Restaurants Continue To Push Unhealthy Options

Filed in archive Diet on July 27, 2006

So much for the 'eating healthy' movement. Restaurants revel in the profits made from extremely unhealthy combinations, and customers are, well, eating it up.

Although many chain restaurants and fast food institutions often advertise their healthier options such as salads, customers continue to prefer burgers, fries, and other artery-hardening, diabetes-contributing combinations.

The restaurants, hoping to appeal to consumers looking for what the industry calls 'indulgent' offerings, are promoting the consumption of copious amounts of food. And nutritionists are calling these offerings anything but healthy.

Ads for Burger King's new BK Stackers, for instance, tell customers they can supersize their hamburger to include as many as four slabs of beef, four slices of cheese and four strips of bacon. In one ad, a foreman in the BK Stacker factory yells "more meat!" at workers who try to produce a single-patty burger.

Weighing in at as much as 1,000 calories, 1,800 milligrams of sodium and a day and a half's worth of saturated fat, the BK Stackers are for people who are proud they are not eating healthy items. "It's the flame-broiled meat lovers' burger, and it's here to stay -- " no veggies allowed," reads one of the product's tag lines.

Yikes. Is there any hope of improving diets in the onslaught of these options? Or is it solely our responsibility to ignore the unhealthy temptations?

(Photo: Greasy Joe's)