What’s The Most Repulsive Fast Food Item In The US? Ranking The 50 Most Fattening Fast Food Abominations
Let’s get sauced.
Given the current state of crisis in the portable food arena, we asked a basic question: what’s THE most repulsive fast food item in the US? And just how egregious is it? Um, let’s just say it escalated so quickly that I screamed “oh my god” about 100x, and I wanted to vomit midway through.
People actually eat single items with 5,820mg of sodium, 1,800 calories, 197g of sugar, and 158g of fat. Like, what? THIS IS SO BAD THAT IT’S FUN!
In the pursuit of unadulterated obesity, we went all-in and analyzed 600+ items from 24 popular fast food restaurants. Each individual monstrosity was then weighted and quantified based on 8 standard attributes—Calories, Fat, Sat. Fat, Trans Fat, Carbs, Sugar, Sodium, Fiber, & Protein—filtered through a model, and ultimately pegged with a composite Fatness Factor Score.
Using those scores, we isolated and ranked a (very dirty) collection of the 200 most fattening fast food items in circulation. We’re counting down the top 50.
I thought the Big Mac was the crowning achievement of human gluttony. NOT. EVEN. CLOSE. Somehow, someway, it barely made the cut.
The landscape is so laughably vile that even the Big Mac looks like a golden gem of nutrition in comparison. I had to manually insert it because it technically didn’t qualify for the top 200 (more on that in a second). That said, it’s sitting there at #198. Try to process the reality that 197 things actually exist on this earth that are worse for you than a Big Mac.
And just to give you a barometer, item #200—the Chop’t Kebab Cobb Sandwich—anchored the list with a solid 780 calories, 28 g fat, 10.5 g sat fat, 1580 mg sodium, and 85 g of carbs. That’s what we’re working with. It’s all downhill afterwards.
The fact that any of this is legal—and that people actually scarf it down on a regular basis—is absolutely astonishing. And utterly repulsive. And a tribute to just how far into the fat zone America really is.
Six quick rules of the game:
- Just to *qualify* for the list, an item needed more than 600 calories (with two exceptions).
- Rankings are presented in reverse order. #1 is the most fattening item on the list; #153 is the 153rd most fattening item.
- We only included standard menu items — meaning a Chop’t salad with 16 extra cups of dressing, or a Chipotle burrito with triple steak and quadruple cheese doesn’t count.
- Nutrition facts are for a single item.
- All nutrition facts represent what’s in the LARGE version of a given item. Subs are for the 11/12″ variety.
- All nutrition facts were pulled directly from each company’s website. Most data was last updated in July, 2014.123456789101112131415161718192021222324
Just be aware that there are certain limitations to the quantitative model. We’re grading based on a composite score, and nutritional prowess can’t always be perfectly captured by a spectrum of numbers. Ingredient quality and integrity always matter, but we chose to exclude them as criteria to keep things consistent and avoid biases.
Just because the Chop’t Cobb Sandwich (#142) graded out 30 spots worse than BK’s Brownie Sundae (#172), doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s less healthy in a vacuum (or that I’d recommend it). Chipotle, Chop’t, Pret, Just Salad, and Jamba Juice tend to have higher quality food & ingredients than most other chains. Keep that in mind when you’re navigating the lower section of the rankings.
But if it’s here, anywhere, it’s REALLY terrible. Here’s how it all broke down.
The 50 Most Fattening Fast Food Abominations — Restaurants
The chart above maps out all 24 restaurants on two dimensions: # of items that made the top 200 cut and their average item ranking. In other terms — how much of the menu made it into the lowest possible stratosphere of food quality, and to what degree?
Quiznos is BY FAR the fattest restaurant in America—it racked up a whopping 25 items in the top 200, 24 in the top 100, and 18 in the top 50—followed by Sonic, Blimpie, Panera, McD’s, and Subway.
Reset your fast food vernacular. Outside of shakes and frozen ice cream concoctions, quick-serve subs and sandwiches firmly take the title from burgers and fries as the most disgusting items on earth.
Conversely, Starbucks, Pret, and Jamba Juice (unsurprisingly) had zero items that made the cut; and In-N-Out Burger and Chipotle only had 2. Here’s the full restaurant breakdown.
With that laid out, here’s our all-access countdown of the 50 most fattening fast food items. The full dirty 200 is available here.
If you’re a fast food aficionado, get your last meal in now. Once you know, there’s no going back to the dark side.
