Mar 29
"Monster" Food
This morning on the Today show, I saw a segment about fast food getting “big” again. It’s not surprising to me, really…I knew that the elimination of “Supersize” couldn’t last for long.
Burger King has just introduced a new breakfast item, the “Enormous Omelet Sandwich.” Enormous is right: this sandwich of two eggs, cheese, sausage AND bacon packs 730 calories and 40 grams of fat.
How much is that? According to Nutritionist Heidi Skolnik, for the 18-24 year olds, fast foods biggest customers, the average intake is 2400-2800 calories and anywhere from 60-100 grams of fat.
I’m not much of a breakfast person. I’m more of a lunch and dinner type of guy. But there are plenty of foods that tip the scale for those meals:
Burger King’s Double Whopper with Cheese has 1060 calories and 69 grams of fat. Been there, done that.
McDonald’s Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese has 730 calories and 40 grams of fat. Been there, done that, too.
Hardee’s Monster Thick Burger has 1420 calories and 107 grams of fat. I can honestly say I haven’t tried that one. That much fat in a single meal scares me. I’m not the type to balance such a meal by having a nice serving of tofu later in the day.
Even Pizza Hut has the Meat Lover’s XL pizza where two slices equal 1000 calories and 44 grams of fat. When I go to the Hut, I get medium size. I hope that counts for something, because I don’t know anyone who stops after just two slices of pizza!
I wonder if that director who produced the documentary about McDonald’s food — you know who I’m talking about…he ate only McDonald’s for a month and was “shocked” to discover that he gained weight! — is planning a follow-up documentary to deal with any of these bigger subjects.
Sure, we’re fatter than ever. But don’t blame these restaurants. The person you should be pointing at is the one staring back at you in the mirror. “If you build it, they will come,” is the popular line that some people like to throw around when they place blame. But just because people show up doesn’t mean they have to buy the most fattening items on the menu. For every grease-laden sandwich, there are salads. No one puts a gun to our heads and commands us to buy the “bad” food. Unfortunately, no one puts a gun to our head and commands us to eat our vegetables, either.
The secret to losing weight, as with virtually everything else — including writing! — is simply wanting to! If you want to lose weight badly enough, you won’t have to count carbs or calories or fat grams: common sense will tell you what is going to give you nourishment and what is going to just supply more padding.
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March 29th, 2005 at 11:13 am
That’s a pretty unkind, not to mention inaccurate, comment about Morgan Spurlock you made in there. His point wasn’t that a person gains weight when eating at McDonald’s, but that a person has massive health problems very quickly. And if what happened to him could happen over the course of just 30 days, imagine what’s going on inside our bodies if/when we eat fast food years and years and years. He used himself as an object lesson, not to make some useless point, and what’s more, his film is not strictly about his McDiet.
I’m also intrigued by your comment about salads. Had you watched Super Size Me, you’d know that at McDonald’s (for example), there’s more fat in their salads than in some of their entrees, and there’s sugar, too. And don’t even think about substituting yogurt for ice cream. So much for healthy eating.
The truth is that eating at home, and eating home-prepared food from whole ingredients, is healthier than eating out. But the problem follows that because times have changed, many folks don’t have the skill/opportunity/money to eat at home regularly or healthily. The end result: people eating inexpensive fast food, or packaged food bought at the grocery store on the cheap.
Given the reality of American meal-taking, we have to recognize that those who serve food do have a responsibility to at least warn people of the serious health risks involved in eating their fare, or make changes to eliminate those risks. We think nothing of placing restrictions and warnings on cigarettes and alcohol, but do nothing to protect consumers from oversized portions and incredibly unhealthy ingredients, even though the destructive consequences are no less severe, and certainly more widespread.
March 29th, 2005 at 11:48 am
James,
Thanks for the comment. I stand corrected on Spurlock’s film.
It seems strange to me that anyone would have to take such a dire tact to point out what should be obvious, i.e. that eating nothing but junk food morning, noon and night would have ill effects on one’s health, but if the point had to be made to be better understood by the populace, I concede that he should at least receive credit for turning himself into a guinea pig to make it.
You make an excellent point about the salads and fat content as well; I do agree that those who serve food should be responsible for making such data clear. But I think this information is already available and posted in many fast food restaurants; the problem seems to be that very few bother to ask for it or read it.
If I am in the market for fast food, I’ll go to a McDonald’s or Burger King. If I am in the market for a salad, I’ll go to a restaurant with a nice salad bar or I’ll go to one of the nicer grocery stores here in Richmond that actually have salad bars as part of their prepared foods sections. There is one in particular that rivals most small restaurants’ salad bars.
To expect a “healthy” lunch at a burger joint is much like going to a seafood restaurant and ordering Italian: you might find it on the menu, it might be decent…but if it’s not their specialty, chances are you’ll wind up being disappointed. It seems to me that fast food and healthy food are, most of the time, too very different things. It shouldn’t be this way, but it often is. At what point should the consumers be expected to wise up and realize that where they’re getting their food might be as much of a problem as what they’re eating?
Placing warnings on cigarettes and alcohol does not prevent those who wish to consume either from doing so. I suspect warnings on food would be even less effective; consider how much attention has been placed over the years on the dangers of being obese, yet look at how many people are.
My main point was that the consumers have to take the responsibility for what they eat. Restaurants are in business to make money, not to serve as dieticians. Even the healthiest ingredients in a salad bar (least fat content and sugar, for example) don’t help at all when someone walks in with his mouth watering for a double bacon cheeseburger and large fries and orders it.
When our doctors tell us we need to stop smoking or cut down on drinking or lose weight, if we choose to ignore those warnings and continue with our self-destructive behavior, how is anyone else to blame besides ourselves?