I’m back on a health kick where I try and eat healthy and lose some weight and be able to climb stairs without wheezing and live long enough to see my kids finish high school. Again. (shaddup)
So anyway, I’ve been reading a ton of nutritional data on various things. And of course, eating at home has the most potential for eating healthy, as long as you aren’t frying everything. Eating out is certainly convenient in that you don’t have to do the dishes after.
They say that portion sizes have grown tremendously over the years. Remember when we were young, (okay, when I was young), and you got a burger and fries and a drink and you had to (gasp) pay extra if you wanted another drink? There wasn’t a labor-saving soda fountain just waiting for you to top off your 64 oz. mega soda a couple times a meal? Even Jesus has had his Last Supper super-sized.
Burgers were smaller (I call them “wimpy burgers” now, after the dude on Popeye that was always wanting a Burger Bailout, he could pretty much wolf one in a bite or two). Drinks were ten, maybe twelve ounces. Chicken was not on the menu, usually, nor was salad.
Anyway, that’s not the point of this rambling. Okay, part of it.
Way back when everything was in black and white and mastadons roamed the earth, a common meal would be burger, fries, and a shake. Quick, delicious (usually) and filling.
Guess what? They are really getting filling now.
Just for grins I looked at several fast food places to see what a burger, fries, and shake would run you, calorie-wise. This was inspired because I ate at Chili’s the other day and had a yummy burger and looked it up after the fact and realized it was over 1,500 calories, and that was without the shake. By the way, it is really really easy to find nutrition info, so there’s no excuse to be like me and just think “that doesn’t look too big.”
Forewarned is forearmed, so here ya go:
McDonalds QP with cheese plus medium fries and shake? 1470 calories. Supersize it and you’ll gain another 700. The shake on this meal (and all of them listed here) is at least a third of the total.
Whataburger? Sorry, a whataburger, fries and shake set you back 2100 calories and 32.5 grams of saturated fat (out of the 20 grams of saturated fat you are supposed to have in a day. By the way, every single meal I’m talking about goes over that little nutritional threshhold).
Burger King’s whopper + fries + shake is 1760, splitting between Micky D’s and Whataburger. At this point I’d like to say that yes, some of you don’t have a Whataburger, but we do and they are awesome, aside from the belt-stretching side-effects, so that’s why they are listed here.
Wendy’s? Not too bad, 1350 calories for the Big Three and that’s AFTER putting cheese on the 1/4 pound single, leave that off and you save 70 calories. A single slice of cheese. Mmmm… cheese.
Just for fun, here’s Chili’s. I know they don’t have a drive thru but they are almost as fast as any of the others if you call ahead:
Oldtimer with cheese, shake and fries: a cool 2000 calories. Better than a The King.
(footnote: Dairy Queen, estranged ex of the Burger King, who until recently was quite proud of their “Beltbuster” but seems to have purged it from their menu, has a 1/4 burger, shake and fries for 1630 calories and 27 grams of saturated fat)
And now I’m all hungry.
