Check out this slide show:
http://www.slideshare.net/webtel/americas-20-worst-restaurant-meals/%20-%2065k%20
Those are some ghastly numbers! I checked the figures on the McDonald’s premium chicken (the first item) and those numbers are correct according to McDonald’s nutrition page on their website.
A lot of fast food restaurants and others now put nutrition info on their websites. I will sometimes check those out when going to a new place so I know what they’ve got and if it’s edible.
Susan
My diet allows for a total of 35gms fat/day, no more than 15gms can be saturated fats. Only 1 gm of sodium/day. Over the years of being on this diet, 20+, I found that many fast-food places that have nutritional info posted often have inaccurate information and when new testing is done the numbers often go up. I do know where every Subway is in the States, it’s how I judge distance 
Just last week down in NC I munched on a veggie sub from Subway at a Sonic drive-in while my wife had a burger, onion rings(her favorite) and some kind of milkshake thingy.
You call those places “restaurant”?
Call them what you will–that wasn’t the point.
Susan
It always makes me laugh when people go to those kind of places, eat that kind of food and then order a diet coke with it…
ok, of all those, I have eaten at Macaroni grill (I never get “spagetti” however) and Chipoltle. The burritos at Chipoltle make me at least 2 meals, maybe 3.
Though a known American, I never go to fast food joints.
I went to an Outback once. It’s a corporate restaurant and its decent. That’s it for me and the list. No quiero Taco Bell. I have never been in a Quiznos because the name bothers me – too mysterious.. I have a similar revulsion toward Jamba Juice and all that “protein shot” nonsense. And, after 40, nobody should be eatin’ pancakes, fercrynoutloud. The dessert looked yucky. And since the worse thing about a French fry is when it goes soggy, I can’t imagine smothering it in cheese.
I don’t care for burgers much, though I do make them at home with my Dad’s beef, so I know where it came from, etc. It’s just a boring kind of sandwich to my way of thinkin. Not enough tradeoff for all the calories and fat, tastewise.
I prefer Lamburgers… yum…ground lamb is awesome.
I like goat better than lamies. 
It’s hard to find resturants along the beaten path(interstates) that carry items like that on their menus. That’s the only time we use fast-food. And more often than not we carry our food with us. I suspect some of this high fat stuff started as far back as when the US started making it illegal to sell wild game at the turn of the 20th century.
What, no chicken fried bacon with gravy?
Ah, goat. A strong flavored meat that pairs well with heavy spices. My two faves: goat curry and birria, a Mexican dish similar to steak ranchero, simmered in lotsa chilis, onions, cumin etc…
The Weekender, having an early-life dairy allergy that was almost fatal, was nourished on goat milk for some time (an eternity according to my older sisters who hated the smell). Thus, I am quite partial to goats, alive or on the dinner plate. They have rectangular irises, a little trick played by your Deity/Creator of choice. And there is one breed that has no external ears, also a very striking feature.
The reason that we eat beef the way we do is that it has historically been the right-sized animal, reasonably easy to raise and control, providing maximum meat, agreeable to the most palates. Using past methods, we have been able to fatten em up and feed the country if not the world with it, but trends are changing because of economic and environmental realites.
Since the health trends of the last decade or two, the fat content in beef has gone down. To my way of thinking, taking the marbled fat out of beef reduces the value of the meat in terms of what we expect of it. In other words, other lean meats offer more flavor than lean beef and endanger its status. I love meats like venison and elk, even bear, because they have a more interesting flavor than beef in LEAN form.
Beefsteak, per se, was once a luxury, and now has become one again after sort of a halcyon period in American life. Prior to that, people usually stewed tougher, leaner beef, like what you get from longhorns, the original cattle brought to the West and Latin America. We’re going back that way. People are getting really good at cooking transitionally-tough cuts, like brisket and London broil because most can’t afford or justify steaks and prime roasts these days.
