We know most mall food is bad, we just know it-so why are we eating it?

After a long day of slogging through slow-moving crowds and sighing in disgust at the way fitting room lighting inexplicably adds 10 years and 20 pounds to your body, it’s no wonder you’re tired and irritable enough to console yourself with some mall food. But don’t just shuffle up to the nearest counter and blindly point. Not only are mall food courts rife with disturbing health violations, including trays that are dirtier than public toilets, they’re also packed with unhealthy, artery-clogging meals, snacks and beverages, often made with low-quality ingredients.

Cinnabon

Found in nearly every mall across America, Cinnabon draws in drooling patrons with intoxicating, far-reaching aromas of cinnamon and sugar that activate our must-eat-junk-food-now impulses. Give in, and you’d better be prepared for what will come after, which is at best a diet-busting calorie explosion and at worst, a potential diabetic coma. There’s absolutely nothing low in calories and fat on the menu. The signature roll weighs half a pound and contains 670 calories and 34 grams of fat, but by far the worst item you could choose is the Caramel Pecanbon, a snack that will annihilate your daily calorie allowance with 900 calories and 41 grams of fat.

Smoothie King

The word smoothie conjures visions of fresh fruit, yogurt, juice and nutritious add-ins like wheatgrass and hemp powder. But not all smoothies are created equal, especially at Smoothie King. This beverage chain proclaims itself to be the “healthy alternative to unhealthy food choices” – but be careful what you order. While they do have 38 smoothie options under 300 calories (in the 20 ounce size, as long as you say the words “make it under 300” when you order, eliminating added sugar and juices), you might want to avoid the options they classify under “Indulge.” In the largest size they offer, 40 ounces, the Peanut Power Plus Grape smoothie has 1,460 calories and 42 grams of fat. Even worse is the Hulk Plus Strawberry, ironically listed under Shape Up, which packs 1,928 calories and 64 grams of fat. You’d have to be a bodybuilder or an Olympic athlete to burn that off.

Olive Garden

Remember the days when Olive Garden made their own pasta, and many of their menu offerings were actually prepared in-house from relatively fresh ingredients? Probably not, because those days are long gone. Step into an Olive Garden kitchen and you’ll find cooks reheating frozen pre-breaded chicken patties, manicotti, ravioli, breadsticks, sauces and virtually everything else they serve. While it’s possible to eat relatively healthy here with options like minestrone soup and Venetian Apricot Chicken, most of this restaurant chain’s meals are packed with fat, calories and sodium. The Create Your Own Pizza appetizer has 930 calories, 28 grams of fat and 2,970 milligrams of sodium, for starters, and the Pork Milanese tops that with 1,510 calories, 87 grams of fat and 3,100 milligrams of sodium.

Olive Gardens will start popping up in even more malls in the coming months, as chain restaurants start taking advantage of empty retail space left behind by flailing department stores and other businesses. Depending on where you live, it’s likely that you’ve got a much more authentic Italian place nearby. FYI, Olive Garden doesn’t really have a cooking school in Tuscany where their “chefs” master Italian cooking techniques; they rent out a hotel for a couple weeks out of the year and generate fake quotes on behalf of their restaurant managers to garner local publicity. Olive Garden is to authentic Italian food as Cheez Whiz is to fine, aged Parmigiana Reggiano.

Sbarro

This is the place to get floppy, bland, oily triangles of dough, cheese and sauce bigger than your head, if that’s what you’re into. Sbarro has arguably some of the worst-quality pizza of any chain in America, especially when you factor in the likelihood of being handed a dried-out slice that’s been sitting under a heat lamp for a few hours. It’s just not worth it. While these quick food court bites won’t necessarily break your diet at about 300 calories a slice, avoid the stuffed sausage and pepperoni abomination: it’s got nearly 1,000, plus 47 grams of fat and 2,516 milligrams of sodium.

Panda Express

This Americanized, fast-food Chinese mall staple might seem like one of the best options at the food court, health-wise, and most of its offerings are definitely lower in calories than the fried chicken, pasta and pastries found elsewhere. But like most of the Chinese food found in America, Panda Express is laden with sugar and sodium, not to mention preservatives and artificial flavorings. It’s re-heated meat and veggies in thick corn syrup sauce. One of the most popular menu items, Orange Chicken, contains 500 calories, 810 milligrams of sodium and as much fat as 9 strips of Oscar Mayer bacon. The Broccoli Beef is a much better choice at 150 calories and 7 grams of fat.

