The Cheesecake Factory is known for their enormous portion sizes and high-calorie cheesecakes. The large sizes seem to add value to the meals for diners, while the cheesecakes, depending on who you ask, are a big slice of heaven on a plate. Both of these things, however, are a source of irritation to nutritionists and consumer watchdog groups.
Since fans of the Factory wouldn't tolerate a decrease in the portion size, but the company wanted to offer something a little lighter for those who are watching what they eat (and possibly to placate the groups watching them), they introduced several "weight management" salads. The lower calorie offerings have less than 590 calories each. The Weight Management choices include: Asian Chicken Salad, Spicy Chicken Salad, Pear and Endive Salad (pictured), California Salad and Seafood Salad. Each is slimmed by using low-calorie dressings and cutting back on the amount of cheese, nuts, hard0boiled eggs, avocado and other high-calorie components, although it doesn't seem like they're entirely eliminated in any of the dishes, which is probably why they're just called "weight management" and not "light" or "diet,"
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-17-2007 @ 7:54PM
Angela Pitt said...
It's about time. I've eaten many a Cheesecake Factory
meals and thought I would explode before I got to the
best part, the cheesecake, of course!
Reply
2-18-2007 @ 12:44AM
Sera said...
Yeah, "lower" being the key word here. 590 calories, especially for a salad, is still alot, and too much IMHO.
Reply
2-18-2007 @ 1:16AM
Ryan said...
No, it's not too much if said salad is your entire meal/entree.
Reply
2-18-2007 @ 9:41PM
kaitlin Hess said...
Ryan is right, Sera sounds like she might have some eating issues.
Reply
2-18-2007 @ 11:33PM
Sera said...
Ummmm.......I don't even know how to respond to that...
Reply
2-19-2007 @ 2:19PM
Adriane said...
The key at a place like that is to split EVERYTHING. Could you eat a whole slice of cheesecake yourself? Sure...Should you? Probably not. Same goes with all their entrees...very easy to split among 2 or even three people.
Reply
2-19-2007 @ 11:46PM
kelbell said...
I have recently eaten at the CHeesecake factory and ordered the seafood weight management salad with the rare albacore tuna. It was really good and i would definately get it again. It was a large size and i'm sure could easily be reduced even more in calories by asking for no nuts or bacon or whatever comes on the salad that is high-cal.
What i do not like though is the actual name of the salad. "weight management", i feel, draws undue attention to those trying to watch what the eat, whether they need weight management or not. Also, when you're with a party where everyone else is splurging on huge meals and rich cheesecake, you don't want to seem like the party pooper who's watching his or her weight. so when i oredered, i just kind of held the menu up to the waitress and pointed.
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