NutritionDoc

Back in the day, choosing a dessert from the menu was tough. Did you want cake or pie or ice c ream or cheesecake? Today, you do not have to bother picking one dessert over another. Restaurants simply pile one on top of the other for you.

 

Take The Cheesecake Factory Chris's Outrageous Chocolate Caked. The "Cheesecake Factory Original" has "layers of moist chocolate cake, chewy brownie, toasted c oconut pecan filling, and creamy chocolate chip coconut cheesecake". And they are not thin layers, either. Each 5 inch high slice weighs 3/4 of a pound.

 

Speaking of pounds, that slice has 1380 calories and 32 teaspoons of sugar - quite reasonable for 4 desserts. And by the time you hit the exit, your arteries are the proud possessors of 33 grams of sat fat and 5 grams of trans fat they did not have when you walked in.

 

It is as though you had ordered 2 Quarter Pounders plus a large fries for dessert.

Lasagna was never what you would call a lean entree. With ground beef, ricotta and mozzarella cheese, pasta, and tomato sauce, a typical restaurant portion delivers roughly 100 calories, 20 grams of sat fat and 2000 mg of sodium.

 

But some restaurants have beefed up the already heavy dish. At Romano's Macaroni Grill, the result is Twice Baked Lasagna with Meatballs - " six layers of tender pasta stuffed with seasoned meatballs, three cheeses and Bolognese sauce."

 

Stuffed with 1360 calories,38 grams of sat fat, and 3900 mg of sodium, that is. Never mind that the dish is worse than 5 pork chops. Or that the numbers do not include the bread that comes on the side.

 

Why stop there? Maybe next year, some enterprising Italian restaurant will offer up a LaFredo Pie - lasagna with meatballs on a bed of fetuccine alfredo, all sitting atop a sausage & pepperoni pizza.

Two huge hamburger patties, a three section bun, and melted American and Monterey Jack cheese, all piled so high that it comes to the tabled with a steak knife plunged thru the middle.

 

Meet the Ruby Tuesday Colossal Burger. Its 1940 calories vacuum up your 2000 calorie daily target. And that does not include the sauce or the fries that come on the side.

 

The burger delivers 141 grams of fat. How much of it is the bad kind the company won't say. And it is also mum about sodium. But since most of the Colossal's fat comes from its beef and cheese, odds are that  between 50 and 75 of its fat grams would make your heart shudder.

 

Working thru a Colossal Burger is like eating 4 or 5 McDonald's Quarter Pounders.  Ruby's other burgers are bad enough, with roughly 1000 to 1300 calories each. Even the Veggie Burger tops 900. But the Colossal seems like a dare: can you finish one without needing a paramedic?

Soy is gaining traction in the snack aisle. And even though the evidence that soy prevents heart disease or cancer is shrinking, soy still adds protein to salty snacks, which are otherwise a nutritional wasteland.

 

That makes snacks like Quaker Soy Crispes worth a look. A 1 oz 120 calorie serving ( 18 crispes) has 6 to 7 grams of protein. But like most soy snacks, they are high in sodium (270 mg for the White cheddar; 400 mg for the Barbeque). 

Genisoy Soy Crisps are in the same ballpark, while Michael Season's Original Soy Protein Chips dedliver 12 grams of protein and 220 mg of sodium.

Ruffles Light chips have "1/2 the calories of regular potato chips". But saving 70 or 80 calories per serving is not reason enough to buy them.

 

All of Frito Lay's Lights (Ruffles, Lays, Doritos, and Tostitos) are made with Olean (olestra), a fake fat that passes right thru your digestive system, taking fat soluble vitamins with it.  Worse, olestra laden chips can cause severe cramps, bloating and a kind of "leakage" that I am not about to explain in greater detail.

 

Why run the risk , like you do with the lights. Instead of the usual 160 calories per ounce, reduced fats and bakeds clock in at around 120 to 140. But at least you will not need to make sure you are within sprintging distance of a bathroom.

 

If you want baked chips, try Kettle Bakes ( actual slices of potato) or Baked Lay's or Ruffles.  Just don't assume that baked chips are the equivalent of baby carrots and clementines. White potatoes are not the healthiest vegetable, no matter how you slice them.

There is no shortage of Lightly Salted and Unsalted chips in the snack aisle. Andy any drop in salt is welcome, what with our national high blood pressure epidemic .

 

But the not so dirty little secret about potato chips is that they taste saltier than they are. If you stick with regular chips, you can get away with  about 200 mg of sodium. Just be careful if you are a fan of flavors like Salt n Vinegar, Sea Salt, or Barbecue, which can hit 300 plus mg.

 

Of course, I am talking 1 oz.  - just 15 regular size chips or so. As the number of handfuls rises, so does the mercury in the blood pressure meter.

 

If you can not seem to stop at an ounce, there is no harm in switching to lighly salted chips, which hover around 100 mg of sodium. You probably will not taste the difference.

 

In contrast, most taste buds will be a bit disappointed with unsalted chips. But if you are counting every mg of sodium, try Terra Unsalted Lemon Pepper orf Michael Season's Unsalted Reduced Fat. If not, look for the lowest sodium regular or lightly salted chips you can find and save your serious salt cutting efforts for pretzels.

No one expects  cheesecake to be good for their waistline, hips or arteries. It is a splurge no matter how (thin) you slice it.  But at some restaurants, it is a colossal splurge.

 

The Cheesecake Factory Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake, ( apparently ordinary cheesecake or Godiva chocolate is not enough for dessert these days). Few foods are more calorie dense than the cream cheese, chocolate, cream, and butter in this doozy of a dessert. That is why each slice packs 980 calories - half of what most people should eat in a day.

 

Is there anyone left in the US who can affored to eat a slice of c ake with close to 1,000 calories and with 41 grams of bad fat? It is like ordering a Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pepperoni Pizza - topped with 10 pats of butter - after dinner.

 

But, then, heavy is what cheesecake is all about. Odds are, you won't exactly float out of the restaurant after a slice even if you ordered nothing but a tossed green salad or a bowl of edameme for dinner.  Fortunately, most people do not end up in a Cheesecake Factory that often. Good thing . . . or they would need a chain of Liposuction Factories next door.