As if the food they serve up at the State Fair isn’t bad enough, at least it is only available for a very short period of time. However, the restaurant industry has decided to enter into an unholy competition to see who can come up with the most disgusting, artery-clogging, calorie-busting fiasco ever to grace a plate.
If you’ve never picked up a copy of “Eat This, Not That” you really should browse through the lastest edition. Honestly, it will help you make better choices when dining out. Some foods are actually totally unhealthy, but disguised as “good for you” and those you need to watch out for. But here, for your reading enjoyment, are the top 5 scariest restaurant foods:
See, even the most well-established restaurant chains can’t rest on their laurels, serving the same old standbys that we’ve loved since we were kids. They have to keep us interested and attracted with shiny new bells and whistles. And since no one has invented, say, a new kind of vegetable, they’ve got to go with the next best thing: gimmicky entrees with terrifyingly obsene nutritional content and rapidly expanding serving sizes. It wasn’t enough that pizza makers started putting cheese inside the crust! Kentucky Fried Chicken saw that and ramped up its own destructive powers, by making a sandwich in which the bread is replaced by slabs of fried chicken. Seriously … do people really that this is is a GOOD idea? Then a few major league ballparks started serving their burgers on doughnuts instead of buns. I’m afraid to find out what will come next.
Scary Meal #5
Denny’s Fried Cheese Melt with wavy fries and marinara
1,260 calories
63 g fat (21 g saturated, 1 g trans)
3,010 mg sodium
CALORIE EQUIVALENT: 18 T.G.I. Friday’s Frozen Cheddar & Bacon Potato Skins
Apparently, Denny’s deemed the classic grilled cheese too boring for our novelty seeking taste buds, so they fixed it by driving four deep-fried cheese sticks into the core of the sandwich. So what you end up with are cheese sticks with extra cheese between slabs of buttered bread and a pile of fried potatoes on the side. If Denny’s was serious about improving the grilled cheese, they would have skipped the novelty and brought in big-flavor ingredients like sautéedmushrooms or sliced figs. But, of course, if they did that, they might not be able to sell this entire meal for $4. Here’s to cheap food and expensive health care!
Eat This Instead!
Denny’s BLT with Hash Browns
730 calories
47 g fat (10.5 g saturated)
1,270 mg sodium
Scary Meal #4
IHOP New York Cheesecake Pancakes
1,270 calories
CALORIE EQUIVALENT: 28 McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets
Further blurring the line between dessert and breakfast, IHOP has infused their fluffy flapjacks with gooey hunks of cheesecake. Next thing you know they’ll be serving breakfast with big scoops of ice cream and chocolate syrup. The best breakfast is one with protein and fresh fruit, but if you’re going to go for the carb-heavy indulgence, there’s a better way to do it. Don’t make it a habit, but IHOP’s Chocolate Chip Pancakes will save you 660 calories. And it sounds better to me, anyway. But then, I think most of you already know how I feel about chocolate!!
Eat This Instead!
Chocolate Chip Pancakes
610 calories
Scary Meal #3
Friendly’s Grilled Cheese BurgerMelt
1,500 calories
97 g fat (38 g saturated)
2,090 mg sodium
CALORIE EQUIVALENT: 15 Snickers Kudos Granola Bars
Is this a joke? Because it should be. Where a normal hamburger has buns, this one has grilled cheese sandwiches. Yes, that’s two grilled-cheese sandwiches with one hunk of ground beef wedged between them. Other iterations of this sandwich have been dubbed “fatty melts”—for obvious reasons. They have twice as much cheese and bread as a regular cheeseburger. This is just plain GROSS.
Eat This Instead!
Grilled Cheese
790 calories
37 g fat (12 g saturated
1,280 mg sodium
Scary Meal #2
Uno Chicago Grill Lobster BLT Thin Crust Pizza
1,530 calories
87 g fat (30 g saturated)
3,480 mg sodium
CALORIE EQUIVALENT: 51 Nabisco Ginger Snap Cookies
On its own, lobster is sweet, healthy, and loaded with lean protein. Yet, for some reason, restaurants never seem to know what to do with it. Case in point: Lobster BLT Pizza, an amalgam of foods that don’t quite fit together: One is seafood, one is diner grub, and one is an Italian-American hybrid. We’re all for trying new things, but not when the toll is 75 percent of your day’s calories and 1½ day’s worth of sodium and saturated fat.
Eat This Instead!
Lobster Wrap with side of roasted vegetables (YUMMY!!!!)
570 calories
30.5 g fat (4 g saturated)
1,660 mg sodium
DRUM ROLL PLEASE ………………………
Scary Meal #1
Applebee’s Provolone-Stuffed Meatballs with Fettuccine
1,550 calories
97 g fat (46 g saturated)
3,910 mg sodium
CALORIE EQUIVALENT: 148 Whoppers Malted Milk Balls
Yes, America has a cheese fetish, but this is just excessive. Cheese-filled meatballs? It’s like a beef-based Gusher, a sort of meaty water balloon of fat. Especially problematic is the fact that said meatballs are served on a bed of fettuccine Alfredo, which is basically flat noodles basting in oil, butter, and—yes—cheese. Cut more than a thousand calories by switching dishes. A smart swap like this one (and the hundreds of others in Eat This, Not That!) a couple times a week and you can lose 2½ pounds a month without ever dieting!
Eat This Instead!
Spicy Shrimp Diavolo
500 calories
10 g fat (3.5 g saturated)
1,910 mg sodium
Lucky for me, nothing in the top 5 even remotely sounded tasty to me … but several of the “Eat This Instead!” options did sound good and were reasonable in the total calories, fat and sodium. This is just the tip of the dining out iceberg, and there are so many more items and options in the book. From time to time I will share more in my blogs and on our website to help you become smarter, savvier and slimmer diners! It will be an uphill battle, but if people don’t order this crap, restaurants won’t serve it! It’s almost like eating your last meal, because any one of these could just place another nail in your coffin. Sorry to be such a downer, but I’m not the one cooking this stuff, I’m not the selling it, and I’m not the one eating it … Just sayin’….
Posted by Laurie Puckett at Remmel Wellness Center, a full service wellness and chiropractic center located in beautiful St. Petersburg, Florida.
Be sure to listen to my weekly radio show beginning Monday, September 10th at 2:00 pm Eastern Time at www.LifeImprovementRadio.com for more health and wellness information and to chat with me on the topics I cover.
