The Cheeseburger Experiment

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

While I personally prefer to make my own burgers at home since I trust them more and so I can add whatever deliciousness I want to them, TBH, Burger King's burgers disgust me the least out of the "big 3" fast food places around here and I'll usually go there if we're in a last resort-fast food situation (except when they had whatever god-awful monstrosity with mashed potatoes and whatever else mush burger - the steakhouse or whatever?). Aside from the lack of fiber Nigel mentioned, I don't see this experiment causing anything horribly dramatic to go wrong and if condiments are added, then it'll help with the other nutrients. I almost suggested a multi-vitamin to counteract any deficiencies, but realized that'd go against the spirit of the experiment as most homeless people don't have bottles of vitamins on hand.

I'm interested in the results, but don't really see this as a big-freakout thing especially staying in around the recommended calorie values, etc. Good luck, Nigel!

Thanks trippin!

Fomenter, I'm going to Jack in the Box today, as it happens!

[Bruno]

McDonald's here has some kind of fancy 1/3 lb Angus burger now, which I find funny. I don't know why. It's like, they're trying to do upscale fast food.

They're trying to emulate Hardee's's/Carl's jr's thickburgers. The original is better and cheaper.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I seem to have lost a couple of pounds since last week.

Right now mah bellay is really full of Sourdough Jack. It was a splurge.

[BabylonHoruv]

Question:

Do they have to be fast food burgers for this experiment or can they be home made yumburgers?
I love me a nice tasty burger fresh off the grill and into my FACEHOLE!

This.

Also, is there a cost breakdown between a fast-food burger and a make-your-own burger?

I can have homemade, or fancy restaurant burgers, but it kind of violates the spirit of the experiment, if not the letter. I haven't done a cost breakdown for homemade but it's probably fairly expensive compared to fast-food.

What are you guys going to do when it turns out that nothing at all happens as a result of eating cheeseburgers for a month?

If you don't factor in the cost of the grill, the yard to keep it in etc it is probably cheaper to make a burger for yourself.  But if you are studying homeless people's diets it isn't going to match obviously.

Also, having spent time homeless my experience was that I and the other's without homes got creative about preparing food bank food, rather than surviving on fast food.   Plus lots of dumpster diving.  $5 for a value meal isn't much to someone with a regular income, but it is to someone who's income comes from spanging and occasional low level drug dealing.

[Nast]

While I myself find fast food burgers gross, I see nothing morally objectionable with your actions.

If you were my family member though, I would probably yell at you. But you're not. So, I'll be sure to be read and enjoy your blog throughout the course of the experiment.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Question:

Do they have to be fast food burgers for this experiment or can they be home made yumburgers?
I love me a nice tasty burger fresh off the grill and into my FACEHOLE!

This.

Also, is there a cost breakdown between a fast-food burger and a make-your-own burger?

I can have homemade, or fancy restaurant burgers, but it kind of violates the spirit of the experiment, if not the letter. I haven't done a cost breakdown for homemade but it's probably fairly expensive compared to fast-food.

What are you guys going to do when it turns out that nothing at all happens as a result of eating cheeseburgers for a month?

If you don't factor in the cost of the grill, the yard to keep it in etc it is probably cheaper to make a burger for yourself.  But if you are studying homeless people's diets it isn't going to match obviously.

Also, having spent time homeless my experience was that I and the other's without homes got creative about preparing food bank food, rather than surviving on fast food.   Plus lots of dumpster diving.  $5 for a value meal isn't much to someone with a regular income, but it is to someone who's income comes from spanging and occasional low level drug dealing.

Well, the meat alone is hard to come by for less than about $4/lb in my area. That makes a 1/8 lb patty $.50, and buns are usually $1.39/8. now we're up to about $.67, and haven't factored in the cheese, tomato, and other condiments, let alone fuel and a place to prep in. My educated (and fairly seasoned) guess is that raw materials alone for a fast-food-lookalike cheeseburger, for a typical consumer, would cost about what they sell them for, plus fuel and kitchen space, which is not readily accessible for a typical homeless person.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

My sister, BTW, is massively pissed at me and probably not talking to me because she is certain I am going to give myself malnutrition, even though I showed her the figures and statistics and it would be impossible.

