Eating Out Tonight!

"Pancakes with syrup or cheeseburgers are never a health food, but it seems like The Cheesecake Factory, Chili's and other chains are trying to outdo each other to make them worse."
"Although the 2019 Xteme Eating winners are nutritional nightmares, plenty of other dishes are as bad or worse."
"The good news is that all chains with twenty or more outlets are now required to list calories on menus and menu boards, and expanded nutritional information upon request."
Lindsay Moyer, senior nutritionist, Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI)

Well, as questions go, this is rather naive, but who, shopping for a calorie-dense, nutrition-absent treat would be interested to begin with in scrutinizing that nutritional information? Unless they're feeling deliberately masochistic, that is. People are drawn to the pure and rather insane allure of over-sweetened, -salted, -oily taste and texture of these folksy gourmet delights, having shed a sense of guilt, and prepared to indulge and that's the truth of it.

It is rather mind-boggling, in actual fact, that three of the Cheesecake Factory's Cinnamon Roll Pancakes contain 2,040 calories'-worth of brown sugar, white flour, icing and syrup infused with butter. What a treat! Although anyone sitting down to this special breakfast/lunch/dinner-all-in-one special might wish to think hard and deep that the ingredients and the calories contained within are the equivalent of 11 Crispy Creme Original Glazed Doughnuts....

So then let's get down to the serious business of meat-on-a-bun. Would you prefer a variety of sliced processed meats or would you go for three McDonald's Triple Cheeseburgers along with an order of large fries, or might you be intrigued with its caloric equivalent at Chili's where you can order The Boss Burger, accompanied with fries and pickles. "Smoked brisket, rib meat, jalapeno-cheddar smoked sausage, bacon, cheddar, lettuce, tomato, house BBQ & house-made ranch. We.Dare.You."
Well, dare to be bold and do it often enough and you can join the prestigious ranks of the 70 percent of U.S. overweight adults, edging toward obesity. The choice, dear consumer, is yours, all yours!

And not to be outdone, there's an oversized sub at Jimmy John's Giant Gargantuan stuffed with luncheon meats; salami, capicola, turkey, roast beef and ham, along with provolone cheese, onion, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, oil and vinegar all stuffed into that sub whose 7,720 mg of sodium and saturated fat (29 g) is a guarantee you'll walk out of the experience feeling, um, full and smacking your greasy lips with satisfaction, wondering how you'll top that one when dinner rolls around, since you've just finished with lunch...?

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And if you're feeling really thirsty, how about giving a really great milkshake a try, and if you really like it, it can become a regular treat. That's where Sonic's Oreo Peanut Butter Master Shake takes a bow and a curtsy. It has a day's value of added sugar (62 g) for a large shake -- about a litre at 32 oz -- containing enough saturated fat (48 g) to represent two and a half days' worth. But think about how delish it'll taste to the appreciative tongue, with its topping of whipped cream, and a bright, red cherry.

Oh, there's more, there's always more as specialty purveyors of peoples' favourite taste sensations do public relations adverts and study people's tastes and psychological frailties over denying themselves the unalloyed sensuous pleasure of eating the forbidden; processed food in excess of common sense, forgetting moderation in the temptation to feel good because let's face it, eating is such a pleasure, all the more so when taste-bud-sensational cautions of salt, sugar and fat intake beyond the sensible will inevitably result in excess weight, all he more so as we grow older and no more wiser.

And who can resist waffles? And then there are fascinating combinations most people would likely never think of. Take that old favourite chicken, and pair it with waffles and you've got -- wait for it -- “We’re bringing in better ingredients and the best chefs to craft craveability that you’ll only find at Dave & Buster’s", boasts the arcade and sports bar’s menu of their Chicken & Waffle Sliders.  In which white flour, sugar and "better" ingredients produce fried chicken, bacon, mini-Belgian waffles, maple syrup and tater tots to the value of only 2,340 calories! Its less preciously- tantalizing equivalent? 8 Eggo waffles, 8 Jimmy Dean pork sausage patties, with 1/2 cup of maple syrup. Yum!