Monday, November 26, 2007

T-shirt: How Hamburgers are Made

Another great fast food related t-shirt from our favorite t-shirt shop, Threadless.

This one is called How Hamburgers are Made:

Friday, November 16, 2007

Wendy's customer wins burger build

In May, Wendy’s challenged America to create and vote for its next great burger. Seven months and 15,000 entries later, the people have chosen a winner: The Philly Style Hoagie Burger, created by Ian Van Camp, a screenwriter from Los Angeles.

Wendy’s announced the winning burger today to mark the 38th anniversary of the founding of the hamburger chain by Dave Thomas in 1969.

Upon winning the $25,000 prize Van Camp said, “I knew if I got too crazy with the ingredients it wouldn’t be possible for Wendy’s to make – but it had to be unique,” said Van Camp. “The fact that Wendy’s tested my burger in their food kitchen and that people liked what they tasted – how cool is that? Not many people can say that.”

More on Van Camp's burger at www.thisismyburger.com

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Cows flee McDonald's

8 cows escaped from their trailer when the driver pulled in for lunch at a Utah McDonald's on Monday.

Did they glimpse their future?

It took a couple hours to round them up.

The round-up was quickly dubbed "Operation Hamburger Helper."

Monday, November 12, 2007

Chick-fil-a calendar and video contest

Calendar:
Chick-fil-a's 2008 Cow Calendar will feature "One-Hit Wonder Cows" in 2008.

This will be the 11th year that Chick-fil-a has produced their Cow Calendar. One-Hit Wonder Cow highlights include Junior Double-Cheese Jr. singing “Chicken Ain’t Cheatin’,” Spicy Skirtsteak’s hit “Gimme Chicken One More Time,” and Veal Medallion crooning “Chickens in the Night.”

The calendars will cost $5 and will include more than $30 in Chick-fil-A food coupons. Chick-fil-A is also offering a free calendar to customers who purchase a re-loadable Chick-fil-A Card in the amount of $20 or more. In addition, four plush toy versions of the One-Hit Wonder Cows will be available for purchase at $4.99 each.

Video Contest:

Chick-fil-a has a video contest to celebrate their 40th anniversary. Starting tomorrow (November 13) Chick-fil-A is launching an online video contest to find the brand’s greatest fan in the country. Chick-fil-A fans can submit a video – up to one minute in length – "that creatively pleads their case as to why they believe they are the brand’s most passionate fan."

The prize is 40 months of free Chick-fil-A Combo Meals, a trip for two to Atlanta to visit the corporate headquarters, and Chick-fil-A merchandise.

You can watch Chick-fil-a's President, Dan Cathy, explain the contest here:

Friday, November 09, 2007

Quizno's nutritional information... finally!

At long last, Quizno’s has revealed the nutritional information for their toasted subs, salads, soups and bread bowls.

We wrote about Quizno’s lack of nutritional data back in March of 2006. Until this week they were the largest fast food restaurant chain that did not publish their nutrition data.

Quizno’s doesn’t make it easy or convenient to find the nutritional information on their website. (see Note below for instructions on finding it on their site.)

To make it a bit simplier we’ve posted Quizno’s nutritional information all in one chart.

Some noteworthy discoveries in Quizno’s nutrition data:

  • Quizno's Tuna Melt has the highest calorie and fat totals of any of their sandwichs! The large Tuna Melt has over 2,000 calories and 175 grams of fat!! (The regular size has 1,420 calories and 118 grams of fat, the small 770 calories and 60 grams of fat!)

  • 2 of the 5 salads Quizno's serves have 1,000 calories. The Roasted Chicken with Honey Mustard Flatbread Salad has 1120 calories and 76 grams of fat!

  • Quizno's large Prime Rib Cheesesteak Sub has 1,770 calories and 116 grams of fat (that's 1030 calories from fat). It also has 2.5 grams trans fat.

  • Quizno's Turkey Bacon Guacamole Sub with reduced fat Buttermilk Ranch dressing has a whopping 4530 mg of sodium! The US FDA recommends less than 2,400 mg of Sodium per day for adults. Quizno's has 31 items with over 2,400 mg of Sodium.

  • Quizno's also has 34 items with over 50 grams of fat.

  • Oh, and about the 'healthy' stuff... Quizno's large Veggie sub has 1,220 calories and 75 grams of fat!

If you suspected that Quizno’s didn’t publish this data sooner because the calorie, fat and sodium counts were high, you were right.

Note: Most fast food restaurant chains have a full nutritional data chart available; Quizno's only offers the data 1 sandwich at a time... it makes for lots of clicking. And the sauce and cheese data is only added to the totals after you do some more clicking.

To find the data on Quizno’s website, go to Quizno’s menu page and then click on a food category (like Subs), then find “Show Nutrition Information” at the bottom. This will cause a link to “Nutritional Information” to appear under each food item. Click one of these links will open the nutritional information in a new window. Then you’ll have to check the boxes next to things like dressing and cheese to get the grand total for the item.

I don't know exactly how long the Quizno's data has been available. I discovered it after a tip from a Fast Food News reader. You can bet Quizno's won't be promoting it. US Food Policy has also written about the new Quizno's data, too.