The team went out for lunch at Cheesecake Factory today. Renowned for its giant menu, I noticed a new section in the ad-filled piece of glossy literature.. the “Weight Management Salads” section. This section promotes salads that are “under 590 calories”.
590 calories. In a salad? What do you suppose the “normal people” salads come in at? Well.. for one, (according to the internet) the lunch portion of a Ceasar Salad rocks a cool 860 calories. Oddly most others appear to fall under 590 anyway, which is somewhat relieving.
Back to this “Weight Management” idea though – what the hell kind of weight are you managing if just-shy-of-600-calories is a light meal? Not to mention the bread/butter starters and half gallon sized, bottomless beverages. It was mentioned that the iced tea is unsweetened, at least.
I went with the Cuban Sandwich – which, halved, is literally two full sandwiches on the plate. With fries. I downed half of it and a bunch of fries – the whole sandwich weighs in at 1140 calories. That side of fries? 570 calories. Dang. Add two refills of a Coke and you’d blow past the standard 2000C RDA. Amazing. Then throw some cheesecake in there for kicks, and you are officially a fatty.