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Comment by de_Selby | Hacker News Reader

> The average American’s total caloric intake grew from 2,109 calories in 1970 to 2,568 calories in 2010. As Pew Research put it, that’s "the equivalent of an extra steak sandwich every day."

A better comparison might be a snickers and a coke:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=snickers+and+coke

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Yeah, what kind of steak sandwich would only have 459 calories? I wouldn't expect any reasonably sized and palatable steak sandwich to pack less than 800!

Thank you for demonstrating part of the problem, the inflation in expected portion sizes.

As well as the expectation that calories make something "palatable".

The difference between a lean steak and a nicely marbled steak in both taste and calories are significant. Not that lean meat is not palatable, but it might require some sauce due to dryness at most places (if you make it yourself, you can probably do better than most fast food restaurants) - and that extra sauce might bridge that calorie gap. Most places always overcook their meat, sadly, and lean meat isn't very palatable when overcooked; or it at least has less resistance to dryness than the fattier cuts.

But that's not so unusual. We know that people like a combination of salty fatty sweet stuff, and that food manufacturers engineer products to have the right proportion of sugar, salt, and fat, while being very eatable. That's how we go from roast chicken with gravy to deep fried chicken to deep fried popcorn chicken bites in batter with sugar sauces.

I mean more calories simply as in two pieces of deep fried chicken being more palatable than one.

That's... not what "palatable" means.

Think more like, deep fried chicken dipped in some delicious sauce, versus eaten without any sauce. The kind with sauce is more palatable because it has more fat and/or sugar, not because it is just more of the same thing.

Actually, the human body is wired to experience pleasure when eating fats and sugars. This represents a useful adaptation in a species exposed to a potentially nutrient-poor environment, where identifying and consuming high calorie food sources is critical to survival.

So, yes, in fact more calories specifically makes food more palatable.

I didn't mean caloric density.

If you just stuck 4 ounces of sirloin steak (276 calories) between two slices of white bread (158 calories) and put literally nothing else on it, you would have a "steak sandwich" with 434 calories. Does that sound like a good meal to you?

The idea of steak sandwhich is just crazy. In the Netherlands something like that probably not even exists. Or it is exceptionally rare. Come on, if you want a steak. Sit down at at home or at a proper restaurant and have it on a plate. And not on the go. Pay attention to what you eat and actually taste it. If somebody would actually taste the flavor of a snickers he would probably not finish it. Same for a steak on a sandwhich. Steak is not the problem. Having it on the go/in front of the tv/computer is.

(Nothing wrong with a bar of good chocolate though. Might be a bit more expensive though)

> In the Netherlands something like that probably not even exists. Come on, if you want a steak. Sit down at at home or at a proper restaurant and have it on a plate

The idea of a stroopwafel is crazy. Come on, if you want a waffle with syrup just sit down at a table and eat a real one ;)

But stroopwafels are good;) and not like 1000 calories :)

In the Netherlands something like that probably not even exists. Or it is exceptionally rare.

http://www.subway.nl/nl/locaties

Doesn't seem that rare to me.

Thats an american style thingie! Nice find though. But if you have lunch at restaurants like this you deserve to get fat. It would have been nice if it was open at night, so you can have a fat unhealthy meal after some proper unhealthy drinking session. Instead of a "frikandel". Which is another crazy dutch invention.

In the USA a 'steak sandwich' isn't really like a ribeye steak on two slices of bread.

It's typically either thinly sliced steak or ground beef patty of sorts, with cheese and sauce (and possibly things like onions or peppers) depending on what region of the country you are in.

Or, alternatively, it's a steak served on a slice of garlic toast or baguette, that you eat with a knife and fork.

A sandwich? I suppose technically an open faced one, but... stretching the definition, certainly.

I really wouldn't blame steak sandwiches (or similar food) for America's weight problem. The biggest cause of the problem is empty calories in the form of sugary soft drinks. Americans are fat because we drink too much soda and don't exercise enough.

Several restaurants that are not Subways in Amsterdam with steak sandwiches:

http://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=%22steak+sandwich%22&fi...

By convention, a "steak" is a uniform piece of beef from a single primal muscle, cut in such a way as to make it cookable quickly by direct heat. That's what "steak" means: beef, one coherent piece of it, cooked by direct heat. "Steak" does not necessarily refer to a 1.5lb porterhouse on the bone.

So in that sense, "steak" is no different than any other protein you'd put in a sandwich. We don't call chicken breast cutlets "chicken steaks", but we could (indeed, that's how we sometimes refer to large slabs of tuna).

Objecting to "steak sandwiches" is therefore a little odd. If anything, a steak sandwich is bound to be healthier than a burger; a restaurant burger is typically 20% fat, while even a ribeye --- which is rarely what's in a steak sandwich --- can be below that number.

A steak sandwich also shouldn't be anything close to 1000 calories. There are ~300 calories in a typical grilled cheese sandwich. Take that as the basis for "ambient sandwich calories" and add 4oz of skirt steak; you're now at 500 calories, for which is essentially a fried sandwich.

Of course, you're probably much better off eating 4oz of skirt steak (protein, fat calories) than a stroopwafel (refined sugar, carbs).

You can get a Philly by the inch, any calorie count you want. Subway's Steak & Cheese 6" is 380 calories (241g). [1]

[1] http://www.subway.com/nutrition/nutritionlist.aspx

*Sandwich nutrition values include 9-Grain Wheat bread, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, green peppers and cucumbers. Values do not include cheese unless noted.

So that's for a Steak & Cheese, hold the cheese.

This is such a great example. I used to have like 1 or 2 snickers a day, then noticed that it was basically 100% of my daily recommended saturated fat intake in a single bar.

Snickers bars are one of the worst things you can put in your body.

It'd be really helpful for someone like me to see the bellcurve.

Shifting that average up means people on the high end are eating significantly more calories than the old high end.

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