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Post by Smithwicks on Mar 3, 2010 11:38:27 GMT -5
MacDonalds, the entity, does not cause health problems. It's people who can't consume in moderation who do. Eating in quantity any food product will cause health problems. MacDonalds is no exception.
We are unique in this regard? You better learn about the animal kingdom. Many animals don't do things in moderation. You simply haven't looked around.
Your allegations are preposterous. You cannot become addicted to fat, salt, or sugar. Products may try to combine them in such a way so you must satiate yourself with their product, but you cannot become addicted to them. All food products, whether is ice cream, crackers, or anything derived product, their ultimate goal is to try and get individuals to consume. Large food chains are not unique in this regard.
Ridiculous statements require factual sources to back them up. Your entire argument is laced with kneejerk commentary without sources. If you want people to take you seriously, provide documentation to support your cause.
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oasis
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Post by oasis on Mar 3, 2010 13:52:16 GMT -5
any chance Smithwicks works for McDonalds?  |
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Post by limestonemiler on Mar 3, 2010 14:28:54 GMT -5
I can't believe I'm the one who has to do this but you guys seriously need to get off one another's throats. As long as it's the choice of the individual, athlete or no, then they should be free to eat enough Big Macs to wind up looking like this one: heartsurgeon.co.in/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/Peripheral.279203755_std.jpg Hence my earlier comment re. the meals and advertising directed to children, who DON'T know or any better or DON'T have a choice in the matter. Anyways, I've added a game link to the bottom of this post. Everyone likes a good game right? www.mcvideogame.com/index.html |
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Post by Smithwicks on Mar 3, 2010 14:57:47 GMT -5
any chance Smithwicks works for McDonalds? I'm an algorithmic trader for the Bank of Montreal. I have no ties to McDonald's, I simply hate reading directed opinions being passed off as fact. Some of the commentary from oldbones is very poignant without any confirmational sources to back them up. |
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Post by rocknroll on Mar 3, 2010 15:02:53 GMT -5
I can't believe I'm the one who has to do this but you guys seriously need to get off one another's throats. As long as it's the choice of the individual, athlete or no, then they should be free to eat enough Big Macs to wind up looking like this one: heartsurgeon.co.in/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/Peripheral.279203755_std.jpg Hence my earlier comment re. the meals and advertising directed to children, who DON'T know or any better or DON'T have a choice in the matter. EDIT: ON THE OTHER HAND, one could argue making this knowledge more accessible would lower the number of cases of people acting out of ignorance. And I'm talking BOTH positive and negative factors, otherwise we wouldn't even have this problem in the first place. On that note, I've added a game link to the bottom of this post. Everyone likes a good game right? www.mcvideogame.com/index.htmlCool game, haha, except for the fact that I went bankrupt. Lets say Ronald McDonald wasn't too happy. |
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Post by spaff on Mar 3, 2010 15:16:07 GMT -5
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Post by oldster on Mar 3, 2010 15:19:43 GMT -5
any chance Smithwicks works for McDonalds? I'm an algorithmic trader for the Bank of Montreal. I have no ties to McDonald's, I simply hate reading directed opinions being passed off as fact. Some of the commentary from oldbones is very poignant without any confirmational sources to back them up. "Algorithmic trading": This could well be to the economy-- in the sense of the material provisioning of human beings -- what McDonald's food is to food-proper! Now we understand your inclination to blame "personal choice" over McDonald's when it comes to the obesity epidemic!! (Cue the explosive overreaction.) |
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Post by oldster on Mar 3, 2010 15:35:26 GMT -5
P.S. I'll leave it to oldbones, or perhaps a random 12 year old who may be perusing the board, to point what's facile about the suggestion that there's no difference between McDonald's and any other food source because "eating in quantity any food product will cause health problems". I never thought about it, but I guess I could die by stuffing myself with blueberries every day!