But it remains a superior source of protein, vitamins, etc. Go anywhere in the world where it’s a staple and the people grow with vigor, especially in Africa. Beef-eating people in Africa tower over their neighbors, that’s for sure. My Californio ancestors ate lean, grass-fed beef up to three times a day and if you delve into personal histories, you will find quite a bit of longevity and vigor. Beef gets a bad rap these days and its important to take a balanced view of its merits, including impact on the planet versus health benefits. Too many people dismiss it ignorantly.
What was this thread about?? Oh yeah, fast food… Sorry.
I’m outraged by Weekenders attack on Taco Bell when none of their items made the slideshow/list! 
I love Taco Bell, and you can get decent meals low on calories and fat there. The plain old taco is tasty and low cal, and a bean burrito isn’t too bad for you either. They also will remove cheese and sour cream (their “fresco” style) which lowers calories and fat even more. That said, I’m sure there are some terrible items available at Taco Bell as well.
I think the common element to nearly every item in the slideshow is size. Who really needs a 20 oz. steak along with what looks like a 1/2 pound potato and a side salad?
This trend towards food giganticism is a huge problem in America…if you split most of these items into halves or thirds they’re not nearly so bad for you.
Eric
Man, I don’t know what kind of oil Tayco Bell uses on their chips and taco shells, but it tastes weird. Compare a Mission chip with a TB chip and you’ll see what I mean. Sorry, maybe you have an extraordinary TB in your 'hood, but I have never liked anything I got there. Their basic taco would be okay, were it not for the aftertaste of the shell. And don’t forget, most pre-shredded cheese has cellulose added to keep it from clumping… in other words, sawdust added for the preparer’s convenience.
Although I really do like Taco Bell (it’s one of the few fast food places I really like), it’s in no way Mexican and I consider it it’s own food style. Then again, I liked school lunch (we had the cafeteria in my school so it wasn’t made elsewhere and shipped in) and still have a fondness for “bad” foods like cheap frozen pizzas and even ramen noodles.
Have you been back recently to a Taco Bell? Ours doesn’t have funky oil - the shells taste normal…either that or I’ve developed a taste-bud immunity to the taste or perhaps they’ve changed oil since you were last there.
Your discussion on beef was interesting. I grew up with a grandfather who raised hogs, tobacco and always had a few cattle so the family always had beef. I had lots of steaks growing up, but also lots of “mystery” cuts of meats my mother stewed, hid in cheese sauce, and/or disguised in other manners. I still shiver when I think of beef tongue and heart. True KC barbeque, on the other hand, is the savior of tough cuts of beef!
Eric
Weeks you are so right about beef. Not the beef from a store, raised in feedlots, shot full of who knows what either while still on the hoof or after, but , grassfed beef that YOU raise. Interesting about beef for three meals a day…makes me think of grandaddy who ate beef at least once every day and made it to 92- that’s 92 and still actively farming.
With the amount of flat-out hard work that farmers used to do, I suspect that they could have eaten pretty much anything they wanted to and gotten away with it. My family, farmers for generations, ate everything that the food experts consider bad for you, and until my lazy generation slouched its way onto the scene, had virtually no incidence of heart disease. It ain’t just the fast foods that are doing us in, it’s inactivity.
I’m kind of surprised that Chipotle showed up. But I guess it is a matter of sheer volume. Thing is, I get a burrito which contains the following: rice, black beans, tomato salsa, guacamole, and lettuce. I realize that avocados are an oily fruit…but how bad can that combo be? I wonder how much the chicken adds to the overall calorie total?
Right you are my man, right you are.
I see it every day. The effects of the desk job, the 50 hour + work week, lack of vacation time, television and video games has done far more damage than all the crap we eat (although that’s now killing us too): Regardless of how you believe we arrived on this planet in our current form, we are optimized biologically and biomechanically to be hunters and gatherers. These bodies simply were not designed for 14 hours+ a day of sitting and/or lying around.
Move it or lose, as they say.
Loren
If I moved it a little more, I would probably lose a little more. 
Must …never…eat…Chipolte…again!
KAC