Meatatarianism?

One thing Big Food's great for are great ads.

Designed to help roll out their Meatatarianism concept, the new viral video from Wendy's is no exception and it's today's Funny Friday.

Have a great weekend!

Don't Eat at Wendy's Part III

I suppose this is becoming a series all by itself.

In an article published recently by the American Journal of Public Health, one of my favourite nutritional researchers and authors, Marion Nestle, examined the responses of Burger King, McDonald's and Wendy's to the past 8 years worth of increasing calls to action on obesity in the form of their portion sizes of soda, French fries and hamburgers from 1998 through 2006.

The expectation might be that given the public and medical uproar with regards to growing rates of obesity, and the clear involvement of fast food and fast food portions as factors in that rise, that perhaps we might have expected to see decreases in fast food portions.

To summarize her findings, McDonald's in fact has reduced some of their portion sizes, though they're still in the neighbourhood of 500% larger than those they had when they opened in 1955.

Wendy's on the other hand, ah Wendy's.....let's start with fountain sodas.

In 1998 Wendy's Smalls were 16oz, Mediums 22oz and Biggie's were 32 oz.

In 2006 Wendy's Smalls were 20oz, Mediums 32oz and Large (Biggie's gone) was 42oz.

Next we'll move onto French fries.

In 1998 Wendy's Smalls were 3.2oz, Mediums were 4.6oz, Biggies were 5.6 oz and Great Biggies were 6.7oz.

In 2006 Wendy's Smalls were 5oz, Mediums were 5.6oz and Large were 6.7oz.

Burgers, probably because the base costs are higher for beef than for soda or fries, haven't changed.

Do you remember an advertising campaign that mentioned that their sizes had increased across the board for fries and drinks?

I sure don't.

Yet another reason to add to the growing list of reasons not to give Wendy's your fast food dollars.

For those not familiar with the list, to summarize:

Wendy's seemingly lies to you, apparently thinks you're stupid and continues to increase portion sizes without telling you using descriptive adjectives that might have you believe that in fact you're eating less ("I'm not having their old Biggie, just a Large").

Don't Eat at Wendy's Part II

Imagine my surprise.

Wendy's, the fast food chain that is refusing to comply with New York city's new calorie disclosure requirements, the chain that insults the intelligence of consumers by reporting that their online nutritional posting of calories applies to everywhere but New York and who apparently feels you're too stupid to understand a menu board that includes calories and prices, has apparently also refused to comply with New York's trans-fat free laws.

Last week the Center for Science in the Public Interest released a report detailing their study of New York fries. Through an independent laboratory analysis they demonstrated that McDonald's fries were virtually trans-fat free, Burger King's had 3.3grams and Wendy's topped their charts at 3.7grams - almost twice the daily recommended limit.

CSPI does give credit where credit is due and reports that the fries in New York, even those from Wendy's, are lower than the trans-fat content of fries fried by Wendy's in every other city in North America, but where CSPI has difficulty is the claims made by Wendy's website,

"Depending on the serving size, trans fats in French fry offerings will range from zero to 0.5 grams."

So basically Wendy's lies to you and apparently thinks you're stupid.

Stop giving them your money.

Don't eat at Wendy's

Regular readers here will know that in NYC Big Food is fighting legislation requiring them to put calories on menu boards.

Regular readers will also know one of Big Food's "arguments" is that it's toooooooo complicated to put calories on menu boards in a manner that would be both easy for consumers to understand and in a manner that wouldn't clog up the boards.

As part of the case, the Center for Science in the Public Interest had its artists create a rendition of what a Wendy's menu board might look like with calories on it. Click the picture above and you tell me if it's too complicated or too cluttered.

Anyhow, Wendy's sent out cease and desist letters to the court and CSPI stating that CSPI is misrepresenting their menu and breaking trademarks by providing it to the court.

