This Is Why You’re Fat: Cheesecake Factory Edition

One of my favorite twitter people, Linda Marshall, sent me these shots from a Yahoo post and I was horrified.  I’ve done a lot of reading about the food industry this past year and one of the things I learned is that the Cheesecake Factory (among others) employs chemists and nutritionists to come up with ways to make food taste better.

David Kessler’s brilliant book, “The End of Overeating,” talks about the layering of flavors; fat, salt and sugar.  Basically the more layers you can get of the three the better.  The  Cheesecake Factory has been better than most at implementing this idea which has resulted in the following …

I can’t even fathom 2,800+ calories in one meal.  I wonder how many people a day polish this off without even thinking about it.  You’re average 175 pound male needs about 2,300 calories per day to maintain his weight, this is blasting past this by 1/4 of a pound and we’re not even talking about drinks or bread sticks!

What is even worse, and frankly reprehensible, is the children’s dish …

Seriously?  More calories than 40 Chicken McNuggets!  My head is reeling.  Why do they think this ok?  I’m sure the vast majority of people eating these dishes wouldn’t come close to being accurate about the calories they’re ingesting.

So thanks Linda for letting me know and please spread the word about these awful dishes.  This is a perfect example of food industry greed over the welfare of the community they serve.