What has 920 calories, 60 grams of fat and is designed to "really fill you up?" That would be Hardee's newest addition to their breakfast menu, the Country Breakfast Burrito. One flour tortilla contains two eggs, crumbled sausage, diced ham, bacon bits, shredded cheddar, 5 hashrounds and a big ladleful of sausage gravy. Poking around in Hardee's nutrition calculator reveals that many of their other breakfast items are nearly as nutritionally treacherous (the Monster Biscuit clocks in at 790 calories and 57 grams of fat). And just to confirm that we like our calories cheap and empty, this breakfast burrito is widely available for just $2.69. (For those of you without a Hardee's in your vicinity, it's basically the same thing as Carl's Jr. Oddly though, the comparable breakfast burrito on the Carl's Jr. menu has just 820 calories and 53 grams of fat. I guess they figured folks out west would want a slightly lighter version).











Reader Comments (Page 1 of 9)
10-15-2007 @ 10:32PM
The Secret Ingredient said...
Okay---that is N-A-S-T-Y. We don't have Hardee's or Carl's Jr in my neck of the woods.....and it is a good thing! To think that a restaurant would even develop such a menu item with the levels of obesity and type 2 diabetes at an all time high is just plain IRRESPONSIBLE. The sad part is, the majority of people who will be consuming this crap are poorer people with less access to healthcare (for when those arteries clog up). They should mandate putting calorie and fat info right on the menu for everyone to see---so at least if you still choose to eat that junk, it is your own stupidity! YUCK.
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10-15-2007 @ 10:54PM
Syrra said...
With a drink, this would supply me with enough calories for the entire day. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop me wanting to try it. I have a weakness for mixtures of egg, cheese, gravy and potatoes.
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10-16-2007 @ 12:50AM
Deuz Augustine said...
"They should mandate putting calorie and fat info right on the menu for everyone to see---so at least if you still choose to eat that junk, it is your own stupidity!"
Did you even look at the picture? Numbers couldn't convey how bad it is for you any better than LOOKING AT IT could. If you choose to eat this, it is still your own stupidity for not knowing that "two eggs, crumbled sausage, diced ham, bacon bits, shredded cheddar, 5 hashrounds and a big ladleful of sausage gravy" is not the healthiest way to start the day.
Enough blaming the corporations already. People need to take responsibility for their own actions. We talk about wanting the freedom to do what we feel is best for us, and then ask that things like this be banned.
FYI, I'm a 6'0", 130 lbs. male and I would not feel at all guilty about eating this, and that is completely my right.
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10-16-2007 @ 3:18AM
gman said...
WOW...That looks good!! I dont know if i want that or 5 hash brown from McDonalds in the morning.
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10-16-2007 @ 10:00AM
mark said...
way to go hardees! stick it to the pc police!! it's a matter of choice JUST LIKE ABORTION and guaranteed by the bill of rights
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10-16-2007 @ 10:25AM
jsmylie said...
Where'd the abortion thing come from, mark?
Anyhow, that is pretty horrifying. Makes the McGriddle look like baby formula.
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10-16-2007 @ 10:40AM
calamari said...
This is a cheap, quick breakfast for people who do manual labor and burn those calories right back off. It's not particularly healthful, but it'd take three hours of gnawing carrot sticks to get the same number of calories.
So no, if you sit all day at a computer, this isn't an appropriate light breakfast for you. It shouldn't take government intervention for you to figure that out -- anyone who cooks knows that sausage gravy is grease and flour.
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10-16-2007 @ 12:06PM
Jason Levine said...
My wife and I just started back on Weight Watchers, so for fun I decided to figure out how many points one of those things would be. 23 points. For comparison, I get to have 26 points per day (and 35 bonus points for the week). So if I ate that for breakfast I would have to eat pretty much nothing else all day. No thank you. (Besides which, it just sounds nasty to me.)
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10-16-2007 @ 12:44PM
Doug Cress said...
That does look good.
I'm pretty much addicted to egg and cheese sandwiches. I prefer ham and cheddar cheese (cheddar makes all the difference IMO).
900 cals would make me feel a bit sick. I prefer the Starbucks variety and they only weigh in at a little less than 400.
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10-16-2007 @ 1:44PM
Adriane said...
