# The death-spike industry **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 27, 2004, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351 "2004-05-27T15:43:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![passengerpigeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/58f4c7/32.png) [@passengerpigeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/passengerpigeon)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/161 "2004-05-29T00:43:17Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Well, first of all- it is highly unlikely that a month of eating McD’s would do any detectable damage to your liver. :dubious: That part appears to be a “big fat lie”. > Same with the loss of potency (unless it was all in his mind, which is very possible). Note that eating high fat foods for an extended period might well do all that. But not for a month. :dubious: > > Dudes like to bash McD’s- and so they saw his stupid film. So your contention is that Spurlock outright lied and falsified evidence in his movie. In which case, don’t you think that McDonalds would just SUE him? However, McDonalds has NOT sued him, despite the fact that the movie’s been out for some time; don’t you think that suggests your contention is idiotic? If not, why not? Also, I thought it was a pretty good movie, and I have no interest in bashing McDonald’s, therefore, you’re a dumbass. –p ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/162 "2004-05-29T00:45:40Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > Well, you’re finding out that a lot of us don’t see anything particularly unethical about McDonald’s. Yes, I can understand disagreement about that. What I don’t understand is why this: > [@](#): > > Somebody’s gotta be the idiot. This week it’s you. must follow. > [@DrDeth](#): > > Well, first of all- it is highly unlikely that a month of eating McD’s would do any detectable damage to your liver. That part appears to be a “big fat lie”. And Spurlock’s Dr. was just as baffled, but the results were right there. You may suspect it was a lie, but that just comes down to you choosing not to believe it. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/163 "2004-05-29T01:02:36Z")
> [@pizzabrat](#): > > Yes, I can understand disagreement about that. What I don’t understand is why this … must follow. Well, you brought it on yourself. “Death-spike industry”… that’s fuckin’ hilarious. Your steadfast defense of the analogy (calling it “perfect”) and then your abrupt abandonment of it made the situation hysterical. I’ve seen more bravery from cockroaches when the bathroom light turns on. [Khan]I’ve done more than kill you. I’ve ridiculed you. And I wish to go on… ridiculing you.[/Khan] ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/164 "2004-05-29T01:08:56Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > Well, you brought it on yourself. “Death-spike industry”… that’s fuckin’ hilarious. Your steadfast defense of the analogy (calling it “perfect”) and then your abrupt abandonment of it made the situation hysterical. I didn’t abaondon it! I still think it’s perfect satire; it’s a perfect analogy in the satirical sense. ---
**Author:** ![lezlers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@lezlers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lezlers)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/165 "2004-05-29T01:09:30Z")
And **pizzabrat** has _STILL_ not answered any of the questions on the previous page. Even when posters like **nyctea** asked nicely. And that cross you keep attempting to nail yourself to in your last few posts is…well, I really have no words. “They just don’t _understaaaaand_ me!” There aren’t enough rolleyes in the world. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/166 "2004-05-29T01:12:14Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Well, first of all- it is highly unlikely that a month of eating McD’s would do any detectable damage to your liver. :dubious: That part appears to be a “big fat lie”. I’m no expert but couldn’t his liver damage have been caused by his body simply not being capable of processing a sudden shift in his diet? If that is the case, it wouldn’t have mattered if he was eating at McDonald’s or homemade burgers, fries, and apple pies. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/167 "2004-05-29T01:30:12Z")
> [@bluethree](#): > > **Pizzabrat**. Apparently, contrary to so many dopers’ opinions voiced in this thread, there are actually many, many Americans who don’t know that McDonald’s meals are full of fat and sugar and salt and will endanger your health if you make them a major staple of your diet. > > . Yes. They are called morons. And sadly, being morons, the world will never be safe for them. ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/168 "2004-05-29T01:31:45Z")
