How Would You Prefer to Get 1,000 Calories?

I heard on the news today that Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s will have a new item on their menu starting May 20. The new item will be known as “The Most American Thickburger“.

Here is a description of the sandwich:

“… a beef patty topped with a split hot dog, Lay’s kettle-cooked potato chips, ketchup, mustard, tomato, red onion, pickles and American cheese. All of this inside a hamburger bun.”

To paraphrase from the Jake from State Farm commercial, it sounds hideous.

The Most American Thickburger packs a whopping 1,030 calories, 64 grams of fat, and 2,350 mg. of sodium. The price is expected to be $5.79.

Let’s compare this sandwich to what some people consider nature’s perfect food, the banana. One banana has about 100 calories, with 0.4 grams of fat and 1 mg. of sodium. So to get 1,000 calories, you would need to eat 10 bananas, giving you a total of 4 grams of fat and 10 mg. of sodium. I just bought some organic bananas today for about 30 cents each, so 10 bananas would have cost me about $3.00.

So for half the price of a Thickburger, you can get a much more nutritious meal (or really the equivalent of almost two meals since they are both about 1,000 calories). So much for those claims that eating healthy, organic food is expensive. Plus think of all the money you’ll save in medical bills as well by eating the bananas.

After hearing about the Thickburger, I decided to do a check of other unhealthy menu items. The Center for Science in the Public Interest puts out a list each year of the 10 worst menu items it has found. Here are a couple of highlights from the list:

Uno Chicago Grill’s Deep Dish Macaroni & 3-Cheese hits 1,980 calories (a day’s worth), 71 grams of saturated fat (3 1/2 days’ worth) and 3,110 mg of sodium (2 days’ worth). It’s like eating a Family Size box of Stouffer’s Macaroni & Cheese (serves five) with a stick of butter on top.

Cheesecake Factory’s Chocolate Tower Truffle Cake weighs in at three-quarters of a pound. What do you get for all that heft? Just 1,900 calories and 3 days’ worth of saturated fat (62 grams).

If you can stomach reading the rest of the list, here is the link.

It looks like the Most American Thickburger is poised to make it on to this top 10 list in its first year, but I don’t think any of the companies are proud of such a dubious distinction.

And if you decide to try one of these items, I don’t think you should be bragging about it either.

To your health,

GO VEGAN!