Super Size Me in reverse

Buffalo-based diet plan includes 'spiritual connection'

Documentary to track man's journey on Dakota DietIt is Day 100 of filming for the documentary "Good Meat," and its star, Beau LeBeau, is devouring a buffalo burger for lunch.

The buffalo that LeBeau is dining on after a morning full of medical tests is the "good meat" of the title. But it is the film's 10-word tagline that sums up the story: "How the Lakota Got Fat and Beau LeBeau Saved Himself."

Filmmakers Sam Hurst and Larry Pourier like to describe their documentary, which will air on PBS late this year, as "Super Size Me" upside down.

Instead of filming a physically fit, healthy white male for 30 days while he gorges on fast food by eating at McDonalds three times a day, these independent filmmakers are following LeBeau, a 35-year-old, obese, Lakota man, for 200 days while he tries to return to the diet of his ancestors, or at least to the closest approximation of it that he can find in 2007 on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.