I don't care if they'll kill me; I will eat the heck out of those cheese fries, and I will fight anyone who tries to stop me.

Brilliant spin on an old topic. I can't *wait* for when they start putting nutritional info on the menus. People will be too embarrassed to order most of this crap!

My heart hurts from reading that.

@caelanarcher: In my case, the only person who'd try to stop me... is my arteries. =D

Every time I eat at Outback I can hear my heart screaming, "WHAT DID I DO TO YOOOU!?"

"those buzzkills at Time published this mouth-watering article about the massive caloric content of fast food."

HAHAHA. I love the writers at this site. Such funny ways of wording everything ;)

The salad comes in one of those crispy bowls-you-can-eat, so you can probably cram everything in there and eat it like an enormous, sloppy, cupcake.

This line nearly made me spit coffee all over my computer screen.

You get rickets from vitamin D deficiency, and you can get vit. D from the sun, so just sit outside while you're eating and you're good to go on that.

This sounds like the Dethklok diet. Just eat one really big meal a day right before you go to sleep so all your body has to do is digest it. And popscockles.

[www.adultswim.com]

This always sparks a huge debate, for some reason, but I actually see the value to this. We have warnings on everything nowadays, and usually the warnings are completely superfluous and unnecessary. However with fast food in particular, there's so many "flavor enhancers", hydrogenated oils, palm oils, lots of sneaky calories which are sometimes pretty shocking. I think when people genuinely try to eat healthy, but may just not be as informed as those of us who just avoid fast food altogether, they get kind of tricked into thinking the 1,500 calorie salad they're eating is going to help them lose weight. They often use words like "fresh" or "low carb" which have healthy connotations despite the foods themselves being very unhealthy. Sneaky marketing should be battled with information. Maybe requiring the calories to be directly on the menu is a little bit harsh, but the information should be freely available (as in, you can get to it without having to ask the underpaid teenager who probably has no clue what you're asking about).

I think it's a great idea. Eating out for me involves a lot of research ahead of time so that I know what to order when I get there. Having the numbers on the menu would mean I could eat out more often which can only be good for the restaurant business, no?

@Mary Marsala with Fries: Speak for yourself. I love a double Whopper. I don't care how many calories are in it. Guess what? I also eat Hungry Man frozen meals for lunch. They have over 1000 mg of sodium in them. Woo-hoo! I don't care.

I don't even care, that Applebee's Quesadilla Burger looks delicious.

@VA_White: Until you realize that just about every item on the menu is ridiculously unhealthy for you because even things that should be healthy are cooked in butter and all kind of other crap to make it taste better.

Yeah, you have to watch out for those shakes. Why, if it wasn't for them, Morgan Spurlok would still be a unknown mockumentary maker, instead of the source of many peoples "scientific" knowledge.

Doonesbury made this joke too (June 9):

[www.doonesbury.com]

I wish this myth of a 2,000 calorie diet would just die. I haven't had a 2,000 calorie daily requirement since I was about 8 years old. The only people who could live on 2,000 calories a day without losing massive amounts of weight are those who are under 90 pounds. Last time I ran the numbers I require more like 3,000 calories a day.

@Mary Marsala with Fries:
Really? You think the most obese nation in the world cares that much about calories?

This is silly. I lost 40 pounds eating McDonalds everyday. You just need to watch what you eat. A triple whopper is obviously extremely unhealthy but most fast food offerings aren't that extreme.

@Mary Marsala with Fries: Exactly. The calorie counts will be just like warning labels on cigarette packs. Look how effective those have been!

@Alex Chasick: And its cold-blooded protein content is reportedly very low.

Also, don't forget about other benefits, like having to safe significantly less for retirement. Yay disposable income!

Friends don't let friends eat triple whoppers and then play WoW. If we wipe due to your grease-induced coma heads are gonna roll.

(Brought to you by D.E.H.T.A.)

Eat just a cheeseburger, no bun, and you'll be fine. Even a double cheeseburger. And a club soda, coffee, or unsweetened tea.

@Eric1285: 2,000 is for the active, sedentary person. I'm fairly active and if I eat under 3,000 I get hunger rage.

@Alpine75: Was that from all the vomiting? Hee! Only joshing.

@lpranal: INactive, sedentary. I think I just described someone who has telekinesis abilities.

Those cheese fries are meant to be shared, preferably with about 3 other people.

Still a lot, but not insane.

@Mary Marsala with Fries: I'm betting certain groups of people will start having calorie competitions.

I know a friend of mine has done it before. Who can consume the most.

2,000 calories for $5 or $6 bucks? I'm never going grocery shopping again!

The wife and I just recently started eating better to lose weight. This is the first time I have ever looked and and compared calories and saturated fat and I am 31. Before now I wouldn't care how many calories something had in it because I have nothing to compare it with. Nutrition info is useless for people who don't use it.