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oasis
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Post by oasis on Mar 3, 2010 15:41:33 GMT -5
any chance Smithwicks works for McDonalds? I'm an algorithmic trader for the Bank of Montreal. I have no ties to McDonald's, I simply hate reading directed opinions being passed off as fact. Some of the commentary from oldbones is very poignant without any confirmational sources to back them up. as I am somewhat intellectually challenged just what is an, "algorithmic trader" |
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cda
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Post by cda on Mar 3, 2010 16:02:55 GMT -5
I fail to understand the "in moderation" line of reasoning. There is no particular threshold above which eating McDonalds has a negative effect on health. Sure, a Happy Meal once a month is better than once a day, but it's still worse than never.
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cda
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Post by cda on Mar 3, 2010 16:05:32 GMT -5
as I am somewhat intellectually challenged just what is an, "algorithmic trader" It's when a computer trades for you. With that in mind, is there even such thing as an algorithmic trader? |
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Post by pq on Mar 3, 2010 16:19:26 GMT -5
I fail to understand the "in moderation" line of reasoning. There is no particular threshold above which eating McDonalds has a negative effect on health. I can't believe the nutritional holier than thou stuff people are trying to shove down other people's thraots in this thread. Are you guys for real? You don't ever eat anything that's not perfectly aligned with optimal nutrition? Bacon? Butter? No salt or processed sugar (or high fructose corn syrup) in anything you consume? Seriously??? Hey, I can understand maintaining a good diet. In fact I think I have a better diet than probably 95% of North Americans (maybe 99 of Americans). But you gotta feed the soul too... and an occasional McPig's meal won't kill you. |
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Post by oldster on Mar 3, 2010 16:52:28 GMT -5
I fail to understand the "in moderation" line of reasoning. There is no particular threshold above which eating McDonalds has a negative effect on health. I can't believe the nutritional holier than thou stuff people are trying to shove down other people's thraots in this thread. Are you guys for real? You don't ever eat anything that's not perfectly aligned with optimal nutrition? Bacon? Butter? No salt or processed sugar (or high fructose corn syrup) in anything you consume? Seriously??? Hey, I can understand maintaining a good diet. In fact I think I have a better diet than probably 95% of North Americans (maybe 99 of Americans). But you gotta feed the soul too... and an occasional McPig's meal won't kill you. I don't see any moralizing is this example at all. The poster is just stating a fact. And nowhere does she say that she never eats anything bad for her. The quarrel is with the logic that McDonald's is O.K. for you "in moderation"-- and, by extension, that it's O.K. for it to promote its products using elite athletes, as symbols of health and vitality, who may or may not occasionally eat McDonald's food (but almost certainly don't eat it as often as the general public, or as much as McDonald's hopes we'll all eat it). |
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Post by oldster on Mar 3, 2010 17:01:41 GMT -5
P.S. McDonald's already makes shitloads of money off of what it knows is hard-to-resist, slow-acting nutritional poison. Do we have to let it have the moral high ground too? (One thing to be said for most other purveyors of social bads-- your cigarette companies, drug dealers and Bay St. types-- is that they're happy with the money and don't need everyone to love them too.)
Most fun thread ever.
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Post by Smithwicks on Mar 3, 2010 17:22:50 GMT -5
I love how you belittle someone's profession and then make a comment about a rebuttal ensuing.
There's nothing facile about my argument. You're simply being obtuse about its meaning and then try to elicit a reaction from a straw man statement at the end.
Someone still has to develop the mathematical and logical constructs which the computer simply enacts in a much timelier fashion.
