And So Do the Portions

Hardee’s just introduced its biggest burger yet—the Monster Thickburger. Now the unofficial king of all burgers, it packs two 1/3-pound beef patties, four strips of bacon, three slices of American cheese and mayonnaise between two buttered sesame seed buns. Incredibly, the burger is loaded with a whopping 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat (McDonald’s Big Mac has 600 calories). The Center for Nutritional Policy and Promotion recommends a daily calorie intake of between 1,600 and 2,800.

Hardee’s doesn’t seem the least bit concerned about the possibility of lawsuits coming from obese customers. Last year, two lawsuits were filed and later dismissed against McDonald’s for making people fat.

The fast food industry has also received heat from the award-winning documentary Supersize Me, which targeted fast food chains as a major source of American obesity. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocate for nutrition and health, called Thickburgers “food porn.” Other news releases have referred to this new burger as a “monument to decadence.” Despite all this, Hardee’s stands by its Thickburger. Sales of the product have been steady.