Day 37 - 'Eat less,' U.S. says as fast-food chains super-size their offerings

I found a very intriguing new article in the Los Angeles Times that talks about the increase in fast food meal sizes even when the Government is encouraging us to eat less.

This week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture came out with their latest nutritional advice for all American citizens: to enjoy your food, but to eat less. However, even though we are given this advice, fast food companies are still rolling out their newest, biggest products and combos in history. According to Beth Mansfield, the spokeswoman for CKE Restaurants Inc (Carl Kramer Enterprises = CKE), "The bottom line is we're in the business of making money, and we make money off of what we sell. If we wanted to listen to the food police and sell nuts and berries and tofu burgers, we wouldn't make any money and we'd be out of business."

Interestingly, with all of these new large products appearing on fast food menus, many of the old "bad" products now look like the diet versions; like, for example the Big Mac without cheese that has a total of 540 calories.

Here are some of the proposed items and some items already on the menus:

The All-American Jack (to premiere today) from Jack-in-the-Box has about 840 calories in just the burger. If you make it a combo meal, the caloric value goes up to about 1400 calories!

Taco Bell's Beefy Crunch Burrito Meal, which includes the burrito, a side of cinnamon twists, and a medium soft drink, has about 1390 calories for the whole meal.

Carl's Jr.'s Footlong Cheeseburger (CKE) in under consideration of being offered regularly at the chain restaurant. It is a foot long burger sandwich that packs about 850 calories by itself.

With the customer expectation that meals at fast food chains should be large but inexpensive, meal combinations are prone to be large but packing well over 1500 calories! Fast food chains have countered the disapproval of their high calorie menu items by adding things like oatmeal, turkey burgers, and salads, but when customers are getting to the counter, they are still ordering the bacon double cheeseburger and other high calorie items.

Fast food chain representatives believe that the burger is a guilty pleasure to many customers. They have taken advantage of the recession by offering these guilty pleasure comfort food items at very inexpensive prices. Recently, McDonalds released their burger sales for the year 2010, saying that their sales rose about 5% over the year. Apparently, with lower incomes and more stress, people have more reasons than ever to stop in at a fast food burger joint.

One issue with making healthier foods at these fast food stores is the customer preference for the strong tastes of the food, mostly created through the super high sodium and sugar levels. It is very difficult to make food taste similar without high levels of these two ingredients.

Another driving force with fast food is the ability to offer items in combo meals. Customers will buy a meal if the item they want is in it rather than getting the item alone, even if they don't really want the sides. BUT, they will also clear their plate. So customers are eating even more than they desire simply because the price is better and it is placed in front of them. Most customers do not feel too much remorse for eating their meals. They just figure they can "work it off later."

Exercise: For my workout today, I just did a repeat workout from yesterday. I did a thirty minute bike ride on level ten and a five minute cool down. I was able to go about 7.5 miles today! I can definitely feel my legs getting stronger, but I am sore once again tonight. I'm more excited for tomorrow though… Yoga and Running Day!!

Eat: Aaron helped me think of today's food tip! If you like pancakes as much as he and I do, give your breakfast some more flavor by adding some fruit to your pancake batter. You can either add some fruit chunks; like blueberries or raspberries; or you can mash up some fruit to give the whole batter a fruity taste like with bananas. Pick out your favorite fruit next time you go to make pancakes and try adding the two together!

Relax: One thing I absolutely LOVE to do when I am "relaxing" is to bake. Since tonight was the super bowl game, my family baked up some super sized cupcake cakes and frosted them with the team colors. If you are ever just chilling out, throw on an apron and bake up a storm! It’s fun and productive without being stressful.