Under normal circumstances, what a filmmaker had for breakfast wouldn't be newsworthy. But Morgan Spurlock is the guy who ate McDonald's food for breakfast, lunch and dinner for 30 days -- and almost didn't live to tell about it.

Roadside Attractions, Samuel Goldwyn Morgan Spurlock eats McDonald's french fries in "Super Size Me," Spurlock's documentary on his consuming nothing but McDonald's food and drink for 30 days. Click photo for larger image.

He gained 24 pounds, his cholesterol and body fat soared, and he suffered from headaches, depression, exhaustion, mood swings and heart palpitations. During his McDonald's marathon, documented in the eye-opening "Super Size Me," which arrives today on DVD and VHS, Spurlock consumed 30 pounds of sugar and 12 pounds of fat.

Reached by phone recently at his Tulsa, Okla., hotel room, he describes his morning meal. "Today for breakfast, I had a cup of coffee and a fruit plate."

It took him 14 months to return to his normal weight of 185 pounds, and you won't catch him cruising through the drive-thru for some fries or even a bottle of water. "There's water at the 7-Eleven, there's water everywhere. ... If you're going to get healthy food, you're not going to go to a McDonald's" or other chains with food high in fat, sugar and calories.

"My advice to somebody who wants to eat healthy food is, they should go somewhere else. I think they should go somewhere that uses really fresh ingredients in all their things and doesn't put deep fried chicken on it."

A DVD extra called "The Smoking Fry" raises some puzzling and disturbing questions about the french fries shoved into Spurlock's mouth on the movie poster. As an experiment, some McDonald's fries were placed in a glass jar, with a lid, and left to break down. They didn't. After 10 weeks, they looked the same as on Day One.

An intern mistakenly pitched them, along with some sandwiches that moldered in a most unappetizing way, so there's no telling how long they might have lasted. Or what that says about their ingredients or how they react to your digestive juices.

Just to be clear, Spurlock is not suggesting Americans abstain from cheeseburgers.

"Let's try to eat quality food. Let's not make this a regular staple of our diet, which is what's happening to America and around the world today, but especially here. ... If it can make them a) want to change things and b) become more aware consumers, I think the film has done a great job."

In addition to promoting the DVD, Spurlock is on a college speaking tour. He is adding elementary, junior high and high schools to his travels, now that a "family-friendly" version of the film has been prepared.

"This is the start of something that I've been wanting to do ever since we made the movie, which is to get it out where it really needs to go -- to the kids, parents, teachers. Colleges are overrun with fast food in their food courts. High schools have turned over their food to these food-service companies that basically sell junk to kids. Parents need to see this, they need to know this."

Spurlock says he realizes that skeptics have said, "Well, what did he expect, eating 5,000 calories a day? ... Nobody eats this way." But he counters, "People eat this way every day, and they love to paint this as being some obscure anomaly, but it's not."

People will tell Spurlock they eat at McDonald's only once a week and ask what's wrong with that.

"But you're also eating Taco Bell once a week, KFC once a week, Domino's Pizza once a week, Outback, Applebee's," and one bloomin' onion at Outback Steakhouse has 2,130 calories (according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest).

He's a man on a mission, and he apparently takes his own advice. When traveling, he tries to make good food choices and to exercise, whether that means using the hotel's gym or running, doing jumping jacks or jumping rope.

From anecdotal evidence, some people are lovin' the lifestyle change inspired by "Super Size Me."

"Every town I go to, people stop me on the street and say, 'Since I saw your film, I haven't eaten fast food,' or 'It's been two months since I saw it and I joined a gym and I've lost 25 pounds.' "

Sometimes it's a parent who testifies: "After I saw your movie, I went down to my kid's school on Monday morning and I was appalled by what I saw, and I've gotten some other parents involved and now we're meeting with the Board of Ed about changing things, about getting the soda machines out, getting the junk food out."

Even the filmmaker's own family has seen the light and is lighter for it.

His father has given up soft drinks, and one of his brothers has lost 20 pounds and "he's skinnier than me, the guy is all shredded, all ripped out, with less than 10 percent body fat." Another brother resumed running, and he and his family now look for organic veggies and other healthy options.

After the movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, McDonald's started to phase out its supersize option and introduced a "Go Active" menu. The chain's insistence that the changes had nothing to do with the movie is both "laughable and fantastic," Spurlock says.

All the attendant free publicity and the DVD aren't the only byproducts of "Super Size Me." Spurlock's girlfriend, chef Alexandra Jamieson, is working on a cookbook due in the spring. She made him "The Last Supper" before he turned his diet over to McDonald's and then put him on a detox plan afterward. A DVD insert has five of her recipes, with more at www.healthychefalex.com.

Come awards time, "Super Size Me" could give Spurlock's cause an even wider platform. Michael Moore, an Oscar winner for "Bowling for Columbine," has taken "Fahrenheit 9/11" out of the running for a Best Documentary Oscar and is hoping for a Best Picture nomination and a one-time TV airing before the election.

"Why not step aside and share what we have with someone else?" Moore wrote on his Web site.

"Remove the 800-pound gorilla from that Oscar category and let the five films who get nominated have all the attention they deserve." He closes his letter with a suggestion that fans see a half-dozen other documentaries, including "Super Size Me."

Spurlock's movie will turn up on Showtime in the spring, and there is a good chance it will run on a commercial outlet after that.

Just don't expect any ads for Big Macs or McGriddles.