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Season's Worst Fast Food
Posted on Dec 3rd 2009 5:25PM by Michelle DeLisoAs the cold weather settles in, your neighborhood fast food joints are turning out all kinds of seasonal delights. Hot chocolate, pumpkin, cinnamon and turkey abound, but these some of these cold-weather comforts are off-the-charts unhealthy. Click through our roundup of some of the season's worst offerings.
Note: Some items are not available year round and may not be available in your market.
Worst Fast Food of the Season
By Michelle DeLiso and AOL Health Editors
As the cold weather settles in, your neighborhood fast food joints are turning out all kinds of seasonal delights. Hot chocolate, pumpkin, cinnamon and turkey abound, but these some of these cold-weather comforts are off-the-charts unhealthy. Click through our roundup of some of the season's worst offerings.
Note: Some items are not available year round and may not be available in your market.
Boston Market's Pastry Top Chicken Pot Pie
Calories: 800
Fat: 48 g
Sodium: 1,090 mg
When you want cold-weather comfort, surely chicken pot pie comes to mind. But this dish from the masters of comfort food contains nearly all of the fat and half the sodium you should consume in a day. How they managed to pack so much fat and sodium into something so small is truly a holiday miracle.
Cosi's Eggnog Latte, Grande
Calories: 527
Fat: 26 g
Sodium: 294 mg
Blending the signature taste of the holiday season into your morning cup of Joe is nothing short of genius -- but it's also not short on calories or fat. Don't slurp away nearly half a day's fat and more than a quarter of your calories. Stick with a nonfat latte to save several hundred calories so you can savor a real eggnog guilt-free.
Dairy Queen's Pumpkin Pie Blizzard, Medium
Calories: 780
Fat: 28 g
Sodium: 450 mg
Who doesn't crave pumpkin pie at this time of the year? But you'd better stick with a small slice (typically about 300 calories), a nutritional bargain compared to the spinoff DQ offers: vanilla soft serve blended with pie pieces, pumpkin pie filling and a whipped topping. And in case you think leaving off the whip will save big on calories, you should know, it shears off a mere 40.
Panera Bread's Full Sierra Turkey on Focaccia with Asiago Cheese
Calories: 970
Fat: 54 g
Sodium: 1,970 mg
It's turkey time, but this taste of the season from Panera Bread is loaded with nearly a day's worth of calories and fat. Instead of this diet-wrecker, try their full turkey breast on sourdough, which has a more reasonable 470 calories and 17 grams of fat.
Au Bon Pain's Harvest Pumpkin Soup, Large
Calories: 320
Fat: 17 g
Sodium: 1,720 mg
Nothing sounds more like a nutritious autumn meal than pumpkin soup. And while it's not a calorie clunker, Au Bon Pain's rendition is not the soup du jour of the sodium-conscious. At a staggering 1,720mg of sodium, you'll have consumed 70 percent of the recommended daily limit with this order alone, and that's without bread or crackers.
Starbucks's Pumpkin Scone
Calories: 500
Fat: 20 g
Sodium: 670 mg
A scone always seems more sophisticated than a muffin or a bagel, but this chic bakery item will take up roughly one third of your daily fat grams, one third of your sodium limit and a quarter of your calories -- and that's just for breakfast!
Cosi's Cinnamon Apple Pie
Calories: 964
Fat: 41 g
Sodium: 667 mg
We don't expect our desserts to be low-cal, but we also don't expect something so small to do so much damage to our waistlines. Cosi may classify this dessert as just one portion (it's certainly small enough to be), but if you eat it all by yourself you'll be consuming nearly half a day's worth of calories (more if you're watching your weight) and about two-thirds your daily fat allowance. Cosi's Web site doesn't provide the sugar count, but we can't imagine that this dessert is good for your teeth either.
Starbucks' Hazelnut Hot Chocolate with Whipped Cream and Whole Milk
Calories: 600
Fat: 32 g
Sodium: 140 mg
This known purveyor of drink shockers, is back with another diet dud this holiday season -- hazelnut hot chocolate -- a drink that serves up the calorie equivalent of a meal and a staggering 61 grams of sugar. Ordering it without whipped cream and with nonfat milk will slim down the calorie total to 480 and the fat to 19 grams. But watch out, even with those changes, this drink still contains 60 grams of sugar! Remember, the USDA recommends consuming no more than 40 grams of added sugars a day.
Au Bon Pain's Gingerbread Man Cookie
Calories: 320
Fat: 10 g
Sodium: 150 mg
At only 2.7 ounces, this little man really delivers a punch. His 23 grams of sugar may make him a sweetheart, but no man is worth 15 percent of your daily fat and 18 percent of your saturated fat intake.