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Post by ahutch on Mar 3, 2010 17:35:29 GMT -5
Ads for smoking aren't allowed, you can't show someone drinking a beer in an ad, I fail to see how it's ok to show an Olympic athlete eating this stuff. I'm not sure how to reconcile this with the fact, mentioned multiple times in this thread, that Bolt has said he ate McDonald's before setting the world record. (And that's hardly an isolated incident. I remember competing at FISU in Beijing, seeing most of the American team at the nearby McDonald's because they weren't comfortable with the cafeteria food. Lots of Olympians among them.) So are you saying that it's impossible to eat McDonald's and become an Olympian? Because that's clearly not true. Or are you saying that it's possible but we should keep this dangerous knowledge secret, because people other than us aren't smart enough to handle that information? |
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Post by pq on Mar 3, 2010 18:02:06 GMT -5
The quarrel is with the logic that McDonald's is O.K. for you "in moderation"-- Please present a coherent argument that McDonald's is NOT OK for you in moderation. I've seen bits of the Supersize Me film, and I don't know anyone who consumes fast food like was illustrated in it. Of course they do exist, and of course there are plenty of morbidly obese people whose diets consist largely of processed junk fast food, but most people I know are able to east a bit of fast food from time to time with no evident ill effects. |
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Post by oldster on Mar 3, 2010 21:12:26 GMT -5
I love how you belittle someone's profession and then make a comment about a rebuttal ensuing. There's nothing facile about my argument. You're simply being obtuse about its meaning and then try to elicit a reaction from a straw man statement at the end. Someone still has to develop the mathematical and logical constructs which the computer simply enacts in a much timelier fashion. Seriously. I only took a shot at your profession because you made a point of mentioning it. The guy who quipped that you must work for McDonald's was clearly joking (did you not see the smiley face?). In this context, why would you think anyone gives a shit what your actual profession is, unless it's as a nutritionist or ad man? You were clearly trying to impress us (after all, this isn't the first time you've make gratuitous references to how much money you make). And your statement that there's nothing particularly nutritionally wrong with McDonald's food that is not wrong with ANY food consumed immoderately IS completely facile. It is a pretty well established fact that McDonald's food (like all fast food) consumed in ANY quantity is nutritionally worse than almost any other food consumed in the same quantities. This is what we mean when we say one food is "bad for you" and the other is "good for you". Are you really trying to say that no food is particularly good or bad, and that it's only quantity that matters? If so, then you statement is not so much facile as just demonstrably wrong. |
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Post by oldster on Mar 3, 2010 21:32:06 GMT -5
The quarrel is with the logic that McDonald's is O.K. for you "in moderation"-- Please present a coherent argument that McDonald's is NOT OK for you in moderation. I've seen bits of the Supersize Me film, and I don't know anyone who consumes fast food like was illustrated in it. Of course they do exist, and of course there are plenty of morbidly obese people whose diets consist largely of processed junk fast food, but most people I know are able to east a bit of fast food from time to time with no evident ill effects. Pq, the point is not that one bite of McDonald's food will instantly compromise your athletic potential. Hell, you can even smoke cigarettes "in moderation" and still be a great athlete (e.g. Guy Lafleur, Herb Eliot, and anyone, including me, who grew up in a small house, in winter, with two smokers.) CDA's point, and mine in an earlier post, is that eating McDonald's at all is sub-optimal nutritionally, given the opportunity costs involved (i.e. eating McDonald's when you're hungry and not something better). The factual point CDA was making is simply that eating McDonald's food it always relatively bad for you. We all know that large numbers of athletes eat it once in a while (although I bet endurance athletes are the least likely to, given the relatively greater importance of fueling and recovery for us); but, there is not a sports nutritionist alive who would say that, if you're interested in top performance, you should ever eat McDonald's food. My point is that, if you're really serious about being the best athlete you can be, and you're pulling out all the stops in other areas of your life, there is no valid argument for eating McDonald's food even in "moderation". You may say that there are other "sub-optimal" behaviours that serious athlete engage in, but that doesn't change the argument. Really serious athletes try to optimize whenever they see an opportunity. And that some athletes have the talent