Restaurants: Extreme Eating
Many chain restaurants are serving meals (and even entrees) with ridiculous calorie counts. Unfortunately nutrition information is nowhere to be seen.
Ruby Tuesday's colossal burger weighs in at 1,940 calories including 141 grams of fat.
Not particularly appetizing"
Ruby Tuesday’s “Fresh Chicken & Broccoli Pasta
Sounds good? "Thanks to its parmesan cream sauce and layer of melted cheese, the 2,060 calories and 128 grams of fat make it the equivalent of two 12-ounce sirloin steaks, two buttered baked potatoes, and two Caesar salads."
UNO Chicago Grill - "Pizza Skins"
2,050 calories including 48 grams of saturated fat and 3,140 milligrams of sodium.
If you are going to order a colossal burger with a super-size coke and fries - well that's plain old gluttony. However ordering a "fresh chicken and broccoli pasta" is a different story - Ruby Tuesday don't list the nutritional information for this.
It's about time some of these restaurants took responsibility for creating these monstrosities.
See more at CSPI newsletter feature "X-treme eating" (PDF).
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The chicken and pasta dish would be something to order with marinara sauce instead. Eating that much cheese in one dish is too gross for me. In fact most of the dishes look pretty unappetizing to me.
I could save up for that chocolate cheesecake though! Mmmm...
ReplyJessie, I second the chocolate cheesecake. But I have to agree with Jim. These restaurants really should make their nutritional information readily available. That way, you can make an informed choice.
ReplyI think that all restaurants should have to provice NI as well. We eat at Claim Jumper from time to time and they have no NI. Luckily, I am educated as to what and how much I should eat but seriously....
I looked at one of their frozen meals and frozen desserts to compare and oh my!
ReplyWow! The name of that dish sounds healthy. It doesn't betray anything about the gobs of cheese. To reach that level of calories and fat, the dish must be absolutely enormous!
I've been trying for years to get restaurants to disclose the nutritional information for their entire menus. I post as many I can upon my website, DietFacts.com. So many companies only want to give out the facts for their healthiest menu options. And all too often they provide facts only after removing a key ingredient. I can envision Ruby Tuesday telling me "Here's the info... Fresh Chicken and Brocolli Pasta (without Sauce or Cheese)." Sure, it might be healthier, but who wants pasta without any sauce on it? People need to know what they "are" eating, as well as what they "should" be eating.
ReplyAgreed that restaurant portions are too large and dish titles are deceptive. I'm not a fan of government regulation and feel the restaurants should take the initiative to provide customers with nutritional information. Diners should know what they're spending their money on.
ReplyThat pasta looks disgusting. It looks like a can of Cheeze Whiz with some broccoli florets in it.
ReplyI don't even know where to start. It's actually quite unconscionable that these companies are making stuff like that available on their menus. They try to side-step ethics by reminding us that we are responsible for what we eat...and yes we are...but at some point restaurants/food manufacturers/etc. have to stop dodging responsibility. I mean, what in all that is holy makes them think that a 2,000 calorie meal is normal?
ReplyFrighteningly enough, I've had weeks where I consumed 2 meals sometime in the course of the week between 2000 and 3000 calories (all from near-raw meat), in addition to my normal bodybuilder eating patterns, and still lost weight that week (1.5-2 lbs). I seem to have an incredibly difficult time putting on fat from eating meat.
ReplyInforming the consumer as to the nutritional content of restaurant meals will have NO affect. Decreasing portion size to a more sane level is the only way to make a difference.
ReplyI don't eat out often, but when I do, it's a treat and I don't want to obsess over calories. However, I will often ask them to box half of the meal BEFORE bringing it to my table. That way, I get a reasonable portion to eat now, and the other half is already boxed and ready to take home for lunch or dinner the next day.
Not a *great* fix, but it still allows me to occasionally eat those calorie-laden foods AND satisfy my "clean plate club" tendencies without needing a forklift to get out of the seat at the end of the meal.
ReplyThis kind of thing is why I have a mini-panic attack when it comes to eating out.
I look at the diet food on the menus that actually provide some info that are there for being less than 700 Calories... so how many Calories do the other, even healthy-seeming, entrees have?
I can make the same dish (taste, even portions) at home and significantly cut or even half the Calories of some restaurant dishes-- what do they do to them, I wonder?
And ethnic food... forget any semblance of control there!
ReplyI often ask for my food to be made without butter, oil, etc., at restaurants because they cram calories in everywhere. Then I saw this show on Food Network where the chef was making mashed potatoes with a pound of butter and 2 cups of heavy cream in them. He said whenever people ask for "no butter, no cream" in things at his restaurant, he puts them in anyway because he figures "what they don't know won't hurt them". Ever since seeing that, I am VERY cautious about eating out.
ReplyThat should be criminal.
ReplyI agree. It is outrageous and disrespectful, and they aren't fooling anyone. If the food is shiny, it was made with butter, oil, etc. People do know.
ReplyThat's scary. My dad routinely asks that chefs do not make mashed potatoes or other vegetables for him using chicken broth because he is allergic to chicken (he has an anaphylactic reaction). If a chef "added it anyway because he'll never know", it could kill him!
Reply