Unhealthy – and proud of it

IHOP spokesman Patrick Lenow gets the day's candor award for telling the New York Times that the Glendale-based pancake chain features unhealthy, high-calorie offerings because, well, that’s what the customer wants. “In focus groups, it’s hard to find healthier products that people are really going to get excited about,” he said. IHOP’s research and development department comes up with things like the “cinfully delicious” Cinn-A-Stacks, stacks of pancakes or French toast smothered with “luscious cinnamon roll filling, drizzled with cream cheese icing and crowned with creamy whipped topping.”

Even the more benign stuff is loaded with calories. Shereen Jegtvig took her kids to an IHOP and let them order whatever breakfasts they wanted. Her daughter Kendyl chose the Silver Five breakfast: Five small pancakes, two strips of bacon, one scrambled egg, and a small orange juice. Well, the five pancakes weighed in at a little over 300 calories, plus 200 calories for syrup, plus the egg (100), bacon (80) and OJ (130). That’s 810 calories for breakfast – for a 10-year-old. (I don’t know how Jegtvig made her caluculations; Lenow said that IHOP doesn’t provide calorie or other nutritional information.)

Public interest groups keep clamoring for the chains to provide healthier fare – or at least to disclose calorie information at the restaurant. While several of the chains, most notably McDonald’s, have been moving in that direction, this is clearly a case of conflicting agendas. As Lenow suggests, folks don’t go to the pancake house to have a salad (with one little packet of low-cal dressing). They want Cinn-A-Stacks. As noted in the NYT piece, Burger King appears to be foregoing any delusions about its top-sellers being good for you. The chain is pushing its BK Stackers, which includes [PARENTAL DISCRETION IS ADVISED FOR THE REST OF THIS SENTENCE] as many as four slabs of beef, four slices of cheese and four strips of bacon -- and weighs in at around 1,000 calories and 1,800 milligrams of sodium. One of the BK ads trumpets, “no veggies allowed.” A Burger King executive agrees that obesity is a problem, but notes that customers can always ask to “hold the mayo.” That should help a lot.