Deuz-
I completely understand where you're coming from, that people should educate themselves. However, while I'm sure a majority of people know that burrito would be bad for you, I'm not sure they have any idea just HOW bad...you'd be surprised how many shocked faces I see when I tell them a bagel is upwards of 400 cals with nothing on it.
You're right, we don't need a BAN...but we do need the tools for knowledge to make informed decisions about what we put into our bodies; an education most Americans never receive.
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10-16-2007 @ 5:07PM
rick said...
Uh, according to the USDA, a breakfast burrito contains 212 calories and 7 grams of fat: http://calorielookup.com/food/view/22679
So maybe Hardees is going a bit overboard.
I also agree with Deuz - if you care about your fitness and health, you need tools understand what is in the food you're eating. Please check out http://calorielookup.com. It's designed to help you know how many calories you are eating and burning. After tracking the calories in your food for a few days, you can get a real good sense about what foods are high or low in calories.
Cheers, Rick
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10-16-2007 @ 5:35PM
Simon Arch said...
"To think that a restaurant would even develop such a menu item with the levels of obesity and type 2 diabetes at an all time high is just plain IRRESPONSIBLE."
Oh, come on! Are you going to tell me you're not responsible for choosing the foods you eat? If you've got Type 2 diabeetus and you eat this you've got NOBODY to blame but yourself. And if Hardee's/Carl's didn't offer this you could STILL BUY THE INGREDIENTS YOURSELF AT THE GROCERY STORE and make this at home. What's next, policing the grocery stores?
The Food Police really need to find a new hobby that doesn't involve getting their panties in a bunch over what OTHER PEOPLE eat.
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10-17-2007 @ 1:22AM
Silver_Potato said...
That is further proof why we Americans have become such fatasses.
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10-17-2007 @ 1:47AM
Simon Arch said...
No, a few of the reasons SOME Americans are overweight is because of diet and exercise. SOME Americans (most of them, from what I've seen) are, if not super-fit at least not overweight. Of the fifty or so people I see on a daily basis (both on my commute to and from work and in the office) only a handful (ten at MOST) are overweight, and not ONE of them is a "fatass" as you so graciously put it.
I really get sick of the notion that all Americans are fat, and of course the corollary notion that there are no fat people anywhere else in the world.
In the end, what does it matter to YOU how much someone else weighs? What's it to you? Haven't you got anything better to worry about?
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10-17-2007 @ 11:34AM
eva said...
It matters to me that people don't take responsibility into their own hands, as the taxes that I (we all) pay go in part toward a struggling patch-up Medicare/Medicaid system that has to deal with an overload of obesity-related issues, happening in the disproportionately (no put intended) poor and uneducated, overweight population. When you can get 1,000 calories for $2.69, and it's all you know to do, it affects everyone fiscally. It is a national/international issue.
As for whether Hardees is 'irresponsible' . . . I definitely think they're taking advantage of a national perception that quantity is more important than quality.
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10-17-2007 @ 2:05PM
Adriane said...
"...overload of obesity-related issues, happening in the disproportionately (no put intended) poor and uneducated, overweight population. "
Since when did lower socio-economics=overweight?
Futhermore, just because a person doesn't "look" overweight doesn't mean they are healthy-- I've known some average-looking people who had some pretty terrible eating habits....
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10-17-2007 @ 3:12PM
Simon Arch said...
"It matters to me that people don't take responsibility into their own hands, as the taxes that I (we all) pay go in part toward a struggling patch-up Medicare/Medicaid system"
What a load of bovine excrement. Every taxpayer pays into the system, so what he gets out of it is recompense for that. At most a tiny fraction of your tax dollars are going to provide medical care for some overweight people! Will the madness never cease? If you want to bitch about misused tax dollars, why not complain about welfare, or the military, or the myriad other ways in which our misappropriated money is wasted every year? Or indeed about the fact it's being misappropriated in the first place?
Face it: if you're worrying about what other people (i.e. not you or someone for whose diet you are responsible) are eating, you're wasting your time and energy about something which is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.
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10-19-2007 @ 2:20PM
michael bro said...
mmm thats just what i want with my breakfast
MY WHOLE DAYS WORTH OF FAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
♥
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10-19-2007 @ 2:30PM
Sonte said...
"SOME Americans (most of them, from what I've seen) are, if not super-fit at least not overweight... only a handful (ten at MOST) are overweight"
I don't know where you live but in the US over 50% of Americans are over weight.
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10-19-2007 @ 2:38PM
pete said...
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
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