My Southern Belle Life along with my half of dozen kids

There’s an arms race going on, and it could mean disaster for your waistline.




But this terrifying competition to build the biggest, scariest weapons of mass destruction isn’t happening between the United States and Russia, or on the Korean peninsula, or among angry rivals somewhere in the Middle East. It’s happening between America’s restaurants—every one of them, it seems, is eager to show it has the biggest, scariest, most destructive new food in the marketplace. And the unsuspecting victims of this Strangelovian contest? You and me.



See, even the most well-established restaurant chains can’t rest on their laurels, serving the same old standbys that we’ve loved since we were kids. They have to keep us interested and attracted with shiny new bells and whistles. And since no one has invented, say, a new kind of potato, they’ve got to go with the next best thing: gimmicky entrees with terrifyingly complicated ingredient lists and rapidly expanding serving sizes. It wasn’t enough that pizza makers started putting cheese inside the crust! Kentucky Fried Chicken saw that and ramped up its own destructive powers, by making a sandwich in which the bread is replaced by slabs of fried chicken. Then a few major league ballparks started serving their burgers on doughnuts instead of buns. What’s next: fried Fluffernutter franks?



Almost. Take a look at what’s being whipped up in the labs of the mad fast-food scientists, compliments of the upcoming Eat This, Not That! 2011 book, and be afraid—be very afraid!





Scary Meal #5

Denny’s Fried Cheese Melt with wavy fries and marinara

1,260 calories

63 g fat (21 g saturated, 1 g trans)

3,010 mg sodium



CALORIE EQUIVALENT: 18 T.G.I. Friday’s Frozen Cheddar & Bacon Potato Skins



Apparently, Denny’s deemed the classic grilled cheese too boring for our novelty seeking taste buds, so they fixed it by driving four deep-fried cheese sticks into the core of the sandwich. So what you end up with are cheese sticks with extra cheese between slabs of buttered bread and a pile of fried potatoes on the side. If Denny’s was serious about improving the grilled cheese, they would have skipped the novelty and brought in big-flavor ingredients like sautéed mushrooms or sliced figs. But, of course, if they did that, they might not be able to sell this entire meal for $4. Here’s to cheap food and expensive health care!



Eat This Instead!

Denny's BLT with Hash Browns

730 calories

47 g fat (10.5 g saturated)

1,270 mg sodium





Scary Meal #5