illeatthatbook.com

People tend to remember important moments in history.  On occasion we’ll remember random or insignificant things, but more often then not, the memories we hold onto are associated with the most important or significant events of our lives.  For all of you millions reading this now, THIS IS ONE OF THOSE MOMENTS.  About an hour ago I finished this book.  I ate the whole thing.  I consumed every single page, the front and back covers, and all of the binding.

The binding was difficult, I won’t lie.  I had to cut it up into sections no longer then an inch tall.  Then I had to take those sections and cut them in half down the middle.  I wanted to break them down into a manageable size.  I’d put a piece in my mouth and chew it.  I’ve never chewed bark but at first I bet it was a lot like that.  The binding was ridged.  Only after working at it for a while would it start to break down and become soft enough to chew.  Even then you couldn’t chew through it.  There was definitely glue present.  Who knows if there will be any long term effects?  Either way, I’m done and it’s all over.  Yes, I still need to digest it.  I ate half of the binding yesterday just to see how things would go.  I actually had two “juicey deucies” yesterday.  For those of you who aren’t up on the terminology, duecy refers to a deuce, which refers to the number 2, which is widely accepted as the universal number for crap.  In any case, I didn’t have any trouble yesterday so I assume that these pieces will come out without trouble.  Time will tell.

Thank you for coming along with me on this journey.  Thank you for being part of history.  Thank you for the support and feedback.  Of course I could have done this completely without your help.  In fact, I received very little help and feedback at all.  So I guess what I’m trying to say is, thanks to me for doing all the work.  I’ll let you tell the story to your children though.  Like the sands through the hour glass, so are the days of our lives.  Oh yeah, remember, the field mouse is fast, but the owl sees at night.

Keep on keepin on.

—matt@illeatthatbook.com

Well we’ve made it! I finished the last three pages over the weekend. So now all that’s left is the spine, front and back covers, and some page fragments that were left in the spine. If you recall, as I’d tear or slice out a page each day a small amount of the page would be left attached to the spine. As the days went on, the amount of paper that would be left behind increased. This morning I took my x-acto knife and started slicing out these little pieces of paper. When it was in the book it really didn’t seem like a lot of paper but now that it’s out it seems like a fair amount. It makes about a fist sized pile on my desk. It looks like the piles of carrots and cabbage that they’d make on the infomercials for the “super slicer” or the “miracle blade” when they were showing you how easy you could chop stuff. Never the less, my job today is to eat this pile of paper shreds. Tomorrow I suppose we’ll start on the back cover.

P.S. I like to call it the spine because it makes me feel like I’m eating some animal. It’s really the binding. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

I just ate today’s page.  Now there are only 3 more to go!  I really don’t have very much to say.  I’m just going to suggest that if you haven’t seen this yet, check it out now.  It’s all about this Pilipino television character named “Weng Weng”.  Be prepared to have this tune stuck in your head FOREVER:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqh5O9LbjhY

We are now in the 300s and the pages are quickly vanishing.  Today is another page of notes so again there is nothing to report.  I’m eating this page today in quarters.  Originally I had to have the page in eights before I could get it down without gagging.  Now, like hamburgers, I can finish a page in four bites.  As you know I’ve tried to eat these pages in creative ways.  I’ve tried them with cake, with nacho cheese, in a Big Mac, and in Mongolian BBQ.  I’ve tried them with eggs and with all sorts of dipping sauces.  Ultimately the truth of the matter is it sucks every time.  You pretty much need to cut the page into small pieces and swallow them whole.  It’s definitely a lot easier with the Mongolian BBQ and the Big Mac yet it’s still noticeably there.  The fastest way to consume the page is still by ripping it into quarters and swallowing the pieces whole.  That’s exactly what I’m doing right now…

There isn’t any more text to comment on.  I’m not eating through the “Notes” section which is like a bibliography for all the various quotes and sources Spurlock references.  I’m pretty happy to be done with this crazy book.  At this point all I have to do is finish eating it.  To finish this crazy project all I need to do is finish eating five pages, the front cover, the spine, and the rear cover.  The covers will be tricky but the spine will no doubt be the hardest.  I’m not sure if I’m going to eat it all in one day.  I don’t suppose I’ll know until I get started.  I’ll probably wind up putting it in some sort of stew or broth.  I’m going to have to do something to moisten it up.  It’s pretty rigid and unappetizing.  If you have any suggestions on how I can get that down, post a comment.  Your time to be involved in this ridiculous project is running out!

I’m very sorry that I haven’t updated the page in several days.  April and May were absolutely crazy months for me.  In almost every facet of my life (family, school, work, etc.) I’ve had some sort of crisis to deal with.  So far June is looking better but it’s too soon to say.  Never the less, I’m still hear and I’m still eating pages!  We’re almost done too.  I think I only have six more pages until it’s time to eat the cover and spine.  A few days after that I’ll be done for good!  I’m very much looking forward to that moment.  In any case, I think I’m going to organize a little party to celebrate the eating of the cover.  All of y’all are invited so just send me an email at matt@illeatthatbook.com if you want to attend.  I’ll send details assuming you don’t completely creep me out.

A little while ago I asked McDonalds if they had anything they wanted to say regarding the movie SuperSizeMe or this book.  They were kind enough to send me back a response and I now have that posted as one of the tabs on the top bar.  Click on “McDonald’s Response” to read what they have to say.

