More anti-diet

I read an article in the San Jose Mercury News about the growing problem (no pun intended) of the American waistline. The article attributes a large part of the blame on the supersized portion sizes in the typical American meal, citing as an example the fare at Romano's Macaroni Grill.

Suppose you head over to the Macaroni Grill tonight and order a simple three-course meal: the shrimp and artichoke dip appetizer, a spaghetti and meatball dinner (with meat sauce), and for dessert, the cheesecake with fudge sauce. Sure, that sounds like a pretty heavy meal but still somewhat reasonable, right? Well, if you licked your plates clean, you'd put away a Kobayashiesque 5090 calories. To put this in perspective, you'd consume fewer calories if you ate 17 Johnsonville brats for dinner. (Note that if you could have eaten said 17 brats in 10 minutes, you would have taken home $250 and 10th place in the Johnsonville brat eating contest!)