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Wendy’s new menu item, the Baconator, is 830 calories: half a pound of beef topped with six strips of bacon, two slices of cheese, ketchup, and mayo (among other things). It contains a staggering 51 grams of fat and 1,920 milligrams of sodium. The company claims to have sold 25 million of these gut-busters in the hamburger’s first eight weeks.
This is madness, says San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford:
[T]his insidious concoction is simply startling in its shameless toxicity, its ruthless attention to wanting you cancerous and morbidly obese and very, very dead as soon as goddamn possible, if not sooner.
Indeed, the Baconator seems poised to be the symbol for everything that is wrong with fast food today. Bloggers have been hating it, loving it, or actively avoiding it. It has even raised some to flights of fancy. The Baconator is “conceptually intriguing,” writes Jonathan Holley of Johnny America:
Contemplate the word ‘Baconator’ as if it were one of Plato’s Forms. ‘Baconator’ implies not only an adequate bacon ratio, as Wendy’s burger almost delivers, but a ratio so high as to be capable of great destruction. Wendy’s had the vision to see the word — Baconator — but there their vision halted. They might’ve ground bacon strips into bacon bits and mixed them into their fresh all beef patties, adding a healthy dose of real bacon atop for overkill. Such a burger might earn the name ‘Baconator.’ They could’ve weaved their thin strips into a kind of crude cloth of pork, folding it over three, four times, or with the right machinery perhaps knitting bacon into a sort of greasy mobius strip. Such a burger might earn the name ‘Baconator.’ Instead Wendy’s phoned it in.
Holley deems the burger “a culinary failure,” but the Baconator’s clearly a success in the meme pool. Apparently, it’s so wrong it’s right.
I agree that the Baconator is a let down. Wendy's own triple-cheeseburger is a heavier meal. 4 slices of bacon is a pretty lame bacon burger.
To answer who eats these things? I'm 6'4" and with the amount I exercise need over 3000 calories a day. 1000+ calories in a meal isn't a huge deal. Especially if I miss breakfast.
As an occasional meal, what's the problem? We focus way too much on what we perceive to be bad for us and forget to enjoy what is available. Generally speaking, I probably wouldn't eat the baconator, but I wouldn't mind trying it someday. I eat "healthy" the majority of the time and don't obsess over fat and calories and I don't try to control what others eat either. Have fun with it! Try it with...+READ
As an occasional meal, what's the problem? We focus way too much on what we perceive to be bad for us and forget to enjoy what is available. Generally speaking, I probably wouldn't eat the baconator, but I wouldn't mind trying it someday. I eat "healthy" the majority of the time and don't obsess over fat and calories and I don't try to control what others eat either. Have fun with it! Try it with a group - as someone said - it would feed 3 people...so get one and divvy it up - no one says you have to eat the whole thing! And if you don't like hamburgers (not my favorite meal) then move on to what you do like.
:-)-COLLAPSE
And yet, if it had the same calorie, fat and sodium content but was Wagu beef topped with pork belly and seated on a hand-crafted ciabatta roll smeared with truffle-infused pate, many a food blogger would trumpet it as a "culinary success created by sheer genius." It would be featured at some high-end, showcase restaurant to the thunderous applause of Hollywood's finest while people tried for...+READ
And yet, if it had the same calorie, fat and sodium content but was Wagu beef topped with pork belly and seated on a hand-crafted ciabatta roll smeared with truffle-infused pate, many a food blogger would trumpet it as a "culinary success created by sheer genius." It would be featured at some high-end, showcase restaurant to the thunderous applause of Hollywood's finest while people tried for months to get a reservation in the place just to pay $416.93 (plus tax and tip) for a taste of it.
A side of tuna tartare or ahi poke would, of course, be extra.-COLLAPSE
Eight weeks is roughly a sixth of a year so that works out to around 160 million a year. Which means over the course of a year, the average American will eat half of one of these things. That's 415 calories over the course of a year.
Quick: where's my fainting couch?
When will the madness end?
As disgusted as we are by Wendy's for concocting such a monstrosity, they wouldn't still be making it if people weren't buying it. Who eats like this? One sandwich could feed 3 people for lunch!