If you can believe television news, you can extrapolate to conclude that all the world's evil stands relative to the Big Mac. That's right, "two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun" equal one heaping helping of badness. Pile a couple of the tasty sandwich treats on a plate and you've got Darth Vader, Hitler, and Communist China rolled into one.

Since everyone knows that a diet of fast food will likely lead to an early grave, TV newscasters have begun rating other unhealthy foods on what I call "The Big Mac Scale." Whenever a scientist announces the latest delicacy that will kill you, the news people immediately report, "That's as bad as eating four Big Macs."

Popcorn, Chinese food, and ice cream all have recently discovered Big Mac equivalents, and anyone eating any of these foods will apparently die of an immediate heart attack. Popcorn started this hysteria about a year ago when scientists discovered that movie theaters cooked it in raw cholesterol.

This caused a panic among people who see four or five movies a week and eat multiple buckets of popcorn during each show. Never mind the colossal box of Junior Mints, or your kilo of Goobers, it's the trough of popcorn with its butter-like topping that will kill you. Most importantly, the popcorn will kill you because it's worse than dozens of Big Macs.

I've considered that the Big Mac got its reputation because of Ronald McDonald's pal Grimace. Approximately five feet tall and 450 pounds, Grimace ate so many Big Macs that his hands can no longer reach his mouth. This bloated purple creature remains surprisingly upbeat, despite the fact the he must now lie down to eat and death will surely claim him soon.

Even if you can attribute Grimace's condition to a glandular problem, the rest of the McDonald's gang has obviously deteriorated due to Big Mac consumption. Mayor McCheese's giant cheeseburger head has to worry you, and the Hamburglar, though no more than a little chubby, certainly suffers from dementia.

Currently the Big Mac scale only appears when the news needs to equate food evils, but I fully expect it to become a common reference in other stories. "Australia has invaded India today, killing thousands of innocent people," one anchor would say. "That's as bad as feeding them 835 Big Macs. Back to you, Janet."

Under this system, we must consider the Big Mac as America's most dangerous export. From Moscow to Tokyo, we feed these slow-acting death bombs to people whose least healthy national foods barely crack the Big Mac scale. It's genocide by cholesterol, and I fully expect Japan to arrest Ronald McDonald the second he leaves American soil.

With our export plans already in place, I imagine the phenomenon will soon expand beyond television and become part of our everyday lives. Teachers will tell cheating students that their actions were worse than eating four Big Macs. Overdue library books will rate at least half a Mac, and cheating on your spouse will equal at least a dozen.

Street culture will also adopt the Big Mac scale, turning it around to make the negative a positive. "That album's the Big Mac" will become slang for selling a lot of albums. The spelling of the term "Mack Daddy" will certainly change, and murder will be known as 'getting Macced.'

Despite all of this hysteria and the fact that I'm sure Big Macs and their related sandwich brethren were conceived in the pits of hell, I'd guess that eating a couple won't kill you. Similarly, neither will popcorn, eggs, Chinese food or anything else scientists choose to condemn. Eat a few dozen and you might wander around muttering "Robble, robble," but death would require a massive overdose.