Fat Guy Sues Junkfood Companies

[VicTusDeuS]

iirc the ciggie case was based on tobacco companies suppressing evidence back in the 50s/60s about the dangers of smoking, when these were not as widely known. Same with the asbestos manufacturers around the same time.

McDs, on the other hand, don't try to claim that their food is nutritious. I see no negligence there.

Plus the cigarette companies were delibratly adding chemicals to their cigarettes to get you addicted to them..

 

[cockdezl]

While I do think the fast food industry is not appropriately forthcoming about what exactly is in its food or how it was produced, I think it deserves to be sued for other reasons than this.

Did you know that most fast food is so processed it doesn't taste like ANYTHING???? The flavor in fast food comes from CHEMICALS made in a LAB. Can that be good for people's health?

Did you know that that is bullshit??? Try again with some true statements.

Did you know that the meat for fast food comes very cheap, because that is how the Big Corporations sell it at those low, low prices and their coffers therefore stay rich, and, um, fat?

I guess economics was a class you elected to skip. The agricultural industry has made huge strides in raising livestock and growing produce so that the US can have cheap food. Would you have us price all meats so high as to prevent most people from having access to them??

Because they have to sell meat at such low prices, the meat packing plants from which this meat comes run the butchering and packing lines so fast that they are dangerous for the workers, who are rushing to keep up with the lines with large and dangerous sharp instruments.

Did you just get to read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle"? Hate to tell you, but that story was from about a hundred years ago. The US meat industry is governed by USDA/FSIS inspectors, and I personally worked in a poulty plant in college, and they are hard asses. Not to mention that Safety Inspectors and Industrial Hygienists are often times employed to make sure that the plant is safe.

Sanitation is nowhere near what it should be (witness the E. coli outbreaks we see from time to time), and the workers are poorly paid and just plain EXPLOITED. Meat packing is one of the most dangerous jobs in this country.

What a load of shit. Being a microbiologist, and working in the food industry, I can tell you that outbreaks are not widespread, and are not problematic on a grand scale. We have done enormous research to prevent and control microbial pathogens from being in foods at purchase. Our food is the safest in history.

I don't even want to talk about what they feed beef cattle (and I know something about this, as I am a veterinarian and former animal science major) and how these animals are treated. I only go into a fast food restaurant as a last resort, if I am stuck somewhere and there is absolutely nowhere else for me to eat.

Let me guess, they feed cattle antibiotics and hormones, right? Antibiotic feed is regulated and the beef is tested to ensure that tissue concentrations are below acceptable levels as are hormones. But I guess you would have us not use antibiotics and then subject the consumers to greater chances of infections and intoxications.

As for treatment, I know that they are not getting luxury resorts to live in, but they are food. Such is life.

Yes, it IS unconscionable what these companies are doing, but you would never know that from their sunny ads on Saturday morning TV. I hope SOMEBODY takes a big chunk out of their pocketbooks, but I wish it were for the right reasons.

You have presented nothing unconscionable, only untrue. You hope that someone takes a chunk of their profits, because somehow you contribute some personal aspect of your life as being pushed upon you by the "evil" corporation. You have presented no "right" reasons for them being sued. They provide a great service to the country and you and other whiners see them as some "evil" that makes you do things that you somehow can't control.

I would like to point out that fat people don't become fat in a vacuum. It seems that the more pressure there is in our culture to be thin, the fatter we become. All this obesity is a relatively new phenomenon. If 60% of America were just fat lazy pigs by nature, and absolute personal liability for body shape and weight were a real fact, how is it that this just occurred in the past 20 years or so? Why weren't we always a nation of 60% fat lazy pigs?

Poor reasoning. People become fat by choice, no pseudo-scientific psycho-babble will change the fact that you are the only controlling force in your life. Obesity is not due to the cultural idols, but from wealth. The US has become wealthier and has greater access to cheap food. Years before, we didn't have a McDonald's at every corner with $.99 Big Macs. We eat out of convenience now, as opposed to survival. Our country has such abundance of cheap food that we can have huge amounts of food for little money. Is this bad? Only if you think that people cannot control themselves and are controlled by those who provide us with food.