We also wonder where all that chicken comes from?

T.G.I. Friday’s

The Olive Garden of ‘American-style’ food, T.G.I. Friday’s offers massive portions of overly salted, calorie-laden, generic food-like substances that came straight out of a walk-in freezer. This nationwide chain is often one of the only sit-down restaurant options in malls and can be a tempting retreat from all of the noise, activity and bright lights of the food court. But a Fitness Magazine perusal of the menu found just two meals under 500 calories, with most clocking in at over 1,000. Alongside Applebees, IHOP and Outback Steakhouse, T.G.I. Friday’s earned an F in Men’s Health‘s annual survey of America’s Unhealthiest Restaurants.

Auntie Anne’s

If you’re going to indulge in a carb-heavy snack, a soft pretzel is one of the most satisfying ways to do so. Just be aware that like the unreasonably enormous treats at Cinnabon, what you’re eating is more like a meal than a snack, and it’s probably going to make you feel sluggish afterward. The Glazin’ Raisin pretzel has over 500 calories and over 100 grams of carbohydrates.  One Jumbo Pretzel Dog contains 610 calories, 29 grams of fat and 1,150 grams of sodium. Add salt and dipping sauces, and you’ll be well on your way to a battle with bad blood pressure.

Quizno’s

Men’s Health named the Large Tuna Melt at Quizno’s the worst mall food in America, and it’s not hard to see why. When you get it with cheese and dressing, it packs in 1,820 calories, 147 grams of fat, 2,020 milligrams of sodium and 85 grams of carbs. Continuing the bacon comparison to give you an idea of just how much fat that is, you might as well sit down to 49 strips of greasy strips. So that’s why Quizno’s declined to reveal its nutritional information for so many years. If you’ve got the option of a Subway in the same mall, you’ll have access to much healthier choices.

Taco Bell

Freestanding Taco Bells aren’t exactly known for offering high-quality or even mediocre food, and the ones located in mall food courts are no better. The “Mexican” food chain is notorious for numerous health violations in its restaurants all over the country, and food poisoning incidents like the one in 2006 that sickened over 70 people in 5 states. Taco Bell has attempted to improve its reputation lately with fresher “Cantina-style” offerings, but it’s still Taco Bell.

Chick-fil-A

By now, even people who had never heard of Chick-fil-A in their lives are well aware of the restaurant’s controversial donations to anti-gay-marriage causes thanks to the recent hoopla that made fried chicken sandwiches into a symbol of intolerance. The chain also sued a kale farmer for producing t-shirts and other merchandise reading “Eat More Kale,” alleging that he was ripping off their “Eat More Chik’n” slogan. And on top of that, Chick-fil-A just really isn’t all that great. The Spicy Chicken Deluxe sandwich has 570 calories and enough sodium to take up your entire daily intake. Chick-fil-A’s grilled nuggets meal might sound like a good choice for kids, but it has the same amount of cholesterol as a Big Mac.

Photo: The Pizza Review

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Stroke and heart-attack inducing portions of unhealthy fats, serious hygiene issues and animal cruelty should be enough to keep you away from these 10 fast food chains.

Given that the nature of fast food requires it to be quite literally thrown together by low-paid employees using low-quality ingredients, it’s hard to find reasons to ever get food there in the first place. But let’s say you sometimes get a hankering for a certain type of fried chicken sandwich and some piping hot fries, and you just can’t resist hitting up the drive-through on the way home from work or in the midst of a long car trip. You might appreciate knowing, first, that certain chains will turn around and use your money to fight against gay marriage, while others base their branding on sexist stereotypes. And let’s be real: most of them are just plain gross. Here are 10 of the absolute worst.

Chik-fil-A: Anti-Gay, Anti-Kale, Egregious Misspeller

If Chik-fil-A was aiming to offend as many people as possible and make themselves out to be a comic book-worthy villain, they’ve succeeded, between anti-gay sentiments and trying to destroy a guy who just really loves kale. Chik-fil-A has long funded anti-gay groups and propositions including “ex-gay therapy.” Then, in 2011, it sued a Vermont-based folk artist for selling t-shirts and bumper stickers that say “Eat More Kale,” alleging that the phrase might  get mixed up with their own advertising tagline, “Eat Mor Chik’n.” Because it’s so easy to confuse family-farmed kale with factory-farmed fried chicken.

