Nine Dishes to Avoid in Chain Restaurants
Just in time for the unofficial beginning of summer, when Americans pile into cars for Memorial Day weekend road trips, an organization Tuesday announced its annual list of foods in chain restaurants that travelers would be better off passing on U.S. highways.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest's "dishonorees" were picked for their high caloric intake and lack of nutrition. Americans are advised to consume about 2,000 calories per day and no more than 20 grams of saturated fat. The organization used those measures to pick the nine dishes as the worst diners could eat in 2010.
Winners ranged from the simple-sounding bacon cheeseburger (920 calories, 30 grams of saturated fat) at Five Guys burger joints to California Pizza Kitchen's Tostada Pizza with Grilled Steak (1,680 calories, 32 grams of saturated fat), which the center describes as "like eating a Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pepperoni Pizza topped with six Taco Bell Crunchy beef Tacos."
"These chains don't promote moderation," Michael F. Jacobson, the center's executive director, said in a statement. "They practice caloric extremism, and they're helping make modern-day Americans become the most obese people ever to walk the Earth."
At Bob Evans Restaurants, the Cinnamon Cream Stacked & Stuffed Hotcakes weighs in at 1,380 calories and 34 grams of saturated fat, and that's not counting syrup, which adds 200 more calories to each four tablespoons consumed.
More high-calorie dishes include:
• Outback Steakhouse's New Zealand Rack of Lamb (1,300 calories and 60 grams of saturated fat)
• California Pizza Kitchen's Pesto Cream Penne (1,350 calories, 49 grams of saturated fat)
• Chevys' Crab & Shrimp Quesadilla (1,790 calories, 63 grams of saturated fat)
Other dishes were chosen for the amount of salt they contain, such as P.F. Chang's Double Pan-Fried Noodles Combo. The center notes that the dish's 7,690 milligrams of sodium is the amount Americans are advised to consume in a five-day period.
Two items from The Cheesecake Factory's menu also caught the center's attention. The restaurant's Pasta Carbonara with Chicken was described last year as a "heart attack on a plate." The dish's 2,500 calories and 85 grams of saturated fat earned it a spot on this year's list. The center compared it to eating the restaurant's "onion-ring-topped Grilled Rib-Eye Steak with French Fries and a slice of Tiramisu Cheesecake."
Dessert items weren't excluded from the center's annual list. The Cheesecake Factory's Chocolate Tower Truffle Cake (1,670 calories, 48 grams of saturated fat) rounded out this year's list with the center comparing the dish to eating 14 Hostess Ho Hos in one sitting.
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On the Web
PDF of Center for Science in the Public Interest's 2010 annual dishonorees
Copyright 2010 CBS. All rights reserved. The Center for Science in the Public Interest's "dishonorees" were picked for their high caloric intake and lack of nutrition. Americans are advised to consume about 2,000 calories per day and no more than 20 grams of saturated fat. The organization used those measures to pick the nine dishes as the worst diners could eat in 2010.
Winners ranged from the simple-sounding bacon cheeseburger (920 calories, 30 grams of saturated fat) at Five Guys burger joints to California Pizza Kitchen's Tostada Pizza with Grilled Steak (1,680 calories, 32 grams of saturated fat), which the center describes as "like eating a Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pepperoni Pizza topped with six Taco Bell Crunchy beef Tacos."
"These chains don't promote moderation," Michael F. Jacobson, the center's executive director, said in a statement. "They practice caloric extremism, and they're helping make modern-day Americans become the most obese people ever to walk the Earth."
At Bob Evans Restaurants, the Cinnamon Cream Stacked & Stuffed Hotcakes weighs in at 1,380 calories and 34 grams of saturated fat, and that's not counting syrup, which adds 200 more calories to each four tablespoons consumed.
More high-calorie dishes include:
• Outback Steakhouse's New Zealand Rack of Lamb (1,300 calories and 60 grams of saturated fat)
• California Pizza Kitchen's Pesto Cream Penne (1,350 calories, 49 grams of saturated fat)
• Chevys' Crab & Shrimp Quesadilla (1,790 calories, 63 grams of saturated fat)
Other dishes were chosen for the amount of salt they contain, such as P.F. Chang's Double Pan-Fried Noodles Combo. The center notes that the dish's 7,690 milligrams of sodium is the amount Americans are advised to consume in a five-day period.