[fomenter]

i am kinda amazed by how much    this generates, especially when a little common sense would tell you its harmless..the food fear propaganda has been programed deep 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

i am kinda amazed by how much    this generates, especially when a little common sense would tell you its harmless..the food fear propaganda has been programed deep 

Yeah, that aspect so far has been the most compelling.

[Triple Zero]

I'm allowing myself to add unlimited condiments,including typical burger vegetables, so my vitamin C won't be lacking.

well that pretty much changes the whole deal, at least concerning the health bit.

now it's more like a crazy idea instead of just stupid

btw I heard somewhere that Ketchup contains a lot of rather useful nutrients as well.

I am very much enjoying the reactions to the fact that I'm eating cheeseburgers, though. It's very revealing, how intense the mythology is around them as the ultimate junk food. There is a lot of urban legend surrounding them... it's "common knowledge" that they're really fatty, that the meat is filled with preservatives, that it's mostly soy filler, that there's so much sodium in them that you'll go into renal failure if you eat them regularly... none of these things are true, at least not of the BK ones and probably not at the majority of fast-food places. Of course, there's also a weird ingrained belief in Americans that beef is bad for you, and that chicken is good for you. It's very odd, and pretty much nonsensical.

well I'm real glad for you that you're enjoying reactions that weren't really there.

if you were planning to eat chicken and quality bread for a month with mayo and pickle slices as the only vegetable, I'd say it was a stupid idea just the same.

but once you add salad or more veggies, I don't see much of a problem at all.

I wasn't worried about the stuff that is in cheese burgers, but more about the stuff that is not in cheeseburgers. However, if you treat yourself to some extra slices of tomato and leaf of lettuce in between, it sounds not too bad.

but you gotta have veggies.

I've been a food experimenter my whole life... I just don't usually tell you guys when I'm doing it. Once a year or so I go on a raw food diet, which pisses my best friend off no end because I eat a lot of raw beef and bison and she's convinced I'm going to get worms or e. coli. Once I went on a month-long diet of tinned fish, pickles, and candy, just to see what would happen. (What happens isn't good.) I have a reputation of being able to digest anything, and I view questionable food as a personal challenge. Every once in a while I'll eat something questionable and it will give me a touch of the trots, but it happens so rarely that overall I consider my dietary choices to have done a good job of making me stronger.

Right.

I was waiting for the "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" line to pop up. That's utter bullshit.

Eating cheeseburgers for a month isn't going to make you stronger.

It may not kill you, but you are young now and think your body can take everything and bounce back like a piece of elastic no matter how much you mistreat it, but just like gaining and losing weight, they are not exactly the reverse of eachother, no damage to your body is completely reversible, which may not be noticeable right now, but possibly later.

And for the resetting of the system, try fasting+herbal tea (I forget what kind, ask around), works better than raw food.

[Eater of Clowns]

No you're not going to die, no you probably won't even get sick.  You'll feel like ass, I'm sure, but all that aside does that make it a better idea?  No, not really.

The beef might be additive free, which I doubt, but having a few more slices of tomato on there aren't going to make a shit ton of difference.  A lot of vegetables sent to fast food chains are picked and shipped well before they're ripened in order to keep them lasting longer.  What that results in is a lower nutritional value than a vegetable should be.  This applies to most grocery stores as well, but the assumption with them is that you're eating more than, say, two or three slices max on a burger bun.  They also use iceberg lettuce, which is essentially worth -0- anything.  Ketchup might add a few nutrients but not really enough to counter the insane amount of sugar in it (Trip 0, from what I understand Europe has a more tomato-ey ketchup style than America, where it's basically tomato candy).

The fact of the matter is that all the "food propaganda" that's being spurned in this thread might be misinformed, but so is the nutritional propaganda put out by fast food companies.  A whole wheat bun, for example, can claim it's whole wheat but in reality might contain a negligible amount of actual whole wheat.  The language for is not heavily regulated by the FDA.

