3,120 calories. 1 dish. Not a stunt. Guess the restaurant chain that offers it.

[n2doc]

By Lisa Baertlein
Wed Jan 16, 2013 5:18am EST
(Reuters) - A Cheesecake Factory pasta dish with 3,120 calories - or more than a day and a half of the recommended caloric intake for an average adult - is among the headliners on this year's Xtreme Eating list of the most unhealthy dishes at U.S. chain restaurants.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer-focused nonprofit group that promotes healthier eating, compiles an annual list of "food porn" to alert consumers to menu items with eye-popping levels of calories, saturated fat, sugar and/or sodium.

"You'd think that the size of their profits depended on their increasing the size of your pants," CSPI Executive Director Michael Jacobson said of the industry's Xtreme Eating winners. The list was released on Wednesday.

The Cheesecake Factory's Bistro Shrimp Pasta, made with a butter and cream sauce and topped with battered, fried shrimp, also contains a 89 grams of saturated fat and 1,090 milligrams of sodium. CSPI said it confirmed the nutritional data with the companies on the list.


more
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/16/us-restaurants-obesity-idUSBRE90F0IT20130116

[tblue]

1. You have to split it.

Cheesecake Factory gives you way too much food. It's kinda gross really. Too much is too much.

[dsc]

2. but it has brocolli

[darkangel218]

4. lol!

Seriously though, ill rather have leftovers to take home. Some places like Dave and Busters don't give you enough food , they serve kids portions.

[MineralMan]

3. Many pasta dishes are high in calories.

That one includes breaded fried shrimp, which add measurably to the calorie count. the cream and butter sauce is another high calorie ingredient.

Pasta dishes, especially those with lots of white sauce, are always high in calories. Cream and butter. On the other hand, making such dishes at home is also providing more calories than you may expect.

The recipe for Alfredo sauce, for example, shows just why such pasta dishes are high calorie.

On the other hand, they're also delicious. Tough decisions. I wouldn't eat that dish from that restaurant, though. It would be better with simple sauteed shrimp and less of the cream and butter sauce.

[hollysmom]

5. this vaguely reminds me of the guilt of making tarragon hollandaise sauce

1/2 a pound of butter and two people could eat it. I remember making the sauce and going back to get the rest of dinner and when I got back to the dining room, it was all eaten by my best friend and husband with nothing left for me. I think that was probably a good thing.

[Xithras]

6. Lol. I just ate that a few weeks ago.

Stopped at the CF in Sacto after I dropped my daughter back off at college. I couldn't eat it in one sitting. I ate about half of it, and the other half went home in a to-go box. It is, however, very very delicious.

FWIW, the Cheesecake Factory is all about overindulgence. I don't hold this kind of thing against them the way I would many other chains, simply because I've never met ANYBODY who actually eats there on a regular basis (and really, who could afford to?) Eating those kinds of calories regularly will kill you. Having the occasional CF meal every few months or so? Not such a big deal to me.

I have a MUCH bigger problem with fast food chains churning out calorie monsters, simply because it's cheap and so many people eat that kind of crap regularly. An $8 2000 calorie Jack in the Box Bacon Sirloin Burger meal that you can order from a drive through is going to be eaten far more often than any $20+ 3000 calorie Cheesecake Factory plateful of gastronomic largesse.

[sharp_stick]

7. I think it was the Cheescake Factory

several years ago where I made the mistake of ordering something called Chicken-Mushroom-Chicken

It was deep fried battered chicken with deep fried battered mushrooms and mashed potatoes all covered in a cream gravy.

Now I love fried food but this was too much even for me. My girlfriend started laughing when the waitress asked if I wanted any desert.