From Yahoo Health...

F

Applebee’s, IHOP, Outback, T.G.I. Friday’s

These titans of the restaurant industry are among the last national chains that don’t offer nutritional information on their dishes. Even after years of badgering their representatives, we still hear the same old excuses: it’s too pricey, it’s too time-consuming, it’s impossible to do accurately because their food is so fresh, or we have too much variety. Our response is simple: If nearly every other chain restaurant in the country can do it, then why can’t they?

Hmmm.... That Carl's Jr. burger is one of my favorite burgers of all time!

In judging restaurants, I would rather like to know which restaurant allows me to choose something wholesome, not what their worst food is - I wouldn't buy it anyhow. Are Wendy's salads better or McDonald's? Do they offer low sodium food, etc.?

Talk about a post guaranteed to make you hungry!

I agree with a previous comment... a good list would be of healthy places. I can pretty much figure out the ones that aren't health.

Just as a side note -- and unrelated to this post or the writer -- but between posts about how to save money at Starbucks (which if I don't go there to begin with, I would really save more), buying old fashion razor blades (just to save me a few bucks in my lifetime, and may I add with fuzzy math), how to use my car alarm to chase home intruders away (what?), silly posts about cinco de mayo, and some of the writers dominating and controlling the comment sections (threatening to delete them!), Wise Bread it's becoming a huge waste of time. I have been a reader for the longest time... I would like to see more quality... there's more quantity now... anyways, feel free to call me crazy now.

Out.

Hardees is the same as Carl's Jr I believe.  Man I eat at Chevy's all the time and get super super stuffed.  My baby is built out of junk food.

"From burgers to baby back ribs, Chili's serves up some of the saltiest and fattiest fare. Also on the list of worst bugers in America, their Smokehouse Bacon Triple Cheese Big Mouth Burger has 3,810 mg of sodium and 122 grams of fat."

Chili's also seems to be serving "bugers." It isn't the fat nor the calories that makes these places unhealthy, it's the "bugers!"

Sigh. This is the kind of frothing at the mouth attack on food that turns people off to good nutritional information. Many of these restaurants also offer better alternatives. It isn't necessary to scream about "worst" when it may be more helpful to offer helpful suggestions and recognize that occasionally people want to splurge.

As for portion size, when my wife and I eat at Chevy's we split an order of fajitas. We also visit some of the other restaurants listed here, but I don't think either of us has ever had any of the "worst" items listed. When we order hamburgers, we tend to get something relatively plain, without cheese or sauce.

This article assumes people gravitate to the highest calorie and fat items on the menu. I don't believe this is necessarily the case, and even if it was, the tone of the article will not likely win many people over to healthier options.

Where's Chipotle on that list?

Has anyone noticed that despite all the claims about how bad this restaurant food is, or how bad fast food is in general, that no one seems to be getting scared off?

People might back off frequenting a restaurant on a list somewhere, but head over to another that isn't any better.

The best advice is to cut down/cut out as much eating out as possible. You'll be thinner, healthier and have more money. None of them are healthy because we can never know exactly what special sauce or how much fat they're using. And typically the more of either that they use, the better the food tastes. It's a cruel irony.

I do think this information needs to be posted on the menu. IKEA here in Seattle does now, and it does help one who WANTS to make better food choices. Especially drinks, I don't think most people have a clue how many calories they contain, especially a mega large vat of Coke at a movie theater. If it is available, why not put it out there for people who want to know?

If you share the appetizer with 3 other people, then the calories, fat, etc. is the lesser amount -- the listing on the menu mentions that the counts are a per person serving with 4 total portions per appetizer. So, it seemts that the 4-way sampler at 354 calories is actually 1416 calories if you eat the entire thing.

A couple of years ago, when I was having my kitchen remodeled, I ate out a bunch and tried to eat "healthy" -- I found out that chain restaurants either add fat or salt to flavor. So, while I avoided fat, my blood pressure went up 20-30 points in just a couple of weeks on this diet. It's not that I never eat at such places, but you do have to watch what you're eating and limit such meals out. I scrutinize the menus even more now.

2310 calories and 108 grams of fat for a drink?? That is well unhealthy! I love their ice-creams, wonder if they contain as much calories.

The nutritional listings you linked to for Ruby Tuesdays are "per serving", with no further information provided for how many servings are in each order. Since appetizers are generally intended for more than one person, you can probably double, triple, or possibly quadruple the numbers in the chart.

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Regarding the comment about reporting carbs because they are the most "fattening" part of the meals... Gram for gram, fat has 225% of the calories of a carb or a protein. Fat = 9 calories/gram. Carb = 4 calories/gram. Fats also make you feel "more full" for "longer" than most carbs.

We could also address how much easier it is to store a fat in a fat cell than it is to get a carb into a fat cell (which would lessen the impact of carbs even further).

So, gram for gram, fat is more "fattening" than carbs. She reports the calories, which is really what matters in the end.