> [@nyctea scandiaca](#): > > **Pizzabrat** , you stated you are criticizing “any company that sells dentrimental products.” So, do you also feel the same way about tobacco and alcohol? The former is bad no matter what, but worse in excess, and the latter is fine in moderation but harmful in excess, which is the same as fast food. Let’s hear your outcries about these companies. Should people boycott alcohol until all the breweries, wineries and distilleries topple over? Besides the fact that they’re (IMO too) heavily regulated, tobacco and alcohol companies are honest enough to sell their wares as adult recreational products. Recreation by definition has to be consumed in moderation, unless you’re a carefree layabout. If ads started portraying families enjoying a breakfast of cigarettes and whiskey, then I’d have a problem. > [@](#): > > Also you criticize McDonalds for producing products that are way too high in fats and sugar. So are you also opposed to the makers of sugar, butter, cooking oil, milk and the like? These are the raw forms of the evils of which you speak. I never called fats and sugar evil. Nor have I calories. I know you asked this before I specified my problem with McDonald’s products, though. > [@](#): > > Lastly, why are you called “pizzabrat,” anyway? Because you like pizza, perhaps? Well I would say that not only is pizza a fast food but just as full of evil fats and calories as McDonald’s food. Please respond. I just threw two words together, but yes, I like pizza. Pizza is not necessarily a fast food. In fact, most pizza places make your food to order from scratch; that’s the opposite of fast food. Besides, where I eat pizza, the cheese is cheese, the dough is dough, the sauce is sauce, and the toppings were all once living. _There_, **lezlers**. Sorry I couldn’t get around to every post in this four-page thread immediately. ---
**Author:** ![lezlers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@lezlers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lezlers)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/169 "2004-05-29T01:42:44Z")
> [@pizzabrat](#): > > _There_, **lezlers**. Sorry I couldn’t get around to every post in this four-page thread immediately. Apology accepted. [sub]Psst! And what you just did there? What, with the pretending that I was riding your ass for failing to respond to four pages of posts immediately when in reality you know damn well people would think you were ignoring posts made on the 2nd and 3rd pages since you were answering posts on the 4th almost immediately after they were posted? Yeah, that’s one of the things irritating people in this thread. Honestly, there’s not a “we hate pizzabrat” secret society banding together to flame you. It’s stuff that _you’re_ doing that people find highly annoying, that’s causing the flames. Maybe if you’d stop being so knee jerk defensive (ah, the irony) and actually started _listening_ to what people are telling you, you wouldn’t get flamed so hotly, so often.[/sub] You know, there is some truth to the saying “when everyone seems to be disagreeing with you, maybe it’s you who’s wrong.” Not always true, but usually a pretty safe bet. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/170 "2004-05-29T04:23:02Z")
> [@pizzabrat](#): > > I just threw two words together, but yes, I like pizza. Pizza is not necessarily a fast food. In fact, most pizza places make your food to order from scratch; that’s the opposite of fast food. Besides, where I eat pizza, the cheese is cheese, the dough is dough, the sauce is sauce, and the toppings were all once living. The toppings on a burger were also once living. What do you think McDonald’s puts on their burgers… moon rocks? Scrap metal? ---
**Author:** ![passengerpigeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/58f4c7/32.png) [@passengerpigeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/passengerpigeon)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/171 "2004-05-29T04:58:08Z")
> [@Mr2001](#): > > The toppings on a burger were also once living. What do you think McDonald’s puts on their burgers… moon rocks? Scrap metal? Can Animal 57 really be considered living? –p (just kidding!) ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/172 "2004-05-29T05:04:31Z")
> [@Mr2001](#): > > The toppings on a burger were also once living. What do you think McDonald’s puts on their burgers… moon rocks? Scrap metal? Not exactly moon rocks, but [in the cheese](http://www.mcdonalds.com/app_controller.nutrition.categories.ingredients.index.html) there’s sodium phosphate, sorbic acid, and sodium citrate. In the pickles there’s alum, polysorbate 80, calcium chloride, and sodium benzoate. And in the bun, there is calcium sulfate, calcium carbonate, calcium silicate, ethanol, sorbitol, polysorbate 20, sodium stearoyl lactylate, ammonium chloride, ammonium sulfate, calcium peroxide, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, and calcium propionate. I’m not a biologist, but those don’t sound organic at all. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/173 "2004-05-29T05:10:02Z")
