Go for Bloat
8 05 2008I remember reading this article in February when it came out in Portfolio, but it isn’t until now that I am giving it a second thought after reading a reader’s reaction in the April issue of the magazine.
This article is called “Fat Profits” and it chronicles the Go for Bloat mentality prevalent in fast food companies meaning the more meat, the better. This article shows, despite the trend in a lot of restaurants and the media to offer healthy options and make it easier for Americans to live a healthy lifestyle, profits in the form of larger, fatter, and increasingly more ridiculous menu choices. But what makes it more ridiculous is that Americans choose to accept these choices; as DR said in one of my earlier posts, people choose with their wallets.
One of the statements that stood out to me was “CKE continues to target the aforementioned ‘young, hungry guys’” with their bigger and more meaty wares, and other restaurants follow that example. If it sells, why not copy it? That’s business, after all. And the people that such companies target aren’t really hungry; they just have disposable income and feed into the perception that they must eat that is created by advertising. More about the manufactured perception of hunger in a later post.
Anyway, read or skim the article and leave your comments!
Can’t view the article
Restaurant meals really ARE ridiculous. There’s this one burger joint that features the Monster Burger- SIX patties. Jeez. And an icecream place that sells the Sleeping Beauty: half a pineapple loaded with pineapple chunks, banana slices, mounds of vanilla ice cream, lots of strawberry sauce drizzled over it, and topped with an enormous amount of whipped cream and nuts.
A lot of my guy friends eat these ridiculous foods as “competitions” with each other… they bet each other that they can eat this or that. I wish they’d find another source of amusement! Don’t want to be supporting those kinds of silly meals in the food industry.
Link is fixed! Thanks for pointing that out
My guy friends like to do that too…not fun to watch as it makes my stomach hurts!
Ooh thank you! I thought it was just my computer being all lame.
A burger with a HOT DOG on it? Wow. I’d heard of the potato chips on burgers but never a hot dog. That kind of originality and creativity could be put to such better use!