It’s good that people are more aware of what they’re eating than they used to be.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest has named Long John Silver’s limited-time-only Big Catch meal — the fried fish, hushpuppies and onion rings option — the worst restaurant meal in America, clocking in at 1,320 calories, 33 grams of trans fats and 3,700 milligrams of sodium.
The good news? That appears to be healthier than the worst offenders five years ago, at least as tabulated by Men’s Health magazine. Those included the Outback Steakhouse Aussie cheese fries with ranch dressing (2,900 calories), Uno Chicago Grill’s Chicago classic deep dish pizza (2,310 calories), and the dearly departed Chili’s Awesome Blossom, discontinued after the magazine named it the unhealthiest appetizer in America (2,710 calories).
Long John Silver’s, with five locations in New Jersey, still uses partially hydrogenated frying oil, which results in the high trans fat count, according to CSPI. The American Heart Association recommends only two grams of trans fats a day. The chain also misrepresents the amount of what it calls “lean” haddock in the dish, CSPI maintains. Long John Silver’s say the meal includes 7 to 8 ounces of fish, but after removing the breading from tfish, CSPI researchers found an average of about four and a half ounces of actual fish and almost three ounces of oil-soaked batter.
That is one deadly meal and one measly serving of fish.
Mayor Bloomberg, please pick up the white courtesy phone.
yecch. I admit liking onion rings, but aren’t hush puppies just more fried dough?
and don’t forget a quart of sugar water to wash it down with, for another 350 or so calories.
My first minimum wage job at age 16 was at Long John Silver’s. (Previous below-minimum wage jobs included helping at a relative’s small store and delivering newspapers).
Hush puppies are more than just fried dough – because we had a different mix for it with various “stuff” inside, but don’t ask me what.
I’ve never eaten at a LJS since I left my job there, and haven’t done fast food since my youngest kids converted us all to vegetarianism a few years ago (should have done it sooner … sadly it took them to demonstrate how easy it is).
But if you DO decide to eat deep-fried food for some reason by all means try to do so as early in the day as possible, and on low-volume days like Monday and Tuesday. On a Friday or Saturday night the oil vats are dense with bits of food – mostly fat – from all the cooking that’s gone on throughout the day. And of course the items cooked in those vats are going to be soaked with that crap.
good point about the fryers. In my fast food days the only thing we fried were french fries so the oil didn’t get too nasty in just one day’s cooking.
True. I followed up LJS with a stint at McDonalds (simultaneous with operating the local radio station that used semi-automatic computers and being official scorekeeper at town softball games – it was an interesting and, for a minimum-wage earner, profitable summer). The french fry vats were never anywhere NEAR as dirty as they general fry vats were at LJS. And the filet fish and pie vats (separate for each) were barely used each day.
But what I learned from MickeyD’s was that if you MUST order crap from them do so in the off hours and always order something special so they have to cook it fresh. And never order breakfast. During the rush hours the place is an assembly line and if something falls on the floor – freak it – just put it back and push it out. No one has time for dealing with a dirty bun or piece of lettuce. During the off hours cooked stuff sits on the shelf and rots. You are supposed to group cooked product by times – in the old days you could even see that the cheeseburgers, for example, had a number of “5” meaning that at 25 minutes past the hour they should be tossed and new ones made. We tried, really we did, but we were also measured on wastage (yes, every day someone had to dig through that disgusting waste barrel and count how much of each product was there) so managers typically cheated. But at MickeyDs every special order had to be made from scratch, so that was the ticket. Especially no onions – onions were put onto burgers early in the process so there was no cheating with a no onion order.
Alas, things have changed and MickeyDs may have learned from Burger King who zaps their stuff to heat it before serving – no guarantees. Also, the chicken stuff was just coming out then. Our little small town shop was the only one in the nation (or at least we were told) to be a pilot for both McChicken and Chicken McNuggets. McChicken didn’t work out then, later it was rolled out again, but McNuggets were a hit. The cook time then for chicken was so long in the vats that when I left (in 1981) we were still working out strategies for keeping Chicken ready to go during non-rush periods. (This was a real problem. Pies had a similar long cook time but they had something like a 2 hour hold time afterwards so it wasn’t so bad if you threw out an occasional expired pie. Chicken, on the other hand, had a 20 minute expiry time and while we could produce 12 Big Macs or 24 Hamburgers in 2.5 minutes, Chicken took something like 7 or 8 minutes.)
I’m sad to say that for decades afterwards I actually ate those horrible things and it quickly became apparent that in off-hours they were often way past their offical expiry times.
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My diary 50 min. ago – Military Coup Underway in Egypt.
First breaking news story by Russia Today and LIVE coverage now on CNNi.
Morsi is not part of the decisionmaking proces in Egypt anymore. All communication lines woth Morsi have been cut. Muslim Brotherhood leadership is placed under house arrest. Since this morning, the state run newspaper Al Ahram has been taken over by the military. This morning’s headline read: RESIGN or REMOVAL, clear choices. Morsi refused resignation as he holds on to power in a “democratic proces”. MB has threatenend with bloodshed. Military tanks are rolling into MB held districts of Cairo.
Even the centrist Kevin Drum: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/07/obama-finally-shows-his-chicago-thug-side-real
Boo?
And if Snowden successfully evades capture, what does that make Obama?
I can’t decide if the pro-Snowden or anti-Snowden people are more annoying.
Personally, I think people who grind their axe on your blog regardless of whether it has fuckall to do with the topic at hand are the really annoying ones. No need to make any distinction beyond that.
Ah, yes, violating the sanctity of the blog is the real crime here. How dare I wonder what Boo thinks about a current event that’s not calorie-related.
Jackass.
That’s not really the question.
I find people who think that what matters is if you’re ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ Snowedn the most annoying, hands down. Even more annoying that those who actually are pro- or anti- him.
I asked because you’re a reasonable, center-left establishmentarian. So is Drum. I wondered if you agreed with him that this was, if it happened as described, ‘outrageous, thuggish, and clownish.’
You answered with uncharacteristic avoidance.
Charges have been filed against Snowden in a court of law. He is a fugitive from justice. The government does not intend to willingly allow him to seek asylum. Unlike Bradley Manning, he is not a soldier and is not subject to military justice. So, for starters, I don’t really care if his attempt at flight is interdicted.
As for the Bolivian story, it appears to be bullshit, so Kevin Drum’s response was premature and no longer relevant.
Of course he’s a fugitive from justice. He’s a criminal. And of course the Obama administration is pursuing him with the same fanaticism they show toward any unauthorized criminal leaker (as opposed to the authorized criminal leakers).
My whole question for you was: ‘I wondered if you agreed with [Drum] that this was, if it happened as described, ‘outrageous, thuggish, and clownish.’
(And while I doubted the Bolivian story then, I also doubt the ‘clarification’ now.)
One reason I read your blog so religiously is that I find your personal take interesting, as extremely ‘establishment’ and devotedly liberal. Hell, you’ve written about that more than once, that the left has to grow out of and ‘anti-establishment’ attitude that reflects an unease with power. These recent NSA revelations seems to throw that into high relief.
It didn’t happen as described.
In any case, they are going to try to catch him and I don’t have any problem with that.
If he’s in custody, I will defend his rights.
Other than that, I have no opinion.
Not the worst at all. Check out Red Lobster’s Admiral’s Feast:
http://chain-restaurants.findthebest.com/l/434/Admiral-s-Feast