Since New York City requires fast-food chains to post calorie counts on their menus, you can’t exactly pretend you don’t know how unhealthy yesterday’s lunch was. But even so, the writers of “Eat This, Not That” might have some surprises for you.
As a compendium of the least and most healthy grocery items, fast-food meals, and chain restaurant plates, “Eat This, Not That” is exposing the eye-popping calorie counts in what seemed to be innocent, healthy meals.
“Most consumers believe they have a firm grasp on nutrition, and though that may be true in a perfect world, in the environs of the American chain restaurant, nothing is as it seems,” says co-author Matt Goulding.
One of Goulding’s most shocking revelations was the number of meals that he describes as, “healthy foods that aren’t. These are salads, turkey burgers, fish, and other seemingly innocent dishes that can easily carry more than 1,200 calories and 60 grams of fat.”
The salad they voted as the worst in America, for example, was TGI Friday’s Sante Fe Chopped Salad, which contains 1,800 calories.
As for the most nutrition-challenged restaurant, Goulding says that the Cheesecake Factory takes the, er, cake.
“Sadly, Cheesecake Factory has the dubious honor of holding the most ‘worst food’ titles of any other restaurant we’ve ever analyzed,” he says. “[It’s] the product of portion sizes, careless cooking, and a reluctance to provide customers with more than a few token ‘healthy’ options. Like almost any other restaurant, there are ways to eat at Cheesecake Factory and live to tell about it, but given how fraught with peril their menu is, you’ll need to bring your A-game to walk away unscathed.”
But there is a silver lining after all. Now that books like “Eat This, Not That” exist, Goulding is noticing a turn in the tide on the part of food manufacturers.
“We’ve seen small but meaningful changes across the beverage and snack market,” he says. “Ultimately, changes like these start with the consumer: As the average American seeks out healthier options in the supermarket, companies are forced to change.”