Something has changed, and I don't think it is the character of your basic stock hardworking American.

Then you have not been out in the real world, recently. Americans are lazier than ever. There is no "hard, working Americans" anymore, this is a rarity.

I know it's easy to look at someone, decide you know all about them in 2 seconds and sneer, but that's not the right way to do it, guys. How you treat people is just as much under YOUR control as our eating is under ours.

From your above assertions, eating is not under our control, but from the pressure of society and other environmental forces. You need to keep your arguments straight.

 

[ATrollFromTheFatBoard]

VicTusDeuS: Uh, no, I DON'T side with the fat guy. Otherwise why would I say I don't believe in FRIVOLOUS lawsuits and ask you not to judge me by him?? I also don't believe in the plane one (the Southwestern airlines issue.) How what I wrote created that impression, I don't know.

What I was doing is taking the opportunity to point out other far more malicious things this industry and related ones are doing then peddling wares of low nutritional value that hopefully most people are aware not to overindulge on.


cockdezl: No, I wasn't reading anything by Upton Sinclair. What I was reading, however, are these two sources:

Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlossen

Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich.

When you've read these two books, THEN you can come lecture me on how benign a force fast food is in our culture, and how lazy and worthless most Americans (especially low-income Americans, those fat people everyone loves to hate) really are.


"somehow you contribute some personal aspect of your life as being pushed upon you by the "evil" corporation."

Of *my* life? Where did I say that? I believe I said that I eat fast food as little as possible.

(Improper use of the word "contribute," btw. Consult a dictionary.)

But I guess you would have us not use antibiotics and then subject the consumers to greater chances of infections and intoxications.

That is not what antibiotics are given to livestock for. *Sick* animals may be treated with *therapeutic* doses of antibiotics to rid them of a bacterial infection (although these days they are just as likely to be destroyed, as that would cost the grower less money). But most of the antibiotics used in animal feed are dosed at subtherapuetic levels, because it has been shown that these animals gain more weight and make more money for the grower. This contributes to the problem of antibiotic resistance. The AMA and the AVMA are working on guidelines now to restrict prescriptions of antibiotics by doctors and veterinarians in order to combat this problem, but we can't seem to get the food industry to see the light on this issue.

If I can see a resistant ear infection in weeks to months when an owner doesn't use antibiotics as directed to treat their dog, I can readily see how the same thing occurs with subtherapeutic levels of antibiotics in animal feed. My micro professors were complaining about this problem way back when I was in undergraduate school, and the problem has only gotten worse.

I invite you to read the two books mentioned.

 

[Optimus B]

i think i'm going to call my lawyer and sue that guy that's suing the fast-food companies and junk-food companies. he's caused me undue emotional distress for being such a fucking ignorant leach and tying up the justice system for such a frivolous lawsuit. i should get at least a couple billion in punitive damages.

 

[Optimus B]

sorry, but does anyone want in on my lawsuit? the more people that have been affected the stronger the case!! i smell a fat payday. what color do you want your bmw??

 

[Norman Bates]

This guy deserves nothing.
And even if he deserved something it surely shouldn´t be in the million dollar range.
The amounts that are being paid in America for sues like that are ridicously high.

 

[JDarty6173]

How can this fat dumb ass be so ignorant as to think someone else is responsible for what he eats?

 

[ATrollFromTheFatBoard]

Sorry, Optimus, but in your/our class action lawsuit you would end up making about 2 cents, and your LAWYER would end up the millionaire!!!!

 

[Frackal]

I've worked at KFC, and GNC, two opposite ends of the spectrum where I deal primarily with fat people. 85% of fat people are fat by choice.

 

[Bullit]

Some people are so damn stupid...and somtimes they actually get rewarded for it which makes it even more rediculous!

I agree... and its the juries that actually let these fuckers win. If I was on one of these juries I can guarentee that it would be at least a deadlock, cuz I would never let these losers abdicate their personal responsibility.