If you do get a hankering for a fried chicken sandwich, Chik-fil-A style, you don’t have to resort to slinking guiltily through one of their fast-food drive-thrus (closed on Sundays, because they’re extra-godly.) Make yourself a “Chik-fil-Gay sandwich with the help of YouTube chef Hilah Johnson. It’s bound to be better than the real thing.

McDonald’s: Global Disseminator of High-Fat, Low-Nutrition Junk

It’s hard to even call the slop that McDonald’s serves by the billions around the world food when a burger they made in 1996 still looks exactly the same 16 years later. McDonald’s meals are loaded with fat, calories and sodium, with so little nutrition that your pets’ food might actually be a healthier choice. The fast-food kingpin processes almost a million cows per year into hamburgers, making it a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, and supports the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. And have you ever wondered what’s in that secret sauce, anyway? 33 ingredients, including something called propylene glycol aginate.

Burger King: Dirtiest of All Fast Food Chains

Mmm – boot-flavored lettuce. We can’t lie to ourselves – the sort of thing that was documented in a photograph at an Ohio Burger King happens everywhere, including behind the closed doors of fine-dining restaurant kitchens. But recent headline-grabbing incidents aside, Burger King has repeatedly been deemed the dirtiest fast food chain of them all. A Dateline NBC investigation identified 241 critical health violations at 100 locations including employees not washing their hands, uncovered food in the fridge and grime and debris in the ice shoot. Furthermore, activists revealed in 2008 that Burger King has engaged in some tricky tactics to discredit efforts to improve horrific conditions suffered by migrant workers in Florida tomato fields.

Taco Bell: Low Quality Food, Racist Ads

This slinger of faux Mexican food actually came in last in the aforementioned Dateline NBC investigation with the least health violations out of 10 fast food chains, but that doesn’t mean it’s clean. Among the 91 violations discovered at 100 locations were dirty counters and rodent droppings. In November and December 2006, over 70 people in five states were sickened by bacteria-infested onions at Taco Bell restaurants. The chain is pushing a “fresh, healthy” angle with its new Cantina line, which attempts to mimic the higher quality food at the higher-end Chipotle chain. But while Chipotle uses hormone-free meats and organic produce when possible, Taco Bell skimps, and customers can tell: it consistently gets low quality food scores in customer surveys. Granted, the Cantina line hasn’t debuted just yet, but the same employees who toss around sloppy refried bean and nacho cheez Gorditas are going to be putting together those higher-end meals.

One thing Taco Bell has proven itself proficient at, other than convincing people that they want to eat tacos made out of Doritos: packing as many racial stereotypes into its advertising as possible.

KFC: Culinary Abominations Galore

Two words: Double Down. This disgusting monstrosity of a sandwich is now the very definition of fast food gluttony – a bacon and cheese sandwich encased in two hunks of fried chicken in lieu of bread. Its announcement on April Fool’s Day made it seem like a joke, but the sandwich was launched in the U.S. less than two weeks later. KFC is also responsible for the gastronomic abomination that is the Cheesy Bacon Bowl. In April, KFC had to pay out $8.3 million to the family of a little girl who was brain-damaged after contracting salmonella at one of its Australian branches. And of course, KFC has been the focus of a long-running PETA campaign called “Kentucky Fried Cruelty,” and for good reason: employees at a KFC supplier were filmed kicking chickens and throwing them against a wall.

Arby’s: High Calories, Not so Clean

Does one human finger in a sandwich – proven not to be a planted hoax by a money-hungry customer with a lawsuit gleaming in his eye – reflect on an entire restaurant chain? It does when that chain has hundreds of critical health and sanitation violations under its belt. So not only do Arby’s employees fail to wash their hands, they also fail to retrieve pieces of said hands when they’re accidentally removed by the meat slicer. More than 70 people were sickened with salmonella after eating at a Georgia Arby’s in 2007.

Arby’s is home to some of the most calorific fast food items in the nation, including the 740-calorie Beef N’ Cheddar with Pepper Bacon sandwich, which has both cheese sauce and something called “red ranch sauce.”

Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s: Monster Calorie Burgers, Sexist Ads

Carl’s Jr. has distinguished itself by trying to make grease and messy, dripping chemical-laden sauces sexy with ad campaigns featuring women like Paris Hilton and Sports Illustrated cover model Kate Upton, wherein the women are seen as something to be devoured, too. Sister restaurant Hardee’s has had its own sexist ads, like one that says “Guys don’t bake.” Both brands rely on marketing themselves as “manly,”associating masculinity with massive stacks of low-quality meat.

While Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s are the first fast food chains in the nation to offer turkey burgers, that’s hardly enough to make up for three of the unhealthiest fast food sandwiches in America: the Hardee’s Monster Thickburger (1420 calories), the Hardee’s Double Bacon Cheese Thickburger (1300 calories) and the Carl’s Jr. Double Six Dollar Burger (1520 calories.)

Wendy’s: Not as Healthy As You Think

With the help of a cute pigtailed mascot and a reputation that still hinges on a perception of old-fashioned quality after all these decades, Wendy’s is often considered to be one of the healthier fast food options. The truth is, Wendy’s is hardly healthier than its most-maligned competitor, McDonald’s, and it’s not even as clean. You might imagine that Wendy’s natural-cut sea salt fries sound like a refreshingly less-processed alternative to other fast food fries, but they actually have way more sodium at 630 milligrams in a large-sized serving. That’ll blow a huge hole in your recommended maximum daily intake of 2400 milligrams. The Triple Burger with Everything and Cheese is a more obviously unhealthy choice with 970 calories and 60 grams of fat, but you might not expect the Southwest Taco Salad to be as heart-attack-inducing as it is, with 645 calories, 38.5 grams of fat and 1565 milligrams of sodium.

Wendy’s came in at number three on Dateline NBC’s list of unsanitary fast food restaurants with 206 critical violations in 100 restaurants, including mice droppings on shelves and bare hands in contact with food.

Pizza Hut: More Unholy Food Combinations

Can’t decide between a fatty cheeseburger and a greasy slice of pizza? You’re in luck! At least, you are if you live in the Middle East, where Pizza Hut is offering a cheeseburger-stuffed pizza. British diners have access to an unholy pizza/hot dog mashup. But the Pizza Huts here in the states have plenty of their own unhealthy options, like the Triple Meat Italiano Pizza, which has 1,280 calories and 23 grams of fat.

And though it’s not on this list, Pizza Hut’s competitor Dominos deserves a mention thanks to its Chicken Carbonara Breadbowl Pasta, a giant wad of pizza dough topped with penne pasta, cream and cheese. It’s got 1,480 calories, 56 grams of fat and an amazing 2,220 milligrams of sodium – and yes, it’s meant for one person.

Jack in the Box: Marry Bacon. Or Don’t.

This chain was the setting for one of the most infamous fast-food-poisoning incidents of all time, an outbreak of E. coli that killed four children and sickened hundreds of people in 1993. Jack in the Box has upped its safety measures since then, implementing new testing mechanisms for the bacteria and increasing meat-cooking temperatures. But that doesn’t mean they’ve cleaned up their act altogether. They came in at number 6 on Dateline NBC’s list with 164 critical health and sanitation violations including several complaints of food-borne illness.

Jack in the Box isn’t trying to hide behind a facade of health at least. Ad Week called the chain’s “Marry Bacon” TV commercial” a love song to pig shavings, and that’s probably a nice way of putting it. In 2008, the nonprofit Cancer Project crowned Jack in the Box’s Junior Bacon Cheeseburger “the most unhealthful” menu item available at fast food restaurants in America. It’s got 23 grams of fat, 860 milligrams of sodium and a whole lot of bacon – which, the dietitians behind the list note, is associated with increased colorectal cancer risk.

Long John Silver’s: Stroke in a Cardboard Container

If there’s any food item that should really, really be as fresh as possible when you eat it, it’s probably fish. After all, just a few days past its prime, fish starts to get awfully stinky. So the idea of a fast food restaurant serving fried fish is bad enough as it is – but it might also give you a stroke. A 2010 study linked high rates of fried fish consumption to the stroke belt in the South, where the death rate from strokes is abnormally high. There’s no doubt that fish can be good for you, but not when it’s covered in oily breading. And like many fast food restaurants, Long John Silver’s still uses trans fats to fry its greasy foods. Their food is almost oily enough to make you believe that this satirical story about the chain buying already-oiled fish from the Gulf of Mexico after the BP spill is true.

Photo: keoni101

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I live in a foodie-centric town. Portland is known for its coffee snobbery, its food cart fetish and its farmers’ market obsession; most of us pride ourselves on eating well. That doesn’t mean that every meal is a well-planned feast of locally grown, freshly picked ingredients, but everyone seems to have a favorite food hot spot or quirky dish that they’re more than excited to talk about. So there has been a bit of local outrage in response to a recently published “Non-foodies Food Guide,” that appeared in the local daily the Oregonian, in which the first lines were pretty spiteful:

I am not a foodie.

