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It's a new beefbunless age for dieters
by Wayne Trotter, Tecumseh Countywide News
WINNING COLUMN - January 2004
Attention, fellow dieters. Those friendly folks in the fast food industry are riding to your rescue.
That’s right. The same people who helped get us in the shape we desperately want out of, those previous purveyors of fat in brightly colored wrappers, the guys who did their part to add the net weight of Nigeria to the North American waistline year after bloated year now have come up with their own drive-by answer.
Are you ready for this?
It’s the non-sandwich. You keep eating their burgers but skip the bread. They’re going hambunless…or beefbunless if you prefer. They want you to come along with them.
And how do you eat a breadless burger? Now the same way, messy mouth. At Burger Kings across the nation, the new bunless hamburgers come in plastic salad bowls with a knife and for. Carl’s Jr. and Hardees are wrapping them in lettuce. You can put a crunch in your lunch, especially if you’re driving down the road. And to think, this is the same company that used to claim it had the messiest burgers in town.
Cheese is another target. So are ketchup, mayonnaise and salad dressing. At McDonald’s in the Greater New York City area you can buy an Egg McMuffin without the cheese or butter and cut your fat consumption to eight or so. Maybe they ought to call that the Egg McDry.
As a professional dieter who started in 1965 and hasn’t quit (or lost much weight) through the past eight presidents, I can attest that these are good ideas. So can the investors who may be more interested in the bottom line than in their own bottoms. The fast food industry plans to charge the same for their products with or without bread or cheese. Just because you’re trying to reduce doesn’t mean you get a reduction.
Why this sudden interest? Any avowed cynic will tell you it’s not just because McSanta sprinkled a sackful of public interest dust over a couple of dozen corporate offices. After decades of letting you have it their way, some of the meat magnates are beginning to realize that cutting back on carbs and calories is a good technique to keep their restaurants full. They don’t want the "fast" in "fast food" to take up its Biblical meaning again.
But removing an integral part of the meal is an interesting way to lose weight or maybe not gain it in the first place. Other restaurants will probably follow suit.
In steak houses, you can expect to order a big t-bone without the meat. After all, how many fat dogs have you seen gnawing on old bones?
Mexican restaurants probably will begin bring you dip without chips. If you think that’s going to be messy, you obviously haven’t tried a burger without the bun yet.
You can save a lot of calories by cutting dairy products out of ice cream. The last we checked, pure ice had the same nutritional count as pure water. It’s just a few degrees colder.
Spaghetti without sauce is another winner. A doctor who once thought I was developing an ulcer (who, Me?) once prescribed a diet with that as a centerpiece. I didn’t get an ulcer but I did lose a lot of weight temporarily. Where is that diet, anyway?
Keep an eye on this trend, folks. You’ll know it’s beginning to catch on when Oklahoma restaurants start serving you chicken-baked steak without gravy or okra that hasn’t been fried. And you’ll really know it’s really arrived when the big fast food chains begin promoting their contests by putting those million-dollar game pieces on bottled water, diet colas and salads.
You know where they’ve been putting them, don’t you? That’s right. On the French fries.
Diet on, fellow Americans.
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