I thought the "Heath Shake" was ironic in that it's only one letter away from being a Health Shake. But anyway, coming from someone who has bought things BECAUSE they had more calories per dollar in it, I have to say, what's wrong with bigger portions? Can't you lardos out there restrain yourselves enough to eat half now and half later if you buy a sandwich with 2000 calories in it and that's more than your body can stand without building up your fat reserves? For crying out loud, the only type of calories you should avoid is sugar (especially corn sugar) and hydrogenated oils because half of it is trans fat while fat that is saturated by biological processes is 100% cis fat. Those are the really UNhealthy fats, with regular 100$ cis saturated fat being arguable because of that whole heart disease thing. So avoid trans fat, to a lesser extent, keep saturated fats to less than 30% your total fat intake, preferably 10%, and keep away from high fructose corn syrup, and then it doesn't matter about the particulars of what you eat, just how much you eat and how often you eat it. You can just as well eat too many calories by stuffing yourself with taco bell bean burritos or subway sandwiches as you can by consuming a day worth of food in one sitting. It's just a matter of lack of self control if you feel compelled to eat everything you bought right now and it'll just cost you more money to buy enough subway sandwiches to overfeed yourself (while the bean burritos are pretty cheap). My point is, you are eating for the PURPOSE of absorbing calories. If you want to pay twice as much for half as many calories and get half the energy out of it because you're too fat, well then, you're better off instead just eating the bigger sandwich half as often, and your wallet will thank you for it. Maybe I don't think normally because I am poor and yet my body burns off 10 thousand calories a day though. But it seems to me that if any job worth doing is worth doing well, so if you're going to pay X dollars for Y calories worth of food, making X smaller or Y bigger is an improvement.

"Just look for your self on http://www.rubytuesday.com/files/allergen.pdf
You can clearly see thir biggest appetizer is at 354 calories. Where did these people get the 1000 from???? This is why I don't trust anything posted on the net.?

Ironic much? :)

I'm surprised KFC didn't make the top 10. I've read that they are the least regulated from location to location (both within your city and around the world), and that their saturated fat content is through the roof in comparison to other fast food joints.

I think I gained 10 pounds and clogged my arteries just reading this list! Mental note: avoid above mentioned restaurants. Cheers!

Hmm, methinks some people are using the term "worst" a little fast and loose here.

That Carl's Jr. burger sure looks good to me!

'Guest" posted the following (with no source information I might add).

1. "Fat is a better fuel source and does not increase insulin production, something necessary to store body fat."

This is false. Fatty acids stimulate the release of insulin as do amino acids and glucose.

2. "Fat does NOT store in fat cells easier, since carbs trigger the release of insulin which makes you store the carbs as fat."

Fat IS stored more efficiently than carbs. It requires more energy to store carbs than it does to store fat.

From HowStuffWorks article on "Fat Storage"
Source: http://health.howstuffworks.com/fat-cell2.htm

"When you eat a candy bar or a meal, the presence of glucose, amino acids or fatty acids in the intestine stimulates the pancreas to secrete a hormone called insulin."

"The conversion of carbohydrates or protein into fat is 10 times less efficient than simply storing fat in a fat cell, but the body can do it. If you have 100 extra calories in fat (about 11 grams) floating in your bloodstream, fat cells can store it using only 2.5 calories of energy. On the other hand, if you have 100 extra calories in glucose (about 25 grams) floating in your bloodstream, it takes 23 calories of energy to convert the glucose into fat and then store it. Given a choice, a fat cell will grab the fat and store it rather than the carbohydrates because fat is so much easier to store."

By the way saturated fats are bad for you. Proponents of the so-called "caveman diet" make some of the most illogical claims that reflect the "man has been eating saturated fats for millenia and now they have been tagged as being bad for you???" Take a look at the life expectancy of ancient man (30-something years). Perhaps diet (saturated fat consumption or otherwise (i.e., food-borne pathogens) was part of the reason they died so young, but maybe not. Proponents of the caveman diet retort, no, they died for other reasons. OK, fine then...perhaps their short lifespan (due to those other factors) precluded the manifestation of cardiovascular disease--ever notice that not a lot of people younger than 40 have heart attacks? Although people in their 40s and 50s certainly have heart attacks (as do younger people) the mean age for a first heart attack is mid-60s for men and 70 for women!

Finally, advocates of the caveman diet make the "natural as good" fallacy. They rely on the notion that saturated fats are good because they are natural (and ergo transfats are bad because they are artificial). This fallacy ignores the fact that nature really wants to kill you. There are naturally occurring poisons/toxins throughout our environments. To simply say that "natural is good" is fallacious logic. Some nature is good, some is not. Simply "being natural" is not a sufficient condition for "being good."

Everything you posted in your anti fat rant is false or outdated info.
Fat does NOT stimulate insulin. Your source is faulty and incorrect.
Saturated fat and cholesterol are VERY good for you as grains are NOT. If you eat no grains, sugar or refined carbs, your body uses fat as a fuel source. It also uses saturated fat and cholesterol to repair cells and as basis for ALL hormone production.
Maybe you should do some ACTUAL research before you spout the faerie tales the government has brainwashed people with.
Primitive man did NOT die because of diet and they only died young from trauma or infections. MANY lived to old age. In fact, they lived as long as they did, despite no antibiotics or medical care BECAUSE of what they ate. They had NO heart disease or diabetes.

My source is incorrect yet you give no source. Sorry, you are out of gas. Then you spew your anti-government rhetoric. The conspiracy theorists at work among us. I wish we had a bury button. Come out of your basement and remove your saturated fat lined tin foil hat.

I think it's perhaps unfair to judge Ruby Tuesdays by their most caloric and fat items. They have a wonderful salad bar that includes MANY fresh veggies, and that's what I eat there. I love it because of the salad bar. So keep that in mind when you make these judgments, okay?

Primitive man died long before heart disease would have killed him, but you glossed over that.

My jaw hit the floor when I found out when a milkshake could have all the calories for the entire day. That and the burrito that has two days worth of salt in it? Mind you I wear a 46 inch waist pants and it STILL floors me.

I guess "bugers" will remain in this article until the Internets are no more.

I would much rather read a list of the resturants serving the best and most healthy foods. A real 'go to' list would be helpful.