Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Fate is full of fat



A recent study found that posting the caloric content of fast food does not make any difference in what people order.

Come on. If you go to a place that fries or deep-fat fries everything on the menu, it's safe to conclude that the food contains a lot of -- yes -- fat.

Double maximize the order with a gallon of sugary soft drink, three or four patties of beef, or whatever that stuff is, top it all off with mayonnaise, or some other equally fattening, oily, condiment, and in one meal you exceed the number of calories you require for a day and a half, you get a month's worth of fat, and more sodium than you can shake a salt shaker at.

The problem with this study, at least as it was explained in a newspaper, is that by "posting," fast food places mean that the numbers are available if you search long enough and with a magnifying glass.

Some franchises list nutritional details in handy take-home folders, that the staff never places in your bag. Others have them on the wall, but the letters and numbers are only visible if you have a step ladder.

What we need is something that is chewy, like meat, that tastes like meat, and that contains something that feels like fat, and something else that tastes salty but isn't. Or foods like french fries could be cooked in highly pressurized and superheated helium.

McDonald's had a non-meat hamburger a few years ago. It wasn't bad, basically because it was slathered with mayo and ketchup, and loaded with pickles, lettuce, and so on. But it disappeared quietly. No one noticed.

Is there not some method to render tofu into an ersatz hamburger, a convincing one? There's got to be a way. Soybeans are certainly less expensive than beef. Do it right and no one would know the difference.

Because, as we now know, no one looks at the ingredients or the calories.






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