Photo: Breakmould, Flickr.

Fast food restaurants know where their bread is buttered -- with the kids! The chains have been using toys as little-kid bait for decades, and it's an effective tactic: Children have an adorable propensity for confusing junk for treasure, which is why kiddie meals can be the highlight of their day.

Most of these meals fall into two categories: interactive advertisements for recent blockbusters or beloved television shows, and lame.

We're focusing on the latter, those toys over the years that were uninspired, nonsensical, or just plain disappointing. Each of these so-called "collectibles" currently languishes in the corners of garages, the bottoms of landfills and in the remote, digital wastelands of eBay.

Even sandwich artists are mourning the loss of Gourmet Magazine.

[Via Twitter]

The In-N-Out Animal Style. Photo: kaba, Flickr.

It is the stuff of fast-food chain legend: a secret menu known only to those insiders brave enough to order outside the listed menu. Tales of "animal-style fries" and Starbucks' secret "short" size abound, but which of these are real and which will merely earn you a quizzical stare from the cashier?

Ditch the risk of disappointment and become a fast-food insider with Slashfood's list of some top-secret menu items at well-known restaurants near you.

Notice the capital "S" on Subway. Godzilla is going up against the sandwich chain, not a series of underground cars.

Toho, the company that owns the rights to Godzilla and the Godzilla movies, is suing Subway for using the monster in its ads. Now, the ads never state that the monster is Godzilla, but he looks a lot like the famous monster and he does invade Japan in the spots. Subway never got Toho's permission, and aired the spots during American Idol and other TV shows, pushing their "Five Dollar Foot Long" campaign.

Video of one of the ads after the jump.

Of course, a lot of people would say "just avoid fast food altogether!" But sometimes you just need a Wendy's double cheeseburger and fries.

The folks over at A Calorie Counter have looked at the nutritional info for all of the fast food outlets (McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, A&W, Arby's, Hardee's, In-N-Out Burger, Jack in the Box, Little Caesars, Papa John's, Pizza Hut, Domino's, Sonic, Subway, Taco Bell, Wendy's, White Castle, Popeyes, Del Taco, Carl's Jr., and Dairy Queen) and have compiled a list of the 88 worst foods you can buy, in terms of the amount of trans fats. After the jump, the 10 worst. The link above gives you the whole list.

When I go into a fast food place such as McDonald's, Burger King, or Wendy's (which I think I've done maybe 3 times in the past 3 years), I know beforehand that I have made a decision to eat badly that day. I don't care if these places have "salads" or "low-fat foods," it's still fast food to me, and I don't need anyone to tell me what I'm about to eat probably has a lot of fat and calories.

Having said that, I see no real problem with New York City restaurants having to show calorie info where customers can see it. The law took effect earlier this week. Some of the fast food companies argued that it "violated their First Amendment rights," which I still don't understand. Some places are putting the info in areas where they're not immediately accessible to customers, while other places, like Subway, have the info upfront.

Fines will start being issued October 1 for restaurants that violate the law.

I was really planning to try that KFC Famous Bowl, but not after seeing these pics.

It's a funny experiment from The West Virginia Surf Report. They take several ads from fast food companies such as McDonald's, KFC, Arby's, Subway, Burger King, and Wendy's and compare the pics to the actual food they went and bought. The results are, while not exactly surprising, certainly interesting.

Most of the foods look really smushed and look like they were put together very quickly. But back to that KFC Famous Bowl. In the ad you can see all the individual items in there, the chicken, the cheese, the corn, the gravy. The actual product (above) looks like dog food sold on the planet Krypton. Gah!

Just weeks after introducing their new Fresh Fit Menu, Subway Restaurants are now planning to add a personal-sized deep dish pizza to their regular menu offerings. The idea has apparently been in the works for years, but never materialized due in part to the difficulty of fitting full-sized pizza ovens into their tiny stores. That particular problem has now been fixed though with the use of speed ovens - a compact design that can cook a personal-sized pizza in 90 seconds flat.

The basic pizza will be prepared off-site, then baked at the store with your choice of additional toppings. Supposedly a plain pizza will be sold for $2.99, certain toppings such as pepperoni or meatballs can be added on for a dollar extra, and vegetables and extra cheese will be free. Subway is planning to introduce the new product line in June at 13,000 US locations.

Subway restaurants released a new nationwide Fresh Fit menu in their stores yesterday, in hopes of promoting 'better for you' food choices for adults and children. Apparently the menus have been designed to suit active lifestyles, meet the American Heart Association's nutritional standards, and help combat childhood obesity.

