Xtreme Eating Award Winner a Guaranteed Gut-Buster

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If you ever wondered why Americans have an obesity problem, wonder no more. We have restaurants that serve, for lunch, meals with more calories than most people are supposed to eat in a day. A hamburger at Uno Pizzeria & Grill with more than a day’s worth of calories is one of the winners of this year’s Xtreme Eating Awards from the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

The Whole Hog Burger (which, as its name suggests, contains four types of pork topping the beef — more than a pound of meat –along with lots of other stuff) contains 2,850 calories. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends that a moderately active man take in 2,800 calories per day (for women it recommends 2,000).

The burger is one of nine winners of the awards handed out annually by the center, and it’s far from the only item with more than a day’s worth of calories. Center officials say it’s part of a trend among chain restaurants. As they compete to outdo one another, menu items get bigger and include things like mac and cheese as a burger toppings, ensuring gut-busting calorie counts.

The center suggests that if you find yourself at one of these restaurants, avail yourself of the lighter options, which often have more reasonable (or at least less unreasonable) calorie counts. Also, starting in May 2017, restaurants with 20 or more locations will need to post calorie counts, so people can make better-informed decisions.

Who out there wants to try one of those burgers, maybe just once, just to see what it’s like, even knowing you’ll hate yourself after?

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