no more burgers

I've been rather sick the past couple of days, brought on by a case of food poisoining from eating a tainted burger from a late night fast food run on Monday. (Yes, there's not much else open at 2 am in the suburbs and I was desparate). Believe me, I've visited the restroom more times in the past two days than the number of words in this posting.

But here's the wacko irony: I was in the middle of reading Fast Food Nation when I began involuntarily expunging everything I ate.

Several of my friends who've read the book won't eat at any fast food restrauants anymore except for In-and-Out (which apparently has very tight food preparation and meat supplier controls). I thought they were full of crap until I finished reading the book, and I've got to say, Eric Scholosser presents a solid case about the inherent risks of eating fast food from many of the big franchises that peddle 99 cent burgers. In fact, much of the meat from many of the suppliers for these franchises literally have crap in their meat*.

Given my still-queasy stomach, I'm staying away from eating McDonalds and Jack-In-The-Box burgers indefinately.

(*So my favorite passage that I found most applicable to what I went through the past couple of days: "In the USDA study 78.6% of the ground beef [tested] contained microbes that are spread primarily by fecal material. The medical literature on the causes of food poisoning is full of euphesims and dry scientific terms: coliform levels, aerobic plate counts, sorbitol, MacConkey agar, and so on. Behind them lies a simple explanation for why eating a hamburger can now make you seriously ill: there is shit in the meat." pg. 197, Fast Food Nation)