Food At The Cheesecake Factory Is Fattening

Just in case you've been living under a rock (something of which my wife occasionally accuses me), The Center for Science In The Public Interest has released another report that is making its way through the media. They are telling us what they spent a bunch of money and time to figure out: that is, some restaurant food is fattening and has a high sodium content.

The Cheesecake Factory is at the top of their hit list and the restaurant's version of Fettucine Alfredo with Chicken is the poster child for their campaign. It has 2,500 calories and a whole lotta fat (and that's before the dessert).

Okay.

Raise your hand if you didn't know that Fettucine Alfredo was a fat laden, high calorie dish. Americans are a little more food literate than they were twenty years ago. Almost all of them know that when a dish contains a lot of pasta, butter, bacon, heavy cream and cheese ...that it ain't kale juice lemonade (which comes highly recommended by Gwyneth Paltrow...which is all I need to run right out the front door and get some, right now). Of further interest in this riveting story...is that Chocolate Truffle Cake has a bunch of fat and calories, too. It just doesn't get any better than this, when it comes to science in the public interest.

The Cheesecake Factory makes a lot of money giving people what they want, not what they need. And what the public wants is to get a big portion of foods they like, when they pay out their increasingly vanishing currency, which will get worse, much worse I fear, in the coming years, until we send Freddie the Freeloader back to being a crooked community organizer, in Chicago. Why are there big portions, you ask? Restaurant research has shown again and again that it's in response to public demand.

Now, let's get down to the real issue. Groups like CSPI want to tell you what to eat. They want control over another part of your life, just like the dopey Mayor Bloomberg in New York, who wants to eliminate salt from your diet. (I guess the deli's will be turned into speakeasy's, just like during prohibition, only this time they'll be banning pastrami).

I've eaten in the Cheesecake Factory quite a few times. They have a good number of healthy items on the menu and nobody is forcing anyone to eat Fettucine Alfredo with Chicken. Likewise, nobody holds you down and forces Chocolate Truffle Cake down your throat, either.

I have made a good number of requests, pertaining to my own food plan, and they have always accomodated me and also, anybody with me. That's just good business and many restaurants are very good about taking care of what your needs are...just ask. (Just don't go to a BBQ joint and ask for arugula salad...that won't happen...but you knew that without me telling you.)

What the CSPI needs is to start talking about the good things you can get at restaurants, which ones and where they are located. They ought to try focusing on the things that people actually will do, not try and take away the things they like. I know of a half dozen
places, near where I live, where I can get a healthy meal, any day of the week. The more healthy choices we have, the more often we'll make a healthy choice. But nobody needs to start banning and deciding what we can have to eat. (After all, the President is still
eating cheeseburgers, fries, onion rings and Coke...which he washes down with a few cancer sticks...no photos please!)

Your health (in many ways) is a choice.

No diet, food plan, or exercise regimen works unless you want it to. When you make the decision to make your health a priority, you'll know what to do and what to eat. And I'll bet that fettucine alfredo won't be on your menu, or Chocolate Truffle Cake either.