Would you like a heart attack with that meal?

This could surely only happen in America - single restaurant-chain meals that carry enough kilojoules and sodium for several days. Every year the nutritionists at the Center for Science in the Public Interest compile the annual Xtreme Eating Awards.

The eating awards go to restaurant meals that exhibit a total disregard for public health, the obesity epidemic and the coming diabetes tsunami. Now most restaurant meals contain around 1000 calories - so these meals are not even in the race to win an Xtreme Eating Award.

This year the nutritionists found a single restaurant meal that’s the nutritional equivalent of one person being served (and eating) an eight-piece bucket of KFC Original Recipe fried chicken, four sides of mashed potatoes with gravy, four pieces of corn on the cob and eight packets of buttery spread.

Red Lobster’s ‘Create Your Own Combination’ delivers 2710 calories and four days’ worth of sodium (6530 milligrams), if you choose the Parrot Isle Jumbo Coconut Shrimp, Walt’s Favorite Shrimp and Shrimp Linguine Alfredo to go with the Caesar salad, French fries and one Cheddar Bay Biscuit. But wait, there’s more!

Wash down that combo with the Lobsterita - the chain’s trademarked 890-calorie, 24-ounce margarita - and the meal reaches 3600 calories, enough calories for today and most of tomorrow. It’s the highest-calorie meal among the 2015 Xtreme Eating “dishonorees”, as CSPI calls them.

“This nutritional shipwreck from Red Lobster exemplifies the kind of gargantuan restaurant meal that promotes obesity, diabetes and other diet-related diseases,” said CSPI registered dietitian Paige Einstein. “If this meal were unusual, that would be one thing, but America’s chain restaurants are serving up 2000-calorie breakfasts, 2000-calorie lunches, 2000-calorie dinners and 2000-calorie desserts left and right. Abnormal is the new normal.”

The full list of ‘winners\’' was published in the June issue of CSPI’s flagship publication, Nutrition Action Healthletter. Some of them include:

• IHOP’s Chorizo Fiesta Omelette. On its own, the omelette, “loaded with spicy chorizo sausage, roasted peppers, onions and pepper jack cheese, then topped with a citrus chili sauce and sour cream and served with a fresh grilled serrano pepper”, has 1300 calories. But it comes with three buttermilk pancakes (or hash browns, toast or fruit). With pancakes and four tablespoons of syrup, this breakfast has a day’s worth of calories (1990) and two days’ worth of saturated fat (42 grams).
• Dickey’s Barbecue Pit’s 3 Meat Plate. CSPI chose Polish sausage, pork ribs, and beef brisket and sides of fried Onion Tanglers and mac and cheese, plus the free roll, pickles, onions and a 32-ounce (the only size offered) sweet tea. This chain invites diners to consume as much free soft-serve ice-cream as they want. With just one half-cup of ice-cream in a cone, this 2500-calorie meal has 49 grams of saturated fat, 4700 mg of sodium (two and a half to three days’ worth of each), plus 29 teaspoons of sugar. CSPI says it’s like eating three Big Macs with five Vanilla Cones.
• Louisiana Chicken Pasta from The Cheesecake Factory is “parmesan crusted chicken served over pasta with mushrooms, peppers, and onions in a spicy New Orleans sauce”. At 1½ pounds, this plate from the Xtreme Eating mainstay has 2370 calories (more than a day’s worth), 80 grams of saturated fat (a four-day supply) and 2370 mg of sodium.
• A large Pineapple Upside Down Master Blast from Sonic is a 32-ounce cup filled with vanilla ice-cream, pineapple and “salted caramel and pie crust pieces” and topped with several inches of whipped cream. It has 2020 calories, 61 grams of saturated fat (three days’ worth), 4½ grams of trans fat (over two days’ worth) and about 29 teaspoons of added sugar. It has the calories of roughly four Dairy Queen Banana Splits.
• Steak 'n Shake’s 7x7 Steakburger 'n Fries is only available from midnight to 6 am on the chain’s “Up All Night” menu. The burger’s seven beef patties and seven slices of cheese, plus a side of fries, totals 1570 calories and more than two days’ worth of saturated fat. With a 960-calorie Chocolate Fudge Brownie Milkshake, the grand total comes to 2530 calories, 68 grams of saturated fat, more than 5000 mg of sodium and 26 teaspoons of added sugar. It’s like sitting down to four 9-ounce Outback Steakhouse sirloin steaks, each topped with two half-cup scoops of Breyers Chocolate Ice Cream.

“It’s not enough to have one or two patties on a burger, or one or two slices of cheese; now we’re seeing seven patties and seven slices of cheese on a burger,” said a CSPI nutritionist. “With our burgers getting bigger and bigger, it’s no surprise that many of our waistlines are, too.”

Rules finalised by the Food and Drug Administration requiring calories to be listed on chain-restaurant menus are scheduled to take effect in December. Until then, CSPI suggests avoiding extreme entrées by ordering from ‘light’ menus, where available.

Image caption: For our Create Your Own Combination at Red Lobster, CSPI picked three shrimp dishes (Parrot Isle Jumbo Coconut, Walt’s Favorite and Linguine Alfredo). With French fries as our side, Caesar as our salad and just one Cheddar Bay Biscuit, our total came to 2710 calories and 6530 mg (a four-day supply) of sodium.