Two items from The Cheesecake Factory's menu also caught the center's attention. The restaurant's Pasta Carbonara with Chicken was described last year as a "heart attack on a plate." The dish's 2,500 calories and 85 grams of saturated fat earned it a spot on this year's list. The center compared it to eating the restaurant's "onion-ring-topped Grilled Rib-Eye Steak with French Fries and a slice of Tiramisu Cheesecake."
Dessert items weren't excluded from the center's annual list. The Cheesecake Factory's Chocolate Tower Truffle Cake (1,670 calories, 48 grams of saturated fat) rounded out this year's list with the center comparing the dish to eating 14 Hostess Ho Hos in one sitting.
- -
On the Web
PDF of Center for Science in the Public Interest's 2010 annual dishonorees
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Exercise regularly.
Have some delicious, greasy junk every now and then.
What's the problem again? It seems like such a simple formula, but I don't think a lot of people get it.
Toldyouso, organic foods do use salt and sugar. It's usually sea salt and pure cane sugar.
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What's unusual about this statement......they don't use salt or sugar, they use salt and sugar.....LOL
Sea Salt, Kosher salt, Iodized salt, it's salt....sodium, in different shapes.
Fructose, sucrose, lactose, it's sugar.....in different molecular shapes.
I did think twice, when I found an appetizer had 1,790 calories...LOL
There really is no such thing as moderation when it comes to this stuff. There is a comfort zone that is gotten into were the brain tells chubby, "this tastes good, therefore, it is good for me." Fat people are the primary reason health care has become manditory for ALL citizens. Thanks for nuthn chubboz. Your colon will not have a heart attack if it sees an apple, Realy. BTW eating like a bird is the path to fatness. Birds eat all the time. But, they have a metabolism that keeps them fit. We eat the only fat birds, chicken, duck, goose, and turkey. Most of these never actually fly. So, they are psudo birds. The other critters we mostly eat, cow and pig, are in general "fattened up" before being killed. Lean meat is an oxymoron. Only a moron would believe the stuff is lean.
Eating these days is more habitual than effective nutritional consumption. There is a huge lack of knowledge on how to eat. The food pyramid of the '60s has been found to be upside down. 3 meals a day was well and good for those who performed physical labor for their daily work. This just does not work for those who call sitting in a chair work. Good luck with the food abuse thing. If chubby is willing to put out $90 per day on healthy organic food. Maybe then my health care could be also paid by this glutton.
Their choice. Sometimes I eat healthy--sometimes I don't. Sometimes I think I am eating healthy only to find out that the food is so laced with chemicals that I probably am a cancer bomb waiting to explode.
Once for 11 days I went on a detox diet and ate everything certifiably organic. It cost be 1018.00 shopping at whole foods store.
The food tasted bland (no salt or sugar allowed) but eventually, it tasted better--but the thing is--for me--it NEVER tasted good.
I do diets like that about 4 times a year. The longest I stayed on one was about 3 months (but I got all the veggies from a farmers market and regular grocery store). I never really liked the food or the recipes--not for me.
When I started back to eating like I used to--I experienced sluggishness and headaches--but after a few weeks of immersing myself in chocolate, sugar and bacon--I no longer know that I am feeling like cr@p--but even if I did...the idea of a life controlled by what other people think is right for me to eat, is like being held down and raped--it is obscene and should never happen.
A lot of the restaurants listed, I never heard of--but that taco steak bacon burger, sounds too good too pass up--if nothing else--you gotta die from something--might as well die eating stuff that tastes good.
Virtue makes a poor substitute for the decadence of a great meal and "healthy" is overrated because with the way we garden, the state of our ground water and the way veggies and fruits, etc are manipulated--there really is no such thing as truly healthy, chemical free, genetic manipulation free, food.
Are you kidding me???? Are you really comparing your right to eat like a glutton to this horrific act? You are truly disgusting.