> [@pizzabrat](#): > > I didn’t abaondon it! I still think it’s perfect satire; it’s a perfect analogy in the satirical sense. Satire by definition involves irony and exagerration, which is contradictory to the idea of a “perfect” analogy. Besides, there’s no randomly-placed ‘spike’ in McDonald’s food which will kill the unwary without warning. By your analogy, someone who sat in the chair without knowing its nature could be killed without warning. How, exactly, could a person who was previously unfamiliar with McDonald’s food drop dead after eating a Big Mac? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/174 "2004-05-29T05:12:09Z")
I don’t know if anyone saw it, but my dad reads Men’s Health magazine and there’s an article by the guy from _Super Size Me_. And while I still think he’s a moron, he even says, that it’s okay to eat at Mickey D’s once or twice a month. However, he also said he doesn’t feel like eating there again for a while. Gee, I wonder why. ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/175 "2004-05-29T05:28:21Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > Satire by definition involves irony and exagerration, which is contradictory to the idea of a “perfect” analogy. Besides, there’s no randomly-placed ‘spike’ in McDonald’s food which will kill the unwary without warning. By your analogy, someone who sat in the chair without knowing its nature could be killed without warning. How, exactly, could a person who was previously unfamiliar with McDonald’s food drop dead after eating a Big Mac? Anyone with a shred of intelligence would know about the spikes. And your hypothetically person could be led by ads to mistake a Big Mac and its cousins for food, and decide to eat them as fully balanced meals throughout their lives, making them socially dead when they balloon up to unattractive levels. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/176 "2004-05-29T05:34:50Z")
> [@pizzabrat](#): > > Anyone with a shred of intelligence would know about the spikes. And your hypothetically person could be led by ads to mistake a Big Mac and its cousins for food, and decide to eat them as fully balanced meals throughout their lives, making them socially dead when they balloon up to unattractive levels. You have made **no** progress in unfucking your brain over the course of a 4-page thread. You really deserve some kind of trophy. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/177 "2004-05-29T05:53:57Z")
> [@pizzabrat](#): > > Anyone with a shred of intelligence would know about the spikes. And your hypothetically person could be led by ads to mistake a Big Mac and its cousins for food, and decide to eat them as fully balanced meals throughout their lives, making them socially dead when they balloon up to unattractive levels. You’re clinging to your prejudices with the tenacity of a Special Sauce stain on a leather dashboard after a bumpy drive-through. Cicso has it right, though. You need to seriously unfuck yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/178 "2004-05-29T06:07:38Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > I don’t know if anyone saw it, but my dad reads Men’s Health magazine and there’s an article by the guy from _Super Size Me_. [This the one](http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article/printer_friendly/0,2826,s1-6-40-6-1425,00.html)? Of particular note (other than “Today, I still eat burgers (although not McDonald’s), but probably just once a month.”): > [@](#): > > On the second day, I puked my guts out. Okay, it was my fault–the result of a fat overload as I tried to eat my first Super Size Meal. My body wasn’t ready for the 42 ounces of Coke, the nearly half-pound sleeve of fries, and the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese. Even _he_ admits his body wasn’t ready for the sudden change in diet! Again I ask, could this have had anything to do with his liver damage? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/179 "2004-05-29T06:29:16Z")
A better analogy would be an extremely comfortable, lovely sofa that OVER TIME, if sat on constantly, would lead you to become obese, cause high blood pressure and put you at risk for heart attack and/or stroke. Not an instant death spike. There’s no fucking benefit to those sofas. (Don’t tell me they’re “cheap”-plenty of stuff is cheap and doesn’t have a benefit) ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351/180 "2004-05-29T06:34:00Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > A better analogy would be an extremely comfortable, lovely sofa that OVER TIME, if sat on constantly, would lead you to become obese, cause high blood pressure and put you at risk for heart attack and/or stroke. Like she said, a better analogy would be a regular old sofa. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-spike-industry/247351.md?page=10)