To me, food is what you eat, not what you pray to.

Call them gourmands, connoisseurs, picky eaters, or just plain old snobs. Foodies blog, write and chat about pet restaurants, trends and chefs. They leave little room on their plates or in their hearts for fast food, family dining and the untrendy. And they can be pretty mean to some places we love.

The article goes on to mention a laundry list of local chains, from the 24-hour pie place Sharis to good ole family joint The Ole Spaghetti Factory, all of which the author cites as examples of un-hip, foodie turnoffs. This raises the questions: what exactly is a foodie?

Let’s start with the definition. Urban dictionary defines it as:

A person that spends a keen amount of attention and energy on knowing the ingredients of food, the proper preparation of food, and finds great enjoyment in top-notch ingredients and exemplary preparation. A foodie is not necessarily a food snob, only enjoying delicacies and/or food items difficult to obtain and/or expensive foods; though, that is a variety of foodie.

For the sake of this argument, keep in mind that it’s just the obscure, edgy websites that define the term. The word is even listed in Merriam-Webster as a person having “an avid interest in the latest food fads.”

Despite the recent inclination to team the term “foodie” with “snob” there are a whole group of foodies out there that are simply concerned with where their food came from, how it was raised, and what’s being added to it to make the end product. In fact, if there’s one thing the underground food movement has taught us, it’s that local, sustainable, fresh fare is desirable, not just because it’s trendy but because it’s healthy and better for the environment.

Is being a foodie being a snob?

There’s an ongoing debate right now about food democracy. Los Angeles, one of the nation’s most abundant agricultural regions, is now taking a serious look at creating a regional food system that not only produces local, healthy food, but ensures that all residents get to take advantage of it.

The word “organic” has long been associated with higher prices, so much that the national media still questions whether it’s “worth the splurge.” As green blogger Mike Lieberman eloquently put it, “Organic Isn’t a Splurge, It’s My Healthcare.” In his well worded post he points out that questions like these highlight “how disconnected we have become from associating real food with health.” All you have to do is take a look at obesity rates from the CDC to understand the negative physical effect that this disconnect is having.

So is it snobbery or simply understanding what’s at stake when it comes to our health? Only consuming coffee from a particular cafe might seem like putting your nose in the air, but if you frequent the place because the owners are committed to selling fair trade coffee, the pastries are baked locally and they don’t give you plastic lids to your disposable cup unless you ask for one, then you’re probably there for a good reason.

Think about where your money goes

A common argument is “I don’t have the budget to eat that way.” Think being a foodie is reserved for the elite? Think again. In fact take a moment to reflect on all the luxury items that we have deemed necessary in our everyday lives. Flavor Magazine took on this exact question this summer and listed out the following:

Tobacco products, $100 designer jeans with holes already in the knees, KFC, soft drinks made with high fructose corn syrup, Disney vacations, large-screen TVs, jarred baby food? America spends more on veterinary care for pets than the entire continent of Africa spends on medical care for humans.

And yet we don’t have enough money to make sure that we’re putting food into our bodies that’s not only going to sustain us but is also going to protect us from future illness? At the end of the day, there’s simply no excuse for eating well, it’s just all about choices and values. Is the new big screen tv more important to you than a weekly delivery of CSA produce? Fine, but don’t call me a snob because I don’t feel the same way. To quote Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms (yes, the one of Omnivore’s Dilemma fame), “To suggest that advocating for such a change makes me an elitist is to disparage positive decision making and behavior. Indeed, if that’s elitism, I want it.”

What kind of society do we want to live in?

We’ve got a long way to go if we want to be sure that our country has good food available to the masses. Until consciously produced food doesn’t have to compete with subsidies and the quick and cheap petrochemical industry, food will continue to be unhealthier, externalizing the real costs in exchange for a lower price tag. We need personal and infrastructural change to ensure that we’re all eating well.

But in the meantime, we have to change how we think. Being committed to good food isn’t about status, it’s about health, both personal and environmental. If we stop promoting underground food movements, like urban gardens, bike powered compost pick up, and food carts that source all their food in a 100 mile radius, what kind of a world will we live in? One dominated by chain restaurants, high fructose corn syrup and obesity. Do you call that snobbery or sanity?

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground. Each week, Anna will be taking a look at something new and different that’s taking place in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to culinary avant garde.

Image: Anna Brones

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