The 50 Most Fattening Fast Food Abominations
50. Panera — New England Clam Chowder
- Calories: 720
- Fat/SF/Trans Fat: 62g – 41g – 1.5g
- Sodium: 1,020 mg
- Carbs: 31 g
- Sugar: 2 g
- Fiber: 3 g
- Protein: 9 g
- Fatness Factor Score: 64.0
49. Sonic — Chili Cheese Tots
- Calories: 980
- Fat/SF/Trans Fat: 59g – 18g – 1.0g
- Sodium: 2,760 mg
- Carbs: 93 g
- Sugar: 3 g
- Fiber: 10 g
- Protein: 21 g
- Fatness Factor Score: 64.2
48. Sonic — Barqs Root Beer Float
- Calories: 770
- Fat/SF/Trans Fat: 35g – 24g – 0.0g
- Sodium: 420 mg
- Carbs: 109 g
- Sugar: 106 g
- Fiber: 0 g
- Protein: 10 g
- Fatness Factor Score: 64.3
47. Blimpie — Chicken Cheddar Bacon Ranch Sub
- Calories: 1,200
- Fat/SF/Trans Fat: 59g – 19g – 0.0g
- Sodium: 3,240 mg
- Carbs: 91 g
- Sugar: 17 g
- Fiber: 6 g
- Protein: 77 g
- Fatness Factor Score: 64.5
46. Wendy’s — Baconator
Image: Wendys.com
- Calories: 940
- Fat/SF/Trans Fat: 57g – 23g – 2.5g
- Sodium: 1,850 mg
- Carbs: 41 g
- Sugar: 9 g
- Fiber: 2 g
- Protein: 57 g
- Fatness Factor Score: 64.6
45. Burger King — Texas Double WHOPPER
- Calories: 1,000
- Fat/SF/Trans Fat: 66g – 24g – 1.5g
- Sodium: 1,860 mg
- Carbs: 55 g
- Sugar: 11 g
- Fiber: 3 g
- Protein: 52 g
- Fatness Factor Score: 64.9
44. McDonald’s — Chocolate Chip Frappe
Calories: 760- Fat/SF/Trans Fat: 31g – 20g – 1.5g
- Sodium: 200 mg
- Carbs: 111 g
- Sugar: 99 g
- Fiber: 1 g
- Protein: 12 g
- Fatness Factor Score: 65.0
43. Quiznos — Veggie Guacamole Sub
- Calories: 1,060
- Fat/SF/Trans Fat: 59g – 20g – 1.0g
- Sodium: 2,210 mg
- Carbs: 102 g
- Sugar: 12 g
- Fiber: 6 g
- Protein: 34 g
- Fatness Factor Score: 65.7
42. Taco Bell — Cinnabon Delights
Image: Elite Daily
- Calories: 930
- Fat/SF/Trans Fat: 53g – 13g – 2.0g
- Sodium: 480 mg
- Carbs: 104 g
- Sugar: 59 g
- Fiber: 3 g
- Protein: 9 g
- Fatness Factor Score: 65.9
41. Checkers — Screamin’ Chicken Strips Meal
- Calories: 970
- Fat/SF/Trans Fat: 55g – 29g – 0.0g
- Sodium: 3,460 mg
- Carbs: 82 g
- Sugar: 1 g
- Fiber: 8 g
- Protein: 36 g
- Fatness Factor Score: 66.2
40. Blimpie — Veggie Supreme Sub
- Calories: 1,090
- Fat/SF/Trans Fat: 56g – 28g – 0.0g
- Sodium: 3,000 mg
- Carbs: 97 g
- Sugar: 18 g
- Fiber: 7 g
- Protein: 53 g
- Fatness Factor Score: 67.7
39. Wendy’s — Caramel Frosty Shake
Calories: 900- Fat/SF/Trans Fat: 20g – 13g – 1.0g
- Sodium: 430 mg
- Carbs: 167 g
- Sugar: 122 g
- Fiber: 0 g
- Protein: 15 g
- Fatness Factor Score: 68.1
38. Quiznos — Southern BBQ Pulled Pork Sub
- Calories: 1,070
- Fat/SF/Trans Fat: 37g – 19g – 0.0g
- Sodium: 3,960 mg
- Carbs: 121 g
- Sugar: 34 g
- Fiber: 5 g
- Protein: 62 g
- Fatness Factor Score: 68.6
37. Quiznos — Black Angus Steak Sub
- Calories: 1,190
- Fat/SF/Trans Fat: 44g – 20g – 1.0g
- Sodium: 3,080 mg
- Carbs: 119 g
- Sugar: 29 g
- Fiber: 5 g
- Protein: 80 g
- Fatness Factor Score: 68.9
36. Cinnabon — Pecanbon
- Calories: 1,080
- Fat/SF/Trans Fat: 50g – 20g – N/A
- Sodium: 960 mg
- Carbs: 147 g
- Sugar: 76 g
- Fiber: 3 g
- Protein: 14 g
- Fatness Factor Score: 69.7
35. Panera — Signature Mac & Cheese
- Calories: 980
- Fat/SF/Trans Fat: 61g – 26g – 1.0g
- Sodium: 2,470 mg
- Carbs: 75 g
- Sugar: 14 g
- Fiber: 3 g
- Protein: 33 g
- Fatness Factor Score: 70.0
Pages: Intro, 50-35 | 34-20 | 19-1 | The Dirty 200 (Print)
References, Notes, Links
- Chop’t — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Just Salad — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Pret A Manger — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Au Bon Pan — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Panera — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Subway — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Blimpie — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Quiznos — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- McDonald’s — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Burger King — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Wendy’s — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- White Castle — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Checkers — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Five Guys — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- In-N-Out Burger — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Shake Shack — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Arby’s — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- KFC — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Taco Bell — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Chipotle — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Cinnabon — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Sonic — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Dunkin Donuts — Nutrition Facts [↩]
- Starbucks — Nutrition Facts [↩]
Bryan DiSanto
I also contribute to Men's Health Magazine.
When I'm not working on my abs (or somebody else’s), whipping up avocado roses and avocado toast, or running a Tough Mudder, I'm probably yelling at a Carolina Panthers game somewhere.
Come be friends with me on Instagram (@BRYDISANTO) & Snapchat (BRYDISANTO).
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