There is no information in the article about where the information on calorie counts came from. Personally, they seem wrong to me, at least on some of the items. I don't think the Cowboy Ribeye from Ruth's Cris, for example, really contains 1650 calories.
That of course assumes that the whole thing is pure protein, when it obviously has fat and bone in it. So at 1650 calories, the steak would have to about 2/3 protein. This matches up with my experience at Ruth's Chris. On top of that, is the delicious butter they serve everything in, which is additional calories.
So yeah, 1650 seems completely reasonable for the Cowboy Ribeye.
Two errors in this. First, the 22 oz is before cooking weight. After cooking will be less - maybe 16 oz raw (after you deduct bone and fat) and 12 oz after cooking. The remaining lean meat isn't pure protein. There's other tissues. nutritiondata.self.com lists only about 76.7 calories per oz, or about 920 calories for the whole thing.
Why are you discounting fat? You don't lose that when cooking the steak. You've forgotton to add anything for the butter they add. I don't think the bone weighs six ounces - but I admit I have little idea what a fucking ounce is.
Google tells me there are 291 calories in a cooked ribeye steak. That's over 1,000 for a 16 ounce steak.
You are severely underestimating the calorie content.
It's pretty interesting to see this in picture form, but it wasn't a big secret that you could eat a days worth of calories in a single meal in most chain restaurants.
The comparison to home-cooked at the end is a little ridiculous. A 22oz steak will be a lot of calories whether you cook it at home or have it at a restaurant. They intentionally picked healthier options for the home meal, and always included large sugared drinks or milkshakes with the fast food options. It would be interesting to see the same article, but comparing each individual meal at a restaurant with a home-cooked version of the same meal (and I'd imagine you'd mostly be shaving off a couple hundred calories unless you're really messing with the ingredients.)
I agree with you it's a bit misleading - they do make it seem like "home cooked food" inherently has less calories when it obviously doesn't.
I think the real point they were trying to make was that when you are actually cooking your food, you are more conscious of what you're eating and therefore more likely to choose lower calorie/healthier options.
However, I am not sure I really agree with them. I can make a giant plate of spaghetti at home or eat several peanut butter sandwiches really easily - burning through 2000 calories without paying attention. And since some restaurants have calorie counts on their meals anyway - it's pretty easy for me to choose that if I want to be on a diet.
I do not think the comparison is totally unfair. They are not comparing "similar meals", they are comparing "typical meals", what you would actually eat at a restaurant vs. what you eat at home. It is not just the cooking.
1. Why would you base this around a single meal, when ideally your daily caloric intake would be spread throughout your waking hours.
2. Even suggesting that most people need 2000 calories is wildly dangerous as this is a figure that will vary for EVERY individual. I myself need ~3000 calories just to maintain a healthy weight.
"It is possible to eat healthier at each chain. You can ... order from the “Skinnys” menu at Potbelly, which has sandwiches with fewer than 400 calories."
Or you could skip the chips, cookie or drink, or order the regular size (not the big size). Or have a different sandwich from the Italian, which has the highest calorie content of all the sandwiches on the menu. It's not rocket science.
Honestly I expect a little better than such a blatant false dichotomy from the article.
1) Show the worst food at Restaurants
2) Show Healthy food from home
Profit?
Talk about manipulating the facts to get the end result. Why would I drink diet soda at home but always order regular at a restaurant? because that's the only way to get the "oh wow" factor for the photos.
I disagree...the restaurant pictures show what I see people typically order...or darn close. Obviously, they have big menus and if you want, you can go to a fast food restaurant and order nothing but green salad, but I don't see many people doing that.
The person who eats 2,000 calories in one sitting at burger king is much more likely to make a Frozen Pizza at home than a Arugula salad and Grilled fish.
