I just bought 35 Sausage McMuffins with Egg from the Golden Arches this morning. That’s a helluva lot of McMuffins, especially considering I don’t eat McDonald’s.

I’m sure they taste good. They certainly smell good… but I won’t eat ‘em. I’m stubborn. There are still about 20 of those things left as people here at work have wolfed ‘em down, but I won’t eat one. You might’ve guessed, and you’d be right, that my life was changed by Super Size Me. But now, over a year after seeing that fine documentary, I still haven’t taken so much as a bite of Mickey D’s. I should just get over it, right? Maybe. I just don’t want to.

Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock

 

I’ll eat at other fast food joints - Jack in the Box, Taco Bell, A&W - but I refuse to eat at McDonald’s. I know that they all, more or less, get their meat from the same places. I know they all use unnecessary amounts of preservatives and salt. I know that they’re just as unhealthy as McDonald’s. I know all of this, but I just can’t seem to shake the feeling that I should blame McDonald’s for the woes of the fast food world.

I believe that placing blame on McD’s is logical. They were the first major fast food chain, and they’re the largest in the world, yet they cared little about the way they made their food until just the past 10 years or so when they were scrutinized for their lack of healthier alternatives to their mainstays - burgers and fries. Please understand, I’m a HUGE fan of burgers and fries - but I’d rather go to a local place, like Oak’s Bottom Public House or even Burgerville, that has meat raised here the Pacific NorthWest than… well… I’m not really sure where those other places get their meat.

Maybe hating McDonald’s is my way of “sticking it” to all big corporations. I know I can’t make a difference myself, but at least I can control what I eat. Maybe that’s what this really is - a control issue. I really can’t make much sense of it. Either way, it was a bit weird for me to buy 35 McMuffins - but I know that my coworkers appreciated them, so I’m happy with that.

Americans live in a world of hormones, preservatives, addictions, and junk; that’s just not a system that I want to be a part of. I think I’m going to set a new rule for myself - no more fast food for the Deanmeister unless I know where the ingredients came from. At least, not as much as I eat now. I want to eat healthier. I want to be healthier. Christina and I have talked about healthy eating for a while now, and it’s time we really took action. Cutting fast food out of the equation would be a great start.