The Culinary Catastrophe

The Culinary Catastrophe 

    By Alexa P. 

It was an ordinary Sunday night out with my family and my friends. We were famished and desperate for some food, so we decided on a place we had never been to, the Cheesecake Factory. The advertisements online had piqued my interest, and I was so excited to try it. 

As we drove closer to the restaurant, the big red The Cheesecake Factory sign filled me with ecstasy. We got a table and my mouth was already watering when I saw the pictures of the food on the menu. There were so many options to choose from, like the golden brown crispy looking Fish and Chips, juicy Bacon-Bacon Cheeseburger, tender Chicken Littles, and so much more. It was a tough decision, but I ended up choosing the creamy Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken. Of course, classic me ordering Italian food. 

In no time, our food arrived. My meal was two times more than I could have ever imagined! However, I honestly didn’t care. It was too scrumptious to stop eating, the smell was great, and the texture of it was satisfying. The pasta in my mouth was absolutely delicious. Before I knew it, I was done with half the plate. I couldn’t resist my temptation for sweets, so I had to get their famous cheesecake. My jaw dropped after my first bite,  I felt like I was in heaven. It had a nice and sweet tart flavor, and it was lit!

I was so full, and I felt my stomach was about to explode. As soon as I got home, my stomach started to hurt badly. I knew that I probably ate too much. I lay down on the bed to digest my food, and hours afterward, I still felt the food was still standing in my throat.  I began to wonder about the calories I consumed in this one meal, so I searched online. I was shocked. One portion of CheeseFactory’s famous Fettuccine Alfredo has a whopping 1,800 calories. It also contains 100 grams of fat, which is a lot more than what I am supposed to consume on a daily basis. It also boasts over 120 grams of carbohydrates! Wow! With the yummy cheesecake, I literally consumed 1,300 calories with 100 grams of fat in one single meal!

At first when I saw the amount of calories in the pasta, I thought I probably made the wrong order choice. But no. As I dug deeper into the menu, I found out that every single dish on Cheese Factory’s menu was well above 1,000 calories! Fish and Chips, and the Louisiana Chicken Pasta, two of the most popular dishes, contain more than 2,000 calories with around 150 grams of fat and 168 grams of carbohydrates! That would be my meals for two days! Even worse, the desserts are another calorie bomb.  The amount of sugar, carbohydrates packed in the desserts were unbelievably high! Even my sweet tooth feels that it was too sugary for me. 

After one night, my stomach pain started to fade away and I felt less bloated at last. However, I still felt I gained a few pounds through this meal, and the extra pounds just hanging out in my stomach. But then, I started to wonder about the whole population of America and how healthy we are. I found out the shocking truth that about 40% of Americans are obese. Being obese is when a man is overweight by over 100 pounds and a woman, 80 pounds. This is because of the extra fat, sugar, carbohydrates, and calories from excessive food. To fix this, people should eat healthy food and monitor their portions. A healthy adult should only consume 2,000 calories per day. The extra calories will deposit in our bodies and over time, the final results are diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. 

According to legacyweb.augustahealth.com, consuming too much high-fat, high-carbohydrate food can lead to lifestyle diseases like obesity and cancer which reduce the lifespan. If we compare the obesity population and life span of Americans versus Japanese, American’s obesity rates are ten times higher than the Japanese and life spans are seven years shorter. Japanese’s has a healthier lifestyle by consuming a lot more light, low-fat food, and enough portion of seafood and protein. According to https://www.newthinking.com, it is not only what the Japanese eat, it is the way they eat that helps them avoid becoming overweight or obese. A traditional Japanese meal consists of a bowl of rice, a bowl of soup, grilled fish and a variety of “sozai,” or side-dishes, usually involving a variety of vegetables like beans and seaweed. A balanced diet will contribute to overall wellness.

I decided to give the Cheesecake Factory a zero star review on TripAdvisor. As a well-established national chain restaurant, if they offer unhealthy food to their customers, smaller restaurants will copy the behavior in order to attract customers. Eventually, it will create a negative ripple effect on offering substandard food to the population. What I want to suggest is to use less butter and salt, include more vegetables like broccoli and carrots, and cut down the overall portion by at least fifty percent.

Changing the menu to offer healthier options can have different influences, ranging from improving customer health to impacting the company's image and competitiveness within the industry. However, the success of such a change will depend on various factors, including how well the new menu is received by customers and how effectively the company manages the transition. People will patronize and order more food because it’s healthy. This benefits both the customers and the chain store. The customers are in shape and the workers get more business leading to them earning more money. They can keep up a living and work hard to get what they deserve, also known as, justice. Although, the food was delicious, I gave the Cheesecake Factory a zero star review because it is not good for your health.