The Magical Hanukkahtime Section Variety Hour is an eight-day cruise through every section at BC Magazine except the one where the author has any knowledge whatsoever. On the second evening: BC Tastes!
In 2004, documentarian Morgan Spurlock uncovered a hidden truth in today's society with his hit film Super Size Me, informing a blind populous that people who eat lots and lots of McDonald's food will probably gain a lot of weight. Since then, fast food sales have fallen to Mariana Trench proportions, several chains have closed down, and the Hamburglar was last seen playing "When The Saints Come Marching In" on a poorly tuned oboe on the streets of Minot, North Dakota.
With that health crisis out of the way, the posterboy of fast food health has been Jared Fogle, known for being a fat man who turned his life around by eating nothing but Subway sandwiches, vaulting him to a pop culture icon in the wildly famous "Results Not Typical" series of Subway commercials.
He ate nothing but turkey and veggie subs, Baked Lays, and Diet Coke for a year, and he lost about 250 pounds. Now he's made quite a living informing America that they, too, can eat turkey and veggie sandwiches. But that's not what most people choose.
A 2007 study confirmed that people tend to eat worse at Subway than at McDonald's. But Subway is fresh! Eight sandwiches have six grams of fat (Or less!)! So since I'm eating a sandwich and not a greasy double bacon cheeseburger, I might as well make it a footlong, add cheese, mayonnaise, and make it a combo with cookies (yum!) and a large Coke. After all, I won three straight online Scrabble games. I've earned it.
Now, what to have? Let's look at two options:
Sandwich A: 540 calories, 29 grams fat, 75 mg cholesterol, 1040 mg sodium, 45 grams carbohydrates,
Sandwich B: 560 calories, 24 grams fat, 45 mg cholesterol, 1590 mg sodium, 63 grams carbohydrates
I've made my loyalty to the sandwich industry evident in the first year of the MHSVH. Therefore I would probably have either one of these for lunch, because I escape the cruelty of the daily grind through delicious food.
Sandwich A is a Big Mac. Sandwich B is a 6-inch Meatball Marinara. Only one of them will probably leave you with the "five dollar footlong" ditty stuck in your head, which might be the most egregious transgression of them all. Seriously, families have been torn apart and intelligent men have gone insane because that song kept playing on a loop inside their heads. Hell, when you actually need a documentarian, they're never around.
Article comments
1 - Joanne Huspek
As a bona fide food snob, I am dismayed to see the wondrousness of sustenance turned into something supposedly quick and allegedly cheap. I also believe the fast food industry in this country has chemically altered the basic sandwich, the end result being products that we physically can't live without. (Meaning, I suffer occasional fast food urges too, damn it.) If I were you, I'd stick to that cheese sandwich.