Ransom Riggs
This is Why You’re Fat
by Ransom Riggs - February 17, 2009 - 7:43 AM

I try to be conscientious about what I eat — sort of. It’s easy to buy good-for-me foods at the grocery store (can I get a whut-whut for Trader Joe’s?), but like a lot of people I know, I end up eating out a lot more than I probably should. Of course, even healthy-sounding menu items at a restaurant can be hidden storehouses of fat, sodium and calories, and most of my favorite restaurants would probably be listed on Health Cubby (thanks for the heads-up on that, Higgins), as “vices.”

Lest we forget, however, it’s also possible to ruin a diet with homemade concoctions. While devotees of fast food fattiness have blogs like Fast Food Nation — devoted to “life altering innovations in the fast food industry” — to keep them entertained (and vaguely grossed-out), now the cook-at-home crowd can turn to This is Why You’re Fat, chock-full of jolt-you-out-of-your-seat reminders of just how much more calorically overboard one can go when left to their own devices than even in the fattiest of fast-food joints.

For example, I give you the meat ship, whose creators guesstimate that it works out to about 17,000 calories total.
20080212-The_Meat_Ship_23.jpg

Or, leaning a bit more architectural, there’s the Ultimate Snack Stadium (via Kylebunch), complete with Slim Jim goalposts, reservoirs of queso and salsa for the end zones, fans made from assorted popular snack foods and the stadium itself constructed from 58 Twinkies:
70dnam6Okj9znlyoU1LpM8bMo1_400.jpg

These are gross exaggerations, naturally, but also stomach-churning object lessons which drive home the point that you’re really the master of your own caloric destiny — stay in or eat out, stick with pre-packaged portions or get creative, it’s still all in your control — and it only takes one Meat Ship to sink your diet!

Other horrifying creations you should check out:

• the heart attack sandwich

• forget TerDuckHen, it’s the 12 bird true love roast

• sloppy joe on a Krispy Kreme

(Whew. I feel fat just looking at these.)

« Previous Post   -   Next Post »
Click here to get a Risk-Free issue of mental_floss magazine
Comments (11)

  1. The meat ship doesn’t look so much like a ship as it does a stomach explosion.

    posted by bryn on 2-17-2009 at 8:45 am

  2. Wow. The Meat Ship actually makes bacon look unappetizing. Didn’t think that was possible…

    posted by 8rustystaples on 2-17-2009 at 10:11 am

  3. Pardon me, I need to vomit after seeing the “Meat Ship”. Why, why, why, do you post these things at lunch time?

    posted by Keeker on 2-17-2009 at 12:39 pm

  4. HAhaAAA!! I’m a vegetarian who lives with Carnivores who always tell me they don’t know why I think meat is gross. I shall show them The Meat Ship!!!

    posted by karen on 2-17-2009 at 1:08 pm

  5. As foul as the Meat Ship is, it doesn’t look like food, so it doesn’t repulse me.

    The Krispie Kream sloppy joe, however, caused me to flinch back in horror.

    posted by Ryan on 2-17-2009 at 1:24 pm

  6. Why don’t you guys have a “Share” link for your articles?? I’d love to post this on Facebook and freak out all my friends who are obsessed with dieting.

    posted by JeLisa on 2-17-2009 at 2:07 pm

  7. I kind of love the Ultimate Snack Stadium. If you make the stadium out of something other than Twinkies, it’s a really cute, creative way to serve chips and dip…

    posted by Lindsey on 2-17-2009 at 4:08 pm

  8. Everything Paula Deen makes falls in this category. She especially likes Krispy Kreme donuts, an obsession that has resulted in the Lady’s Brunch Burger and the Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding. I really hope you can’t gain wait just by looking at stuff like this.

    posted by janeeyre316 on 2-17-2009 at 7:20 pm

  9. The meat ship looks absolutely revolting but the snack stadium is so cute!

    posted by CK on 2-18-2009 at 7:36 pm

  10. That meat ship is ridiculous. I bet it would be healthier if they replaced all the ingredients with Greek food…

    posted by Chellis on 2-20-2009 at 3:04 pm

  11. The meat ship made me recoil.

    posted by Sara on 2-22-2009 at 11:10 am

Comment

commenting policy