Adult combo meals include a choice of one of their existing low-fat 6" sub sandwiches that contain six grams of fat or less, your choice of Diet Coke, water, or 1% milk, as well as your choice of sliced apples, raisins, or Baked Lay's. The combo meal for kids is quite similar, though just a little smaller and with a few less choices. They will receive a 4" low-fat sub, 1% milk or apple juice, and the choice of raisins or apples.

Apparently though, the introduction of this new menu comes with the removal of their low-carb wraps. Formerly displaying the Atkins logo, the wraps remained on the menu even after they stopped advertising them under the diet chain name. Further proof that the low-fat rather than low-carb trend has once again arrived.

I was noodling around in my files and food magazines and ran across some info that I thought would make a good food trivia quiz.

Food Trivia Quiz

1. When and where did McDonald's open its first drive thru?
2. Who turned the world on to Blackened red fish?
3. Who are Tim and Nina and what are they known for?
4. In 1982 what became ET's favorite candy?
5. When was the Slurpee introduced?
6. What is Alice Waters known for?
7. Who was the first Ronald McDonald?
8. What cities recently banned the sale or use of certain food products.
9. What storm caused the devastation of one of the top food destinations in the world?
10. Where was the original home of Subway?
11. Who wrote "On Food and Cooking" the book that was the catalyst for the combining of the culinary arts and science?
12. When did the Blooming Onion first appear on a chain restaurant menu?
13. When did the Food network first start broadcasting?
14. When and where did the first Starbucks open?
15. The first dishwasher was introduced to the public in 1893. What decade did it finally catch on?
16. What was the first diet soda?
17. What was the "Space Age drink" and when was it introduced?
18. Waring invented the blender in 1937. What year was the one millionth blender sold?
19. What was the cereal Mikey likes?
20. Who wrote "Mastering the Art of French Cooking"?

Don't peek at the answers! They're after the jump.

I don't know about you, but even though I love every sunny, poolside moment of summer, I secretly rejoice when the days start to get shorter and the air a little chillier. The end of summer means the beginning of fall, and that means I get to drop kick my bathing suit and body-baring shorts and tanktops. I don't have to be so conscious of what I'm eating. And not eating.

But "dieting" isn't a seasonal activity. People watch what they eat year-round. According to Forbes, "Americans spent an estimated $46 billion on diet products and self-help books in 2004." If that's the case, why is obesity such a problem in the US? Because, as a government review has found, two-thirds of dieters on "diet regimes" will regain all the weight that they lost within a year. Give them five years, and almost everyone will gain it back.

People gain the weight back for a number of reasons, but one of them is that the popular diet programs are very expensive, especially since many health and nutrition experts believe that they are ineffective to begin with. Forbes examined the weekly menus of the ten most popular diets to find out just how expensive they really are. The results are listed below. The first dollar amount is how much the program costs per week for any associated book, membership fees, and food costs, and the second percentage is how much more that is than the average $55.44 a normal person spends on food.

• Jenny Craig - $137.65, 152.8%
• NutriSytem - $113.52, 108.5%
• Atkins - $100.52, 84.6%
• Weight Watchers - $96.64, 77.5%
• Zone Diet - $92.84, 70.5%
• Ornish - $78.75, 44.6%
• South Beach - $78.76, 44.4%
• SlimFast - $77.73, 42.8%
• Sugar Busters - $69.62, 27.9%
• Subway - $68.80, 26%

Whatever happened to good old fashioned "eat less, exercise more?" I think that's free.

At first, a project called Taste of the New York Subway System doesn't sound that appetizing. The concept, however, is a good one: a stop-by-stop guide to restaurants within 200 meters of NYC subway stations. Just pick a line, the "G" for instance, and you get all the restaurants near each stop on that line. Restaurants are linked to their respective Yahoo! Local pages. Those of you with a daily subway routine probably know what's in your neighborhood, but I could see this being quite useful if you had to travel out of your way for some reason and wanted to know what your eating options were.

As part of their new Fresh Resolutions program, Subway will offer customers daily phone messages from their spokesman Jared Fogle. Yep, the man with the big pants will drop pre-recorded inspirational gems onto your phone at the time of your choosing for the month of January. Actually, customers just specify if they need more encouragement in the morning, afternoon or both. There will also be drawings of random dieters who'll receive live calls from Jared. According to a recent AP article, messages will include things like "don't let things at work get you down." Apparently Subway is also offering a free nutrition advice hotline for the rest of this week, as well.