to engage in sub-optimal behaviours and still win doesn't change the argument either. The fact that Usain Bolt parties a lot and eats McDonald's doesn't mean these things don't negatively affect his long term potential; it just speaks the degree of his talent (and also to some extent the nature of his event.) Edit: I think some of this addresses ahutch's query. Clearly, it is possible to be an Olympian and eat at McDonald's-- provided you have the talent sufficient to overcome your sub-optimal nutritional choices, or provided all of your competitors eat it too. The point is, we know that McDonald's food is not as good for you as other food, particularly if you're trying to become a better athlete. The whole "moderation" thing is a complete red herring when we're talking about trying to be the best athlete one can be. That McDonald's would try to blow smoke where the connection between good nutrition and elite sport are concerned is deeply cynical, and I can't believe anyone would defend it, particularly when the ads are clearly directed at kids and their parents, and given the woeful lack of general knowledge about nutrition in many quarters of society. |
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cda
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Post by cda on Mar 3, 2010 21:42:55 GMT -5
Are you guys for real? You don't ever eat anything that's not perfectly aligned with optimal nutrition? Bacon? Butter? No salt or processed sugar (or high fructose corn syrup) in anything you consume? Seriously??? Hey, I can understand maintaining a good diet. In fact I think I have a better diet than probably 95% of North Americans (maybe 99 of Americans). But you gotta feed the soul too... and an occasional McPig's meal won't kill you. Is avoiding junk food that foreign of a concept? I don't have any beef with butter or bacon, or buttered bacon, but I draw the line at processed pseudo-food. |
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Post by pq on Mar 3, 2010 21:54:50 GMT -5
...eating McDonald's food it always relatively bad for you. This is pure horseshit, and solely your opinion, not a demonstrated or demonstrable fact. |
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Post by oncearunner on Mar 3, 2010 22:41:22 GMT -5
Sully celebrated his victory at Nats XC in 2005 by going to Mcd's Attachments:
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Post by mammas on Mar 3, 2010 22:59:46 GMT -5
Picture worth a thousand words. Too bad we can't see the time on the clock.
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Post by oldster on Mar 3, 2010 23:32:28 GMT -5
...eating McDonald's food it always relatively bad for you. This is pure horseshit, and solely your opinion, not a demonstrated or demonstrable fact. Huh? You did note that I said relatively bad for you(?) McDonald's is very close to the worst available food you can put into your body on almost any measure. There are other kinds of fast food that may be marginally worse (I hear Red Lobster is particularly deadly when it comes to trans fats). To say that McDonald's food is always relatively bad for you-- in the sense of being worse (more "bad for you") than almost all the alternatives-- is about as beyond dispute as any fact one can site. You clearly don't feel that it is absolutely bad for you at all times in and in any quantities, and you're probably right; but, it is clearly always worse than the available alternatives. Just out of curiousity, how much do you feel you know about basic nutrition and sports nutrition in particular? |
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Post by oldster on Mar 3, 2010 23:34:09 GMT -5
Sully celebrated his victory at Nats XC in 2005 by going to Mcd's That this was a special, celebratory occasion for Sully only proves the basic point about the general mutual exclusivity of McDonald's and high performance in most sports, and endurance sports in particular. |
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Post by rocknroll on Mar 4, 2010 0:49:24 GMT -5
This is pure horseshit, and solely your opinion, not a demonstrated or demonstrable fact. Huh? You did note that I said relatively bad for you(?) McDonald's is very close to the worst available food you can put into your body on almost any measure. There are other kinds of fast food that may be marginally worse (I hear Red Lobster is particularly deadly when it comes to trans fats). To say that McDonald's food is always relatively bad for you-- in the sense of being worse (more "bad for you") than almost all the alternatives-- is about as beyond dispute as any fact one can site. You clearly don't feel that it is absolutely bad for you at all times in and in any quantities, and you're probably right; but, it is clearly always worse than the available alternatives. Just out of curiousity, how much do you feel you know about basic nutrition and sports nutrition in particular? Well I took a university nutrition class last year, we didn't really cover much about sports nutrition, but how are teacher put it is that as long as your still getting all your other daily vitamins, minerals, etc., and exercising regularly, some fast food isn't going to hurt you. Obviously, too much of it is going to be bad, but too much of any one thing is bad for you, eating a well balanced diet is the key to healthy eating, and how I see it, eating mcD's a few times a year is going to have no impact on the times you run, most runners are underweight as it is, they can usually use the extra calories, even if it isnt the best source. Anyways I'm done on this topic, it is starting to get old and repetitive now. |