For example, BK might have a strict cage-free chicken and egg policy or, insanely, a grass fed beef policy.  That doesn't mean that either animal is raised in a healthy habitat.  All cows are grass fed when they're young but are then switched to corn feed.  That's still grass fed beef.  Grass finished or 100% grass fed is the language to denote beef that eats grass its entire life span.

Nutritionally-enhanced claims, mostly in bread, are almost laughably stupid.  It's great that they add more vitamin-craze-of-the-month into shit, I guess, but that's operating under the assumption that food scientists know more about food than nature does.  Our food is subdivided into nutrients and vitamins instead of a tomato just being a goddamn tomato.  I would prefer to throw my trust and support on foods that have been consumed for the majority of human existence than on modern fad foods that have only been around for 60 years or so.

So yes, a resilient human body and the small measures of nutrition available in fast food burgers will probably help you survive a month.  Hell, who knows, you might even be able to go for a few years on it.  That doesn't make it a good idea.  If you're that curious to know what it's like to be homeless, go be homeless.  I could probably save you the time and money by just informing you that it probably sucks.

[Thurnez Isa]

Nigel the blog is entertaining as hell

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

No you're not going to die, no you probably won't even get sick.  You'll feel like ass, I'm sure, but all that aside does that make it a better idea?  No, not really.

The beef might be additive free, which I doubt, but having a few more slices of tomato on there aren't going to make a shit ton of difference.  A lot of vegetables sent to fast food chains are picked and shipped well before they're ripened in order to keep them lasting longer.  What that results in is a lower nutritional value than a vegetable should be.  This applies to most grocery stores as well, but the assumption with them is that you're eating more than, say, two or three slices max on a burger bun.  They also use iceberg lettuce, which is essentially worth -0- anything.  Ketchup might add a few nutrients but not really enough to counter the insane amount of sugar in it (Trip 0, from what I understand Europe has a more tomato-ey ketchup style than America, where it's basically tomato candy).

The fact of the matter is that all the "food propaganda" that's being spurned in this thread might be misinformed, but so is the nutritional propaganda put out by fast food companies.  A whole wheat bun, for example, can claim it's whole wheat but in reality might contain a negligible amount of actual whole wheat.  The language for is not heavily regulated by the FDA.

For example, BK might have a strict cage-free chicken and egg policy or, insanely, a grass fed beef policy.  That doesn't mean that either animal is raised in a healthy habitat.  All cows are grass fed when they're young but are then switched to corn feed.  That's still grass fed beef.  Grass finished or 100% grass fed is the language to denote beef that eats grass its entire life span.

Nutritionally-enhanced claims, mostly in bread, are almost laughably stupid.  It's great that they add more vitamin-craze-of-the-month into shit, I guess, but that's operating under the assumption that food scientists know more about food than nature does.  Our food is subdivided into nutrients and vitamins instead of a tomato just being a goddamn tomato.  I would prefer to throw my trust and support on foods that have been consumed for the majority of human existence than on modern fad foods that have only been around for 60 years or so.

So yes, a resilient human body and the small measures of nutrition available in fast food burgers will probably help you survive a month.  Hell, who knows, you might even be able to go for a few years on it.  That doesn't make it a good idea.  If you're that curious to know what it's like to be homeless, go be homeless.  I could probably save you the time and money by just informing you that it probably sucks.

Missing the point, ITT.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Missing the point, ITT.

You just can't win, Nigel.  There's 6,750,000,000 monkeys out there just DYING to show how smart they are.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

well I'm real glad for you that you're enjoying reactions that weren't really there.

I'm not just talking about this board. I'm enjoying all kinds of reactions from my friends, and especially from my sister, who is no longer talking to me. 

I'm not saying that eating cheeseburgers is GOOD for you, I'm saying that the automatic assumptions that I'm going to have malnutrition or get fat over the course of a month are kneejerk and unfounded, and also kind of amusing.