Deplorable Dining

Read Time:3 Minute, 52 Second

Alternet strikes again with another great post. This time with an article entitled “Five Fast Foods That Never Should Have Been Invented” [liberally edited].

Obesity and body image have become a much discussed topic here at MMA. If you wonder why so many Americans, and American children, are extremely obese (and you probably don’t), here’s a stomach-churning article that may partially shed light on this trend.

Unfortunately, no fried Twinkies were harmed in this post, so I’m including a yummy photo of fried Twinkies and and funnel cake (essentially fried dough, usually eaten with butter and sugar…) below.


If it feels as though you’ve read this story before, that’s because there is an endless supply of information about the horrifying things that pass for food these days. And so the cataloging continues. Kitchens have sadly been replaced with scientific laboratories and it is starting to seem that the American public is one big test animal.

  1. Breakfast of Losers: It’s a death trap masquerading as breakfast—Friendly’s Caramel Cinnamon Swirl French Toast. “This meal consists of a cinnamon roll split and stuffed with cream cheese and ice cream and topped off with whipped cream and hot caramel,” writes Men’s Health. The total calorie count comes in at 2,090, more than a day’s worth of calories, with 57 grams of fat (28 saturated) and 214 grams of sugar.

  2. Bigger Is Not Better: Starbucks apparently decided to compete with the Big Gulp. Goodbye sophisticated thimble of espresso and hello Trenta. Dillon Sorenson writes for Culture Map, “Currently, Starbucks offers three sizes: Tall (354 mL), Grande (473 mL), and Venti (591 mL). And beginning May 3rd, [there’s the] new 916 mL Trenta size… an average bottle of wine is 750 mL, the average capacity of the human stomach is 900 mL.”
  3. POTUS with Sauce: Der Spiegel reports that the German company Sprehe, hoping to jump on the Obama-mania train (which clearly has already left the station) launched Obama Fingers. These are frozen fried chicken fingers that come with a curry dipping sauce.

    Fried chicken has long been associated with African-Americans in the US—naming strips of fried chicken after the first black president could cause some furrowing of brows. [Judith Witting, sales manager for Sprehe] stated the connection never occurred to her. “It was supposed to be a homage to the American lifestyle and the new US president.” A great homage to the U.S. by conjuring frozen foods with racist overtones. [Ya think?]

     

  4. Leave the Hybrids to Toyota: [Double delight!] First, The Uno Chicago Grill Lobster BLT Thin Crust Pizzathrows so many things together that simply do not belong on the same plate for a total of 1,530 calories.

    The prepackaged Lasagne Sandwich from UK’s Tesco. is a fat medley containing, “two thick slices of bread and a filling of diced beef in a tomato and herb sauce layered with cooked pasta sheets and a creamy cheddar, ricotta, and mayonnaise dressing… the mayonnaise is really a nice touch.”

  5. It Gets Worse: What will fast food companies think up next? Many border on criminal for unhealthy slop. It’s really the customers about whom we should be most concerned. I used to think a meal of feedlot meat slathered in high fat sauces and deep-fried sides took the cake until the “Fast Food Super Stack” was born.

    First stop: McDonald’s for a dollar McDouble. Next, Wendy’s: five chicken nuggets for $1.29. For $1.19, Taco Bell, there was the new Chicken Flatbread Sandwich. The entire trip took 15 minutes at this point. A final stop at Burger King Whopper [the author] bought onion rings and a Diet Coke.

    After receiving the [the author] assembled a sandwich using the McDouble and the Whopper as the top and bottom of the sandwich, then added the Chicken Flatbread and Wendy’s nuggets in the middle, and planned to eat onion rings on the side. To do it up big, [the author] added those into the sandwich. With no onion rings to eat on the side, [the author] poured ranch sauce on the Wendy’s nuggets and Burger King onto the sandwich.

    “Taste-wise the sandwich was pretty good.” This artery-clogging monstrosity weighed in at a whopping 2,170 calories and 133 grams of fat, which is horrific, but only a few calories more than Friendly’s Caramel Cinnamon Swirl French Toast, which didn’t even come close to the Super Stack’s 83 grams of protein.

Who is stupider: the consumers who keep buying this stuff or the companies who dream up new ways to combine as much sugar, salt and fat into even more outrageous proportions?

About Post Author

Dorothy Anderson

I want to know what you think and why, especially if we disagree. Civil discourse is free speech: practice daily. Always question your perspective.
Happy
Happy
0 %
Sad
Sad
0 %
Excited
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
Angry
0 %
Surprise
Surprise
0 %
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of

8 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
oso
13 years ago

Stella,
In Boise there’s a thing called a Donutburger. Huge glazed donut cut in half, a chocolate donut with lemon and strawberry syrup drizzed all over in the middle. Looks like a hamburger. I ate part of a donutburger once and I haven’t quite been the same since.