@Eric1285: Actually, caloric needs differ based on each individual person. Things like lifestyle, exercise, and current weight all come into play. For example, my sustaining diet (to keep from gaining or losing weight) would be about 1600 calories a day. I'm on 1400 to lose weight slowly, whereas adult women (as a rule of thumb) should never eat less than 1200.

Fast food is my arch nemesis - if I want a burger and fries, I don't eat anything but salad the rest of the day. :(

I don't WANT to see the calorie/fat content of my Ultimate Cheeseburger combo on the menu board. I already KNOW it's bad for me to eat which is why I don't have it that often. If I have to read how much fat/calories I'm eating I'll probably stop buying it.

@HFC:

Plus, many of them offer you "more than 1lb of food"!

@youaredumb: I don't think it's going to halt fast food in its tracks, but it does seem to have made a difference to buying patterns in New York, where the policy is in action.

I think it's kind of like prices on menus--you figure it's expensive, but it's a different matter when you're faced with just how expensive. I think this may be especially relevant to the astonishingly caloric salads some of these places sell, since people think they're choosing the healthy option when it's not necessarily the case.

@Eric1285: Depends. I tracked my calories for a week, and they consistently turned out to be less than 2000. (My "suggested" range was 2100-2300 or something) And my weight is fairly constant. Though that might be because of the working out and protein shakes. I am probably losing weight in fat and building it up in muscles (I hope so atleast).

I am guessing it depends on the body metabolism, activity levels, level of carbs and proteins in diet, etc etc.

On a side note, its a bitch to build muscles elsewhere when you are trying to lose some inches from your waist.

@Amy Alkon: If you're insulin resistant, maybe. Not if you're not, though--the high-fat, low-carb approach isn't the panacea that some would argue it to be.

@Chris Walters:

Okay, so let me get this straight, one really big meal a day, then we go to sleep, no paper towels but a little bit of bread because we're not Nazis and as many popsicles as we want.

@Eric1285: It's not a myth just because it doesn't apply to you. It does apply to most adult women, for instance.

@caelanarcher:

I think your arteries would win.

@ngoandy: Is his name Jesse?

@Preyfar: But it's sooooo guuud....

@Alpine75: I think most fast food *meals* are pretty extreme, though; folks who, say, get simply the wrap and nothing else are likely to be in the minority by quite a bit. And when I looked at the McDonald's nutritional info here [nutrition.mcdonalds.com] I did find some surprises on what was and what wasn't high caloric, and just what a high percentage fat was even in some smaller offerings. So I think that's useful information to customers.

@Eric1285: Interesting, Dr. Eric. My mother's caloric needs would have her *gaining* massive amounts of weight on a 2000 calorie diet -- and she's not under 90 lbs. She has a sitting office job, and then comes home and has sitting hobbies like TV and reading and fantasy sports. Her caloric needs are in the low 1000s.

2000-calories-for-everyone is of course a myth, but people vary in both directions.

Lazy jerks...you can figure out how to get on the internet and read consumer blogs, yet you had no idea that fast food was bad for you?

Also, how will this affect mom and pop businesses? Will my favorite Indian restaurant who can barely get 10 customers on a Saturday have to figure out a many calories are in the Vindaloo? Will they get fined if they get it wrong?

My wife and I ordered those cheese fries once. Someone should have explained that you need to share it among six people to get the calorie count per person down to a sane amount. They comes with bacon bits AND a zesty ranch dipping sauce.

I lost about 30 pounds a couple years ago, mostly by simply eating less. The result now is that most restaurant (fast food and regular) serving sizes look enormous. I order off the kid's menu if I can, otherwise I eat half and take the rest home with me.

I don't understand why restaurants go for the 1500 calorie, gut busting meals. You could make a quesadilla burger (or whatever) that's 1/2 or 1/3 the size and tastes exactly the same. Most appetizers (the cheese fries, for example) could be ordered based on number of people ("we'd like the cheese fries for 3 and the coconut shrimp for 4 please"). It would take exactly the same amount of time to prepare and would result in much more sanity at the dinner table.

Of course restaurant owners would never do this. Smaller portions mean lower prices without any change in the number of customers served, so their income would go down.

@The Murderous Eyes of Eos:

Oooh, I love those cheese fries too, but I get mine without bacon so I'm sure they are way healthier that way. Plus, I'm in an Outback once every two years so I don't think the rare treat is going to kill me.

You could just drink a cup of canola oil or eat a stick of butter. That's probably more calorie-dense and even cheaper.

Mmmm, stick o butter.

@gggtur: It's been clear from the beginning that this is for chain restaurants over a certain number only.

@floraposte: @lpranal: It's not a myth. My maintenance intake is around 1800, and I weigh over 90 pounds. For some people 2000 calories is actually too much.