My wife eats salads all the time at home and packs them for lunch, but whenever we go to a fast food joint, she orders the Big Mac and fries specifically because she doesn't eat them at home and doesn't feel like eating healthy. (That's why we got fast food in the first place)
Fun Fact: two slices of digiorno pepperoni (1/3 of the pizza) is still only 640 calories. So even if this person does cook a frozen pizza at home, it would still be a lot healthier. An egg omelet with coffee, a salad for lunch plus some fruit, and two slices of pizza plus some cookies for dinner would be approximately 2,000 calories.
Would be so much more valuable if they'd show the difference between the most and least calorie-dense choices at the same restaurant. That way you'd actually help people make better choices. It comes across as poor propaganda (and is?) with their assumption that people will automagically choose calorie-sparse meals at home.
Keep in mind that all of the examples are actively shooting to hit 2000 calories. It says nothing about what is a "typical" meal at the chain. In fact, for the Chipotle example, it lists a burrito in order to hit that mark: Chipotle Carnitas burrito (945), chips and guacamole (770), Coke (276). then, in the paragraph below that, it indicates: Chipotle says burrito bowls, which leave out 300-calorie flour tortilla, even outsell burritos. Furthermore, the authors chose the guacamole for the article because it is, hands down, the highest calorie dip available. It is nearly twice as many calories as the sour cream and it is ten times the calories of some of the salsas. But most folks aren't ordering chips and guac. Chips and salsa is a far more common thing to order as a side. My firsthand observation suggests that, because the burritos are so big, people who order a burrito often do not order any sides with it.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 37.6 ms ] threadSo yeah, 1650 seems completely reasonable for the Cowboy Ribeye.
Google tells me there are 291 calories in a cooked ribeye steak. That's over 1,000 for a 16 ounce steak.
You are severely underestimating the calorie content.
I think this is pretty common these days, to see such info either in store or on the chain's websites.
The comparison to home-cooked at the end is a little ridiculous. A 22oz steak will be a lot of calories whether you cook it at home or have it at a restaurant. They intentionally picked healthier options for the home meal, and always included large sugared drinks or milkshakes with the fast food options. It would be interesting to see the same article, but comparing each individual meal at a restaurant with a home-cooked version of the same meal (and I'd imagine you'd mostly be shaving off a couple hundred calories unless you're really messing with the ingredients.)
I think the real point they were trying to make was that when you are actually cooking your food, you are more conscious of what you're eating and therefore more likely to choose lower calorie/healthier options.
However, I am not sure I really agree with them. I can make a giant plate of spaghetti at home or eat several peanut butter sandwiches really easily - burning through 2000 calories without paying attention. And since some restaurants have calorie counts on their meals anyway - it's pretty easy for me to choose that if I want to be on a diet.
2. Even suggesting that most people need 2000 calories is wildly dangerous as this is a figure that will vary for EVERY individual. I myself need ~3000 calories just to maintain a healthy weight.
Or you could skip the chips, cookie or drink, or order the regular size (not the big size). Or have a different sandwich from the Italian, which has the highest calorie content of all the sandwiches on the menu. It's not rocket science.
Honestly I expect a little better than such a blatant false dichotomy from the article.
Profit?
Talk about manipulating the facts to get the end result. Why would I drink diet soda at home but always order regular at a restaurant? because that's the only way to get the "oh wow" factor for the photos.
My wife eats salads all the time at home and packs them for lunch, but whenever we go to a fast food joint, she orders the Big Mac and fries specifically because she doesn't eat them at home and doesn't feel like eating healthy. (That's why we got fast food in the first place)
Fun Fact: two slices of digiorno pepperoni (1/3 of the pizza) is still only 640 calories. So even if this person does cook a frozen pizza at home, it would still be a lot healthier. An egg omelet with coffee, a salad for lunch plus some fruit, and two slices of pizza plus some cookies for dinner would be approximately 2,000 calories.
A Big Mac is 530 and a Large Fry is 530. Your example is off by about 50%.
Source of the calorie counts for the sides: http://www.chipotle.com/en-US/menu/nutrition_calculator/nutr...
There's about 400 calories in 8ozs of steak; there's about 350 calories in 50g of butter.