Four years ago, I made a New Years resolution not to eat fast food for a year. Fast food I defined as any food from a fast food restaurant like McDonald’s, Burger King, Jack-in-the-Box, Taco Bell, etc. Places that have drive-thrus and do not have servers or silverware. Where your food isn’t served on a plate. I excluded Steak-n-Shake and Subway from this resolution, because you can sit down and be served at Steak-n-Shake, even though they have a drive-thru window, and I ate a lot of Subway sandwiches - usually the healthy ones. And pizza and Chinese take-out were okay, too.
Aside from getting coffee or hot chocolate at a McDonald’s in the middle of the night or on the road to use the bathroom, I was successful. After one year, I decided to continue. And I didn’t eat fast food for more than four years.
At the end of December, I thought it would be okay to take a day off from my commitment to avoid fast food. I really, really loved the stuff and missed it, and why should I deprive myself?
So since I hadn’t had any fast food (as defined by me above) since mid-December 2004, my plan was to go crazy on December 31, 2008. But then I thought about it some more. I hadn’t had this kind of food in my system for four years. I would get sick. And I didn’t want to be sick on New Years Eve. So I moved it two days earlier, to Monday, December 29. I took the day off from work and headed to the Upper West Side where I was going to catch a 10:20 a.m. screening of Doubt.
I had some orange juice in the morning and on the way to the movie theater I stopped by the McDonald’s on West 73rd Street. I was late for the movie so I took the below items ‘To-Go’ and snuck them into the movie theater:
1 hash brown
1 Sausage, egg and cheese McMuffin
1 McSkillet breakfast burrito
After the movie ended I snuck into another movie, Australia, and I didn’t get out of there until about 3 PM. I was really hungry, so I went back to the same McDonald’s and ordered:
1 Cheeseburger
1 Big Mac
1 Medium French Fries
1 Medium Chocolate Milkshake
I sat down and wolfed all of that down pretty quickly, so I went back for the second round.
1 more Cheeseburger
1 Filet-o-fish
and another Cheeseburger
That was lunch. I was a bit disappointed by the Big Mac. It just didn’t taste as good as I remembered. The Cheeseburgers were a pleasant surprise, which is probably why I ate three. The Filet-o-Fish, which was my signature McDonald’s sandwich growing up (I always ordered that), was awful. I used to love that sandwich but the one I got that day was dry and disgusting.
Since my lunch was late, I didn’t eat dinner until about 9 PM. I had my mind set on Taco Bell, because I really missed that shit. I used to love going there when I lived in St. Louis. Chalupas, Gorditas, Mexican Pizzas, Grilled Stuffed Burritos, Nachos Bel Grande… Hmm-mmm-mmm. But Taco Bell isn’t very easy to find in Manhattan. There aren’t many, so I took a cab from my apartment to Union Square. It’s one of very few in Manhattan, and it’s the closest to my apartment.
I was planning on going for two rounds, but ended up stopping after the first. Back in the day I loved Grilled Stuffed Burritos, which were introduced near the end of my fast food days, and Gorditas, which hadn’t been around long then, either. But I couldn’t eat everything. I ordered:
1 Mexican Pizza
1 Nacho Cheese Chalupa
1 Baja Gordita
And an orange soda.
The Mexican Pizza was terrible - disgusting compared to how I remembered it. The Nacho Cheese Chalupa was okay, but I always favored Taco Bell Gorditas over Chalupas. Which is why I saved the Baja Gordita for last. It was heavenly.
I wanted to go for another round, but I thought that the responsible thing to do was to stop. I didn’t want a repeat of Thanksgiving 2002, when I ate my way to the emergency room.
So that was it. I didn’t eat everything that I wanted, but I still felt content. This will keep me going for a while. I don’t know how long I will abstain from fast food restaurant fast food again. Maybe I’ll go again at the end of 2009.
(Yes, I did get sick the next day)