13 years ago

We’re traveling to Italy later this year, and have been watching a number of cooking & other shows focusing on Italian cuisine. My husband asked how the Italians can eat so many courses and still stay slimmer (in general) than we Americans. Well, says I, do you see their portions? A little thin salumi, small antipasti, handful of pasta noodles with a dollop of sauce, a few small pieces of braised meat. Slowly prepared, slowly eaten, with friends if possible. It’s not “Man vs Food”, where some dolt tackles a dish like the Breakfast of Losers, above. ~ At home, we use grandma’s old dishes as one of our everyday sets, and it’s surprising how much smaller the plates, bowls, cups are than today’s version…
What’s frightening is the SERIOUSLY overweight/obese kids I see who are walking around still eating a lot of crap. They’ll suffer a lot of major health problems… I swear there’s a segment of the population of folks “running things” who want as many of us as possible in sugar/carb stupors….

13 years ago

I feel like I need a Tums after just reading this. UGH.

Jess, I loathe coffee. Like the smell, but the flavor is vile. I am in the distinct minority everywhere because of this. I knew a guy who drank ten cups every morning, and Krell knows someone even worse.

My chickens don’t have nuggets unless you count that black deposit they occasionally leave on the doorstep after eating all the cat kibble. Probably best with the honey-musturd sauce.

Jess
Reply to  Mother Hen
13 years ago

Oh and see I hate the smell. It just smells really bad to me, I actually get headaches when I go into coffee shops or bookstores that have coffee places. I tell my husband all the time, he needs to find himself a coffee maker with a lid that has a fan to take the smell away. So far we have found nothing like it, so he will turn on the fan above the stove in the morning and move his coffee pot under it.

Jess
13 years ago

Half, if not more, of these foods would leave me in some kind of diabetic coma just looking at them. That and all the bread with the gluten for me, I wouldn’t survive it. Really, you need that much coffee to start your day. Again, not a coffee drinker and have never tasted it, I prefer teas since coffee stinks to high heaven for me, so maybe I have no business talking about sizes of coffee cups. But damn, REALLY you need that much coffee to wake yer ass up in the morning? oops did it again.

Um when did chickens start getting fingers anyway? I may have to leave this to Krell and the lovely MH to answer that query. Same thing as nuggets, never seen a chicken had nuggets.

I think it is MCD that just introduced a 50 piece chicken nugget bucket, damn just throw a feed bucket around your neck why don’t you. That is like a chicken and three wings or something if we(meaning me) are keeping count. That is truly horrifying to me, that people could eat this much.

Stella by Starlight
Reply to  Jess
13 years ago

Jess, in New England, people developed a stomach-churning delicacy called “fried dough.” [Or fried throw.] It’s a huge glob of some indistinguishable donut-type concoction, dumped into a deep fryer, then sugared and buttered liberally. One bite, and I was looking for the nearest toilet to kneel by. Anyone who eats this stuff must want to commit suicide, I could go on, but you knew that already.

The only real problem with the Trenta cup is that the coffee inside is Charbucks. If it were good coffee, I might just consider giving it a try. (How did you know I used to need that much coffee to get me up in the morning?) 🙂 Did you say tea? Try http://www.chadotea.com. They have over 220 types of amazing tea.

So, who’s more stupid, the manufacturer or the consumer? I put my money on the consumer. It’s not only horrifying that most Americans eat this much, it’s also alarming and that they eat these foods and actually enjoy them.

What pisses me off the most is knowing that food stamps are accepted at these places. Kinda makes me wonder where the profits are going.

Jess
Reply to  Stella by Starlight
13 years ago

Thanks for the site. I drink the Numi brand for the most part. I’ve been drinking a really nice lemongrass, ginger one lately. Fair trade, organic, environmentally sound as far as how they package and so on, things very important to me.

Here’s that site in case anyone is interested in getting info. Safeway carries it in the coffee/tea aisle.
http://www.numitea.com/Green-Tea/c/NumiTea@Teabag@Green

It is the advertising you know, buy this and you will have orgasms in the shower type ads that get people hooked. If you can reach enough people in 30 seconds or less, you have it made. Wow, did you really need that much coffee in the morning? That seems like a lot of caffeine, to put in the body. Then you add the sugar and cream people need for taste and all that adds up.

Oh you ask where the profit is going for foodstamps. Well, well well, do I have an answer for you. You may not believe me but it is true, Goldman Sacks gets a cut from the foodstamp budget for every recipient in about 20+ states if I recall correctly. Notice the last few years, they helped screw up the economy in turn getting a bail out, then with the financial crisis, more people on foodstamps so they make out like bandits either way. It’s a big business for them according to one of their execs. Probably the VP of pink wiggly things, or something that should be titled like that. Here is the link, so we all know I am not pulling fundy facts out of my butt and am using my liberal elitist brain.

http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/jpmorgan-gets-rich-off-foodstamps/question-1465585/

13 years ago

Caramel Cinnamon Swirl French Toast? For breakfast? What a way to start the day. Even with my sweet tooth, I couldn’t stomach that as a breakfast.

Previous post Lady Gaga’s New Song is Controversial. What a Surprise
Next post Think your job sucks?
8
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x