to lose the weight.

Now, I'm far from a health food nut and I enjoy the occassional trip to McDonald's or Wendy's as much as the next guy, but I typically don't eat at these places more than 2 or 3 times a month. After seeing this movie, I suspect that number will go down.

If you haven't seen this movie, either rent it from your local video store or check it out if it comes to your local cable (we watched it on the Sundance Channel). It may open your eyes.