Pro portions How many calories do you think you average per course when you go out to eat a chain restaurant? Everyone knows it is "a lot'" - but what does that really mean? This:

A 2,000-calorie appetizer, a 2,000-calorie main course, another 1,700 calories for dessert - those aren't typos. It's more like par for the course at Ruby Tuesday, On the Border, the Cheesecake Factory and countless other top table-service chain restaurants.

But since those chains make almost zero nutrition information available on menus, their customers don't have a clue they might be getting a whole day's worth of calories in a single dish, or even several days worth in the whole meal.

The article also contains one of my favorite new phrases in journalism (bolded):

Uno Chicago Grill's "Pizza Skins." "We start with our famous deep dish crust, add mozzarella and red bliss mashed potatoes, and top it off with crispy bacon, cheddar and sour cream," says the menu. The menu doesn't disclose that this fusion of pizza and potato skins - which is meant to precede a meal of pizza - packs 2,050 calories, 48 grams of saturated fat and 3,140 milligrams of sodium - more than a day's worth.

Wow, I don't even know what to say. One thing I would ask is that this be something we keep in America and really don't try to export. Because if I'm abroad someday and encounter an American chain restaurant pushing this dish on the previously unaware culture I am visiting, I will spontaneously combust.

Labels: combustion, fat americans

  ¶ 9:25 PM