This is the same Wendy's who has a ridiculous disclaimer on their own website that states that their Calorie information is not available in NYC with the hope that this will allow them to slime their way through a wormhole in the existing legislation that limits required calorie menu board laws to those restaurants who have pre-existing nutritional information,

"We regret that Wendy's cannot provide product calorie information to residents or customers in New York City. The New York City Department of Health passed a regulation requiring restaurants that already provide calorie information to post product calories on their menu boards -- using the same type size as the product listing.

We fully support the intent of this regulation; however, since most of our food is made-to-order, there isn't enough room on our existing menu boards to comply with the regulation. We have for years provided complete nutritional information on posters inside the restaurant and on our website. To continue to provide caloric information to residents and customers of our New York City restaurants on our website and on our nutritional posters would subject us to this regulation. As a result, we will no longer provide caloric information to residents and customers of our New York City restaurants."

I love the made to order argument as well given that Subway has already complied with the regulation and they're as made to order as you get in fast food. Talk about misrepresenting!

My recommendation - vote with your mouth. There are plenty of fast food outfits out there. Stop giving your money to one that apparently thinks you're stupid (too stupid apparently to discern between the price and the calories on a menu item), tries to weasel it's way out of adhering to the law and then tries to legally muscle out the non-profit good guys.

Don't eat at Wendy's.

(To see more "doctored" and "misrepresented" menus, including Starbucks and McDonald's at CSPI head over here.)

The Baconator

Heart attack waiting to happen.

6 strips of hickory smoked bacon, 1/2lb of beef, 2 slices of cheese, mayonnaise and a giant bun.

830 Calories, 50% of calories directly from fat, 2.5gr of trans fat and 1,920mg of sodium.

(Add a medium fries and a medium coke (a combo) and you're up to 1,470 calories, 71 grams of fat and 2,350mg of sodium.)

The Baconator

Thanks Wendy's.

The Hide the Calories Shell Game

I know, it's a weekend and I'm posting.

I'm having a cup of coffee downstairs while my wonderful wife looks after our two daughters (I had them from 5am to 7:30am).

I saw this article on the wire and thought I'd throw it up here.

It says that Quiznos, White Castle and Wendy's have all pulled nutritional information from their respective websites or restaurants in lieu of the NYC law mandating Caloric menu board posts.

In an argument I heard first hand from a McDonald's spokesperson at an Obesity Think Tank, Big Food says that it would be too confusing for consumers to have both a price and a number of Calories on the menu boards, or alternatively, that the menu boards are too small to accommodate 3 or 4 additional numbers.

Guess they think everyone's unspeakably stupid or that we've all got terrifically poor eyesite.

If you do want to see Calorie information, head over to Calorie King where you can find data for all 3 restaurants - just put the restaurant's name in the search box.

Wendy's - The New Authority on Nutrition!

What a coup for Wendy's!

They've teamed up with the American Dietetic Association to bring you a new website called Wendy's Mom-RD.

Here's a quote from the home page,

"Wendy's and the American Dietetic Association developed the Mom-RD program to provide moms with useful information that empowers them to make smarter choices when it comes to feeding their families"

Contrast that statement with Wendy's new slogan, "Do what tastes right".

What's the ADA doing getting in bed with Wendy's? For the life of me, other than money, I can't imagine what would motivate the ADA to team up with a company that uses toys and advertising to sell high calorie, non-nutritious food to children (currently they're using the Peanuts to sell Kids' meals).

Wanna know what's in a Kids' meal? Even one of their healthier meals, the one advertised on the Kids' Meal section of Wendy's website, the turkey sandwich with the 2% milk and the granola with yogurt, has 650 calories, 8 grams of artery clogging saturated fat and a whopping 1,280 grams of sodium.

Next question, have you ever met a kid who actually ordered the turkey sandwich with milk and granola? I'm actually scared to crunch the numbers for the Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger, the kids' fries and the pop.

Amazingly, in the website's section on, "10 Tips for Cutting Calories and Fats" they don't explicitly mention, "Don't eat at Wendy's".

Such a shame that the ADA and our Canadian equivalent the DoC (Dietitians of Canada) are far from shy from courting Big Food dollars.