 "Photo: Illustration by Rory Short")
Fast food is going to kill you. That's what some people want us to think. People such as Morgan Spurlock, who made and starred in the 2004 documentary "Super Size Me."
Spurlock set out to prove that fast food is unhealthy and even deadly. He ate McDonald's three times a day for a month. He gained a lot of weight and became very sick. All the unhealthy ingredients in the McDonald's food took a major toll on his body.
Well, what did he think was going to happen? That'd be like me making a movie called "AK-47 Me" in which every day for a month I go into crowded areas and let loose with an AK-47. Then at the end of the movie, I look into the camera lens and say, "Guns are bad."
Everyone knows fast food is bad for you. It's not like it just suddenly became bad. Cheeseburgers and Coca-Cola were never part of the healthy-living food pyramid.
That's why it especially annoys me when I hear about these high-profile lawsuits against fast-food joints. There have been lawsuits in the past against the likes of McDonald's and Burger King for serving food that could cause health problems, such as obesity.
Don't sue McDonald's because you're fat, unhealthy and your only friends are Ben, Jerry and Carl Jr. It's pathetic. Don't say things like, "We didn't know that the food at McDonald's was going to make us ill."
Let's just say that there are people so dumb as to not know that fast food is unhealthy. Somebody has to make up that 32 percent that support the Bush administration. Is it still the fast-food restaurant's fault? I say no. Fast-food places are in the same business as everyone else: the business of making money.
It's you and I who are going out to buy fast food. Of course, the fast-food industry spends billions advertising its product trying to get us to go to its restaurants. But what companies don't advertise like crazy? That's not a bad thing. Every company spends a lot of money getting its product's name out to the masses.
Fast-food places aren't trying to kill you. In "Super Size Me," scientists and nutritionists proved that fast food is highly addictive. Of course it's addictive. Fast food is cheap and delicious. The last time I checked, cheap and delicious are good things, and I check often.
No one is forcing the American people to walk into the restaurants, stand in line and order the fried double Southwestern bacon avocado pastrami turnover onion ring burger with secret sauce and a giant Oreo shake to wash it down. People have to start taking responsibility for their own actions.
Fast-food corporations are only doing their job. And people sue them for that? It's ridiculous.
Inexpensive burgers, malts, shakes and fried chicken make Americans fat, lazy and unhealthy. But the companies are not at fault. We chose to eat the food. They wouldn't exist if it were not for our support. Fast-food joints helped build America. You think America, and you think McDonald's and Coca-Cola.
America is fat, lazy and still the greatest nation on Earth. So it can't be all bad. Fast food is American. Don't agree with me? Go eat some leafy green stuff that'll run through your intestinal track faster than Seabiscuit at the Kentucky Derby with a fire lit up under him. I'm going to order a grease-covered delight that'll stay in my belly for a good week because my stomach acid isn't able to break down the genetically engineered product I've just ingested.
Bryan Yang can be reached at