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Post by Steller on Mar 4, 2010 1:03:34 GMT -5
come from the "holy" nutritionist .... it comes down to the person's definition of "once in a while" and "moderation". Will McDonald's effect your training when eating once a week-- probably not. If eaten once per week at 2AM after a long night at the bars-- probably yes. More than once per week -- probably yes. At the elite level people are looking for 0.1 to 0.5% performance. When you consider that recent data showing muscle growth/recovery after training can be ~5 to 10% better (over 12 weeks of weigh lifting) with whey protein compared to casesin, it really makes you realize the sudtle differences in food over time (considering both whey and caesin come from the same food-- milk). Also, Bolt did love McDonalds prior to 2008: www.people.com/people/article/0,,20220541,00.html However, in the spring of 2009, he went off McDonald's for the season: www.runblogrun.com/2009/04/post_29.htmlAnd did he run faster in 2008 or 2009? (obviously it wasn't just the McDonald's that allowed him to re-set his on WR). |
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Post by Smithwicks on Mar 4, 2010 1:07:53 GMT -5
Actually, I can't see those emoticons. I disable that shit. So I apologize for taking his comment out of context. The problem with these forums is I never assume someone is being facetious and always take them at face value.
I'll respond to the rest tomorrow when I have time.
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Post by spaff on Mar 4, 2010 8:03:42 GMT -5
Ads for smoking aren't allowed, you can't show someone drinking a beer in an ad, I fail to see how it's ok to show an Olympic athlete eating this stuff. I'm not sure how to reconcile this with the fact, mentioned multiple times in this thread, that Bolt has said he ate McDonald's before setting the world record. (And that's hardly an isolated incident. I remember competing at FISU in Beijing, seeing most of the American team at the nearby McDonald's because they weren't comfortable with the cafeteria food. Lots of Olympians among them.) So are you saying that it's impossible to eat McDonald's and become an Olympian? Because that's clearly not true. Or are you saying that it's possible but we should keep this dangerous knowledge secret, because people other than us aren't smart enough to handle that information? Ahutch...Just think how well the Americans at FISU and Bolt would have competed had they fueled more efficiently Steller's point about definition of moderation is obviously key. As long as your diet is otherwise nutritionally very sound, you may be able to get away with it occasionally. This is a very difficult message to get out to the general public though and I don't see McDonalds stating that athlete's should restricted their consumption of their product to less than 1 meal per week. Once again, the problem I have with this is that McDonald's is aligning themselves with Olympic athletes to try and get the point across that their foodlike products aren't all that bad for you and can actually be a part of a serious athlete's diet. This gives the greenlight to the general public, and athletes, that it's ok to eat there guilt free with no potential repercussions. Their marketing campaigns are very clever, but misleading. This is the same company that has now affiliated themselves with 'Weight Watchers'. |
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Post by pq on Mar 4, 2010 8:45:12 GMT -5
(1) ... it is clearly always worse than the available alternatives. (2) Just out of curiousity, how much do you feel you know about basic nutrition and sports nutrition in particular? (1) This is a lazy generalization, and this is what bothers me about your line of argument. Not so much tht you don't like the idea of McDs food, but that you're prepared to make sweeping generalizations about all their food in reltion to all other foods. Of course some of their food lcks much in the way of redeeming nutritional value, I think everyone undertstands and accepts this. But, not all of their food is unhealthy, at least in comparison with normal foods eaten by 99% of the population. (2) Better than some, worse than others. I've been "mentored" by a health conscious wife for 20+ years, and we've been subscribers ot Nutrition Action for several years, so I get an update on current nutritional science regularly, and stay abreast of the topic at more than a casual level. But I don't have graduate lvel training in nutritional sciences, if that's what you're asking me. I know enough to make informed decisions about what I eat. |
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