W hen a person shuffles off their mortal coil, they count themselves lucky to have some quantifiable or tangible expression of their legacy – an accomplishment more expansively influential than raising a single child or creating a body of work. In the case of documentarian Morgan Spurlock, who died this week from cancer-related health complications, it would not be exaggeration to claim that he singlehandedly killed the super-sized meal at McDonald’s. Super Size Me was a terrific cheeky stunt – small wonder Morgan Spurlock never matched it Read more Cashiers at America’s favorite fast-food chain stopped offering customers mega portions for mini charges six weeks after the Sundance film festival premiere of Spurlock’s 2004 exposé Super Size Me , which added an epilogue title card saying so by the time it went wide to theaters in May.
Spurlock’s kamikaze experiment in gustation – to spend 30 days subsisting on nothing but gargantuan quantities of foodstuffs from the house Ronald McDonald built – began to turn the tide of public opinion against the short-order burger shacks theretofore cherished as a key plank of America’s culinary heritage. His argument likened the Big Mac to big tobacco, a vice far too addictive to resist as it wreaked havoc on our health. There’s a view of the 21st century that sees Spurlock’s crack reportage as the point A leading us to our present point B of fresher salads, listed calorie counts and plant-based alternatives to meat.
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