They say that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. We all hear that and recognize that the statement is all about prejudice, yet when you take it literally, it doesn’t make much sense. Aside from good recommendations, people typically decide which books to read by the cover. Or at least the jacket and that’s not really that different. If people didn’t judge books by their covers, publishers wouldn’t bother to try to make them look exciting. They definitely wouldn’t bother putting Fabio on any of them. So now that you realize that you can judge books by their covers, what does that say about the expression? Now I’m not saying we should be prejudiced, but people shouldn’t be so afraid to pass judgment. It seems people nowadays are too afraid to say anything definitive because they’re too afraid they’ll offend someone. If you haven’t noticed, I don’t agree with that.

I just wanted to throw that out there since I’m just eating random Appendix pages now. More to come…

So today I started eating Appendix 1.  On the first page Spurly lists contact information for twelve schools where someone has managed to limit the variety of foods available to the students.  I guess the concept is that an interested parent will want their child to eat better, and then talk to these people about how to set up a restriction campaign at their child’s schools.  I don’t really see this happening though, and I’ll tell you why.  If a parent was concerned about what their child ate, then they’d just teach their child to eat better.  If they were so apt to become involved, then I’m sure they’d become involved in their child’s life.  The only people who are going to start these movements are people who think they know best, and want to force others to adopt their opinions.  I bet some of these people that go out and do these things don’t even have kids.  In fact, this is starting to sound more and more like my friend Morgan Spurlock.  Very interesting…

Well, first let me apologize to my loyal readers.  I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get a post up on here.  The last couple weeks have been real crazy for me.  You should know that I’ve continued my reading through it all.  The eating has fallen behind so today I must eat ten pages of the book.  That takes me through the last chapter and into the first page of acknowledgements!  So I’ve actually finished all the commentary.  Don’t worry though, there are still thirty seven pages worth of appendices.  Anyway, the last chapter was an interesting one.  It was titled “Vote with your Forks”, and it was all about how we need legislation and/or lawsuits to keep people from eating fast foods.  By now you should know that I’m absolutely appalled by the concept.  He then goes and switches gears. The last page was actually my favorite in the whole book.  In his conclusion he talks about how people should live healthy, eat as a family, exercise, and be aware of what you’re eating.  I wish his whole book was like that.  He could have informed us about how unhealthy fast food is, and then he could have talked about how WE as INDIVIDUALS can go and live healthy.  You don’t need all this mumbo jumbo bullshit about how corporations are the devil and they’re out to brainwash you and your children.  You don’t need all the doomsday; sky is falling, doom and gloom.  Just drop some science, drop some facts, and teach the reader how to live healthy.  Meanwhile, if I want to eat a French fry, let that me my call.  Don’t send me to jail because I prefer to eat bacon instead of fruit.  Alright, so here I go eating 10 pages starting now.  Tune in tomorrow to see how it goes.

I don’t know if I’ve brought this up yet, but why can’t we eat Dolphins? The Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) prohibits the “taking” of marine mammals. The maximum fine for violating the MMPA is $20,000 and one year in jail. What’s up with that? Why are dolphins so special? Did you know there are 32 species of dolphin and only two are endangered. Two others are considered vulnerable. Everyone’s favorite dolphin, the bottlenose, is abundant all over the world. Still yet, if someone turns in someone who “harasses” a dolphin. Now don’t get me wrong, I believe endangered species should be protected. I believe that we shouldn’t completely wipe out a type of life unless it’s necessary, but if there are tons of them out there, why not eat a few? People say that they’re “smarter then humans” but I’ve never once been caught in a tuna net. How smart can they be? If they were so smart, how come we don’t caught in their nets? Some people think we shouldn’t kill then just because they’re cute. Just because they look like they’re smiling, they’re not really smiling. They are wild dangerous animals. Check out this data from the NOAA webpage: Dolphins have a reputation for being friendly. However, they are really wild animals who should be treated with caution and respect. Interactions with people change the behavior of dolphins for the worse. They lose their natural wariness which makes them easy targets for vandalism and shark attack. Dolphins are hunters, not beggars, but when people offer them food, dolphins, like most animals, take the easy way out. They learn to beg for a living, lose their fear of humans, and do dangerous things. They swim too close to churning boat propellers and can be severely injured. They learn to associate people with food and get entangled with fishing hooks and lines and die. They get sick from eating bait and people food like beer, pretzels, candy and hot dogs. Dolphin scientists have proof of injuries. Feeding wild dolphin disrupts their social groups which threatens their ability to survive in the wild. Young dolphins do not survive if their mothers compete with them for hand-outs and don’t teach them to forage. Dozens of bites have been reported, and people have been pulled under the water. A woman who fed a pair of dolphins and then jumped in the water to swim with them was bitten. “I literally ripped my left leg out of its mouth,” she said during her week stay in the hospital. Dolphins are not water toys or pets–the “Flipper myth” of a friendly wild dolphin has given us the wrong idea. Flipper was actually a trained, captive dolphin who did not bite the hand that fed him. However, truly wild dolphins will bite when they are angry, frustrated or afraid. When people try to swim with wild dolphins, the dolphins are disturbed. Dolphins who have become career moochers can get pushy, aggressive and threatening when they don’t get the hand-out they expect.