David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published Aug. 2, 2005

Save time and get a pizza with burger and fries on it

Hamburgers, french fries and pizza -- they're staples of our American diet. They're what we love, and according to a recent poll, they're what we order most when dining out. Count me in on the pizza. It is, as I've said many times, nature's perfect food.

Maybe we try to eat better at home, but when we go out it's a different story. I can understand that. Going out to eat is a special treat, especially for me these days with a 4- and 2-year-old in tow. Anna does fine, but her 2-year-old counterpart, Phil, is a different story. It's not his fault. He's just 2. A 2-year-old doesn't sit still, no matter how good the food is. Taking a 2-year-old to a restaurant is like rolling the dice, and the dice are loaded against you.

With or without the kids, we go out for new and different food, a little variety. Who wants to eat the same thing at a restaurant if they can make it at home? That's why I don't order burgers and fries very often when dining out. Without tooting my own spatula, I grill a mean hamburger. And french fries? A bag of Ore-Ida is essentially the same french fry you'll get at 98 percent of America's restaurants, McDonald's proprietary magic notwithstanding.

Pizza is different. I can't make the same pizza at home that I can get at a quality pizzeria. If I want pizza, I must outsource it.

Like I said, hamburgers, french fries and pizza are what we like to eat out most of all. The fine folks at NPD Group surveyed 3,500 people and asked them to respond to the question, "What did I order at a restaurant today?" You know the top three answers, but the ranking is slightly different among men and women. Men's top three are burger, fries, pizza, while the women ranked them fries, burger, pizza.

I suspect the reason men have burgers at the top is because when they're out with their ladies, some women will say, "Well, I'm not really hungry enough for a whole burger. I'll just get some fries and maybe have a bite of your burger." If the burger is good, the "bite" turns into at least half the burger, leaving the poor guy to order another burger. One man, one woman, two burgers ordered in his name -- that's how gentlemanly numbers get skewed. A word of advice to you younger guys who maybe haven't been on too many dates: If a woman says she'll just have a bite of yours, just go ahead and order two. You'll thank me later.

The rest of the men's top 10 are: breakfast sandwich, side salad, eggs, doughnuts, hash browns, Chinese food and main salad. Women's four through 10 faves are: side salad, chicken sandwich, breakfast sandwich, main salad, Chinese food, chicken nuggets or strips and rice.

Yes, salads are prominent on both lists, but when most Americans eat a salad, it's not exactly health food. If you have more hard-boiled eggs, shredded cheese, bacon bits and croutons than you have cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes and broccoli, you're really not having a salad in the spirit of the word. If you can't see the salad's greenery because it's covered with so much buttermilk ranch dressing, you are stretching the boundaries of salad's health benefits.

"I'd like a salad, but instead of the cauliflower, onions and bean sprouts can I substitute onion rings, cheese sticks and Snickers pieces?" Sorry, not a salad.

Who can blame us, though? We are what we are, and foods that are really, really good usually aren't terribly good for us. You can't blame the restaurants. They're in it to make a buck. If we wanted pita bread stuffed with tofu, that's what they'd sell. At fast-food restaurants that offer some healthier choices, the big greasy burger still rules. Burger King sells 100 Whoppers for every one Veggie Burger, and it sells 10 Whoppers for every one salad, according to a story in USA Today. At Pizza Hut the new triple-cheese stuffed-crust pizza accounted for 20 percent of the chain's business within four days of its release.

But Hardee's trumps them all with its 1,420-calorie Monster Thickburger, defibrillator not included. I've never had one, but there have been three instances in my life when I've ordered a triple burger from Wendy's, which probably isn't too far off the Thickburger's caloric pace.

Should I eat a Thickburger four times a week? Of course not, but every so often it's fun to do an unabashed bellyflop into life's pool of overindulgence. Just be sure to wait 30 minutes after you eat.